LOST SPHEAR Demo

Although it’s probably not particularly popular in Europe or the US, JRPGs have a very long history in Asia, and only some of them made it to the western player base. Naturally, everyone can recognize franchises like Final Fantasy, and it’s also pretty easy to recognize standard gameplay mechanics found in the genre. Hence, people usually think of long cutscenes and turn-based combat whenever the genre is mentioned.

LOST SPHEAR is a top-down JRPG that follows most of the classic rules of the genre, while also trying to be a tad different in certain aspects. Thus, you can explore the world much more freely than in your typical JRPG, but then again most of the area maps are pretty linear anyway. The combat also takes place in turns, but not in a classical way, since you can lose your turn if you do not act quickly enough.

The story revolves around a young man who one day witnesses some kind of weird event that cannot be explained. Together with this event, he also sees an enormous power threatening to destroy the world, which is why the man goes on a quest to stop this from happening. He is not alone, on the other hand, because you usually have a few companions in your party as well.

One of the most interesting things about LOST SPHEAR is the fact that sometimes you can stumble on huge robotic suits that can be equipped by your party members, and then used to increase their power. These are called Vulcosuits, and besides protecting the wearer from a lot of damage, they also provide you with extra abilities that allow you to destroy obstacles or defeat enemies.

The demo is arguably pretty short and constrained to a small part of the game world, but it’s worth mentioning that the environments are a bit too barren sometimes, not to mention linear. Hence, you are usually forced to follow specific roads around the map, with the occasional junction that is actually not a proper choice, but more of an illusion. However, the overall visual quality is pretty neat, even if a tad basic for this day and age.

It’s pretty clear that LOST SPHEAR is designed to appeal to a certain audience, but it is a very approachable game at the same time, so you do not need extensive experience with the genre in order to enjoy it. Hence, we can only hope that the full game features a bit more variety in the level design department.