Lost Soul Aside was initially envisioned as a tribute to Final Fantasy, promising an exhilarating hack & slash experience that would captivate players with its epic boss battles. However, the game falls short in its execution, highlighting a common pitfall in the current gaming landscape. The rise of indie games has ushered in a new era where independent titles receive critical acclaim and prestigious awards. In this context, Lost Soul Aside, developed by Yang Bing, sought to pay homage to the canceled project Final Fantasy Versus 13, which ultimately evolved into Final Fantasy 15. The allure of Versus 13 lay in its dynamic real-time combat system, reminiscent of Devil May Cry but with a darker Final Fantasy aesthetic.
### A Lackluster Story
Despite its ambitions to honor the Final Fantasy legacy, Lost Soul Aside falters in key aspects that define the iconic series: its narrative and characters. The game’s weak character design, coupled with a disjointed storyline, fail to engage players on a meaningful level. The plot follows protagonist Kaser as he joins forces with a rebel group called Glimmer to combat the oppressive Empire and thwart the nefarious plans of Aramon, the game’s antagonist. As the narrative unfolds, Kaser embarks on a quest to save his sister Louisa, whose soul has been endangered by the malevolent forces at play. While the storyline holds promise, its convoluted presentation and lack of focus detract from the overall experience.
### Embracing Chinese Folklore
In a surprising shift, Lost Soul Aside transitions midway through the game into a foray into Chinese folklore, further muddling its identity and diluting its original homage to Final Fantasy. The game’s failure to establish a coherent vision hampers its potential, leaving players grappling with a mishmash of thematic elements that fail to coalesce into a cohesive whole. Despite its shortcomings, Lost Soul Aside shines in its combat mechanics, offering a satisfying action RPG experience that showcases the developer’s talent and creativity.
[Cover image for YouTube video](https://gamesdetails.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/hqdefault-276.jpg)
[Watch on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[videoID])
Inspired by PlatinumGames and the Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry series, Bing wanted to create a hack and slash whose aesthetics are Final Fantasy, but gameplay is clearly high-style Japanese action. That was precisely what needed to be done, without incorporating action RPG elements to try to convey a sense of greater depth, without actually achieving it.
With a exclusive focus on style, Lost Soul Aside doesn’t even care about substance, being almost a brainless game to play, but that doesn’t bother when the combat system copies the best that Japanese studios have implemented in their hack and slash games. It’s a frenzy of attacks with skills in the middle à la Devil May Cry (you even have the Devil Trigger imitation for devastating attacks in a limited time), with immense potential for acrobatic combos.
Kaser starts with one weapon, but throughout the journey, he will unlock more, among which you can switch in real-time to extend combos or diversify attack chains. This is where Lost Soul Aside shines because it becomes fun to experiment with attack variations, discover how to extend combos by switching weapons, and even study the frames of each weapon movement to find out the best chain to execute.
The combat system is fun, but it’s also a good way to understand how scattered Ultizero Games’ focus was on production. It seems they didn’t know what they really wanted to have, so they put everything in. At the heart of Lost Soul Aside, you have the hack and slash Devil May Cry with Final Fantasy aesthetics (up to a certain point, because then it becomes a Chinese fantasy), but the combat system focused on stylish combos also includes enemies with a shield bar that you must remove to cause damage.
The perfect dodge and defense from PlatinumGames are here (slowing down time and stunning the opponent, respectively), which makes everything exciting, but many enemies, especially mini-bosses and bosses, become “sponges” that test your patience due to the shields you must remove before starting to apply damage. Lost Soul Aside’s essence is unnecessarily testing your patience with the bad to be able to enjoy the good.
The hack and slash combat system is fun and has the necessary depth to keep us interested, but the shields, the pace at which bosses appear, and the shields can test your patience and harm the game’s pace.
### RPG and Management Mechanics
Certainly motivated by the Japanese studios that excelled in this genre, Ultizero Games implemented various character management, weapons, and equipment elements that bring it closer to an action RPG, even though many of these mechanics are present in a hack and slash, but it’s clearly a hack and slash at its core.
Defeating enemies allows you to gain XP to level up, with skill points allowing you to unlock ways to extend combos, new moves, and buffs for Kaser. You also collect items to unlock new arena skills and equip items with buffs on weapons, with an interesting level of customization involved.
### Not a Disaster, But Occasionally It Tries to Be
Lost Soul Aside isn’t a disaster; it’s an ambitious AA game from an inexperienced small Chinese team that, beyond quality issues, has a pricing problem. For most players, what could be a glorious silly and fun hack and slash game turns into an experience with too many facets for its own good.
Graphically, it’s a game with many spectacular moments, but even on a PS5 Pro, it exhibits many stutters while traversing linear scenarios. The team also included platform segments whose gameplay and Kaser’s animations will test your patience and help you feel like you shouldn’t pay attention to the narrative at all. In several cutscenes, in an experience exclusively focused on style without worrying about substance, as long as it looks cool and cinematic, Kaser jumps that would allow him to pass over skyscrapers, but then you have gameplay segments where you struggle with small jumps between platforms, for example.
Lost Soul Aside gives a strong sense that it would benefit from less, to focus on better quality where it truly shines, in the hack and slash gameplay, which would probably improve the game’s pace and make it more frenetic. Especially because the feeling that it lacks an extra layer of polish is reinforced in these jumping and trap dodging scenes, which test controls, animations, movement frames, and even the camera in unwanted ways, both by the player and the developer.
- Incoherent narrative that fails to spark interest in the characters
- Constant hiccups even on the PS5 Pro
- Many boss fights that leave you indifferent
- Overall lack of optimization that interferes with the fun
- Poorly executed platform sections that highlight camera issues and narrative inconsistencies
About the Author
