Lost Soul Aside |OT| Souls-free Action

Game is the definition of awkward. These guys just had no clue on how to create an actual game. They throw everything but the kitchen sink at it, even in the demo. Out of nowhere Kaser is going to auto run and doing some cool backflips through walls. It feels off, and I'm not used to not having any control anymore. Then the surfboard section, its terrible and just fits absolutely no purpose.

It might've looked a bit cool 10 years ago as an FF fan trailer, but the FFXV ship has sailed ages ago. I reckon this should've stayed a hobbyist concept thing.

I wonder if it really would've been better received if released way back. Its level design and everything I mentioned above is inherently terrible. As is the VA. Every boss I defeated in the demo, including the chick from the boss mode, was a carbon copy. You delete super armor, you mash your specials. Repeat. And this game has to have the WORST sound effects ever, hitting enemies in this game is again, awkward as fuck. Its like he's using a paper weapon.

I gradually started to expect Mindseye scores for this one. It looks the same levels of cheap, flat, awkward and nonsensical. And it looks like a game that should've been released a decade ago on the PS4. Its obviously a horrible game. When the concept was shown everyone was like this is what FFXV should've been. Let me tell you even FFXV is far better than this one, and looks better too. Some cool ass hobbyist trailer doesn't make a good game.

I read some X previews and most of them said it is like a Ps2 era action game. My 2024 game of the year Stellar blade was also like an old school 90's game which means I will also like LS.

I am down for for old school as well but in my book Stellar blade was a 7.5 and the LSA demo a 4.5 at best. SB has far, FAR better production values, level design and pretty much everything I can think of. Its not even close.
 
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I just beat it. Around 30 hours.

Let me first say this: I don't give any shits that the game wasn't reviewed by outlets before release or the fact that they released a demo on the same day that the game was released. With that being said, here are my honest thoughts after having beaten the game -once- (the game encourages multiple playthroughs).

Also, my background is around 4000h throughout the entire DMC-saga as well as probably a combined 1500h of Godhand, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta etc.

+
+ Level design isn't bad, I actually quite enjoyed it. Big green square buttons that go up and down elevators, randomly places chests, random platforming areas. They're not bad at all! Just very PS2-esque.
+ I really don't have issues with the graphics or that it's made in UE4. Graphics are overall solid and the environments varied and colorful!
+ The varied gameplay moments (ride the great sword, use the dragon to fly and grab balls, jump on top of flowers to bounce really high and reach new places) are fun to do.
+ Music is solid. Sometimes a bit too ambitious for what seems to be going on in the game.

-
- One of the worst "practice areas" I've witnessed to date. No options to do anything other than hitting that one monster they spawn for you; and guess what, he has armor that you have to break so you can't juggle him and practice combos until you've broken his armor. And even then, he will recover from the CC and you have to repeat the same thing over and over again.

- BIGGEST minus in the history of minuses: MISSING SFX DURING COMBAT! There's no feedback when hitting enemies, there's no feedback when getting hit. I honestly thought there was something wrong with my audio-setup so I switched to headphones and the same issues persisted. Basically, you don't feel like you're dealing damage to the opponent and you don't know when you get hit. It's SURREAL how this wasn't polished further, because this genre -needs- SFX in order to get a distinguished feel of what's happening on the screen amidst all the chaos.

- Visual noise during combat. Combine the fact that you don't hear anything during combat, now add that it's impossible to see incoming attacks because of the amount of shit that happens on screen and you've got a recipe for disaster.

- Base difficulty is too easy, they should've had difficulty options at start and not after you beat the game.

- Random spots that are not translated

remAVTO.jpeg


- The optional challenge missions are awful. Oh, here's a mission where if you want to maximize reward, you have to "defeat all enemies with 20% or less health". But wait, 50% of the moves I do regenerate my health so I'm locked out of those moves! What the fuck?

- No custom controls, I had to switch L1 (dodge, wtf?) with O (block, wtf?) through the PS5 custom menu.

- Laggy menus, literally 500ms input delay. Why?

- ATROCIOUS "storyline" and story telling. They slam dunk 1000 terms, 1000 places, 1000 things you should know within the first 3 hours of the game. Calm the fuck down fellas'

- No running —> attack animation, instead you get the normal "neutral" attack even while running and that feels CRAZY not to have. I get that even DMC has you going from running to neutral but the neutral in this game locks the character in animation for like 2 seconds unless you dodge out of it.

- Music transition, or rather lack of with its instant cuts from battles is a choice indeed. You go from this insane boss music and the second you kill him, it abruptly gets cancelled and quiet.

- Abundance of material that are never really used in-game ever.

- The skill tree is abysmal with lack of clarity what things really do. It's like this, "Whirlwind". Okay cool, let's see what Whirlwind does. Description: "Whirlwind is enabled when you Cross Slash the opponent mid-air after juggling with Demon Blast or Hardcore Leap". OK? Are you okay, game?

- Camera speed too slow even on max, and doesn't help that you can't press R3 to reset camera in front of you

- One of the least impactful parries of all time. I see the blue shit coming from the enemy, I press parry, nothing happens. Of course the fact that there's no real response from doing anything in battle doesn't help.

- Way, WAY TOO MUCH yapping between Arena and the main character.

- My character can, mid-air whilst juggling an enemy, lose attack "charges" and that's STUPID. No amount of light or heavy attacks should be enough to "exhaust" the amount of damage you can deal mid-air. And yes; I already know you can cancel out of air by pressing dodge and from there re-enter mid-air status again by why is this even a thing?!

I can probably keep going, but it is what it is...

Great analysis. I believe there's a global PS accessibility setting on the ps5 where you can switch the buttons. Even if you can't in game. Just gotta remember to switch it back.
 
Great analysis. I believe there's a global PS accessibility setting on the ps5 where you can switch the buttons. Even if you can't in game. Just gotta remember to switch it back.
Yup, that's what I had to do (L1 switched with O). :(
 
Game is the definition of awkward. These guys just had no clue on how to create an actual game. They throw everything but the kitchen sink at it, even in the demo. Out of nowhere Kaser is going to auto run and doing some cool backflips through walls. It feels off, and I'm not used to not having any control anymore. Then the surfboard section, its terrible and just fits absolutely no purpose.

It might've looked a bit cool 10 years ago as an FF fan trailer, but the FFXV ship has sailed ages ago. I reckon this should've stayed a hobbyist concept thing.

I wonder if it really would've been better received if released way back. Its level design and everything I mentioned above is inherently terrible. As is the VA. Every boss I defeated in the demo, including the chick from the boss mode, was a carbon copy. You delete super armor, you mash your specials. Repeat. And this game has to have the WORST sound effects ever, hitting enemies in this game is again, awkward as fuck. Its like he's using a paper weapon.

I gradually started to expect Mindseye scores for this one. It looks the same levels of cheap, flat, awkward and nonsensical. And it looks like a game that should've been released a decade ago on the PS4. Its obviously a horrible game. When the concept was shown everyone was like this is what FFXV should've been. Let me tell you even FFXV is far better than this one, and looks better too. Some cool ass hobbyist trailer doesn't make a good game.

Based on the demo this is one of those games that in another context would be some lesser known title you randomly pick up on a steam sale for like $15. And it's sort of awkward and janky and you can tell the team behind it lacks experience, but it's still pretty fun, does some cool stuff and you can at least appreciate what they were trying to do.

But as a full blown $60 release published by playstation, it's not up to par
 
Devs with little resources should be realistic about the kind of game they can make. A modern-looking hack and slash is completely out of reach for a studio with less than 20-30 people. They should have cut off any kind of story, cutscenes, etc. Just focus on core action and a little exploration, that's it.

But then, Sony would have not taken the bait and they believed that a solo guy could develop FFXIII Versus. Both sides are at fault here.
 
So, I'm still half way through it but tbh, it's not that bad as people paint it to be, the pricing is the only atrocious thing about this, the combat is fun, a bit easy tbh, but I kinda balanced the game using an item that increases damage taken with my attack power, so pretty good thus far.
The combat system is not bad at all, easy to learn and you can make cool moves with it easily, and there's depth to it if you gave it the time.
All in all, it's not a bad game, not what people were expecting from china after Wukang I guess. I'm enjoying it a lot tbh, it's a basic game for a guy who's too buys to think and just wanna mash some buttons and see sth cool, and I'm fine with that
 
Apart bad animations and ultra cringe dialogues, the game looks fantastic at some moments, there is serious effort there. I really liked the clean image quality and designs.

4K Ultra DLAA;

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So far it seems like:

-Too many boss fights, and all bosses are damage sponges
-Later boss fights remove stagger ability to make them harder but all it does is make them longer and more tedious
-Areas drag on for over an hour each with boss fight after boss fight and nothing real to collect or discover. Then at the end of each area you go to under realm where that area is another hour+. So you're spending like 2+ hours in each area.
-Many QoL issues. Things like no animations, random tedious stuff like adding pointless animations to save the game, that just add up to making the game tedious. Overall game seems to feel tedious all around.
-Graphics can look great at times and really bad others, especially with environments. Really inconsistent.
-Most areas are linear and just going from boss arena to boss arena
-Story had potential, but wasted it by devolving it into a very typical RPG story
-No great loot to speak of

+Combat is fun for a while before it gets repetitive
+Platforming can be fun in the areas where it exists
+The few areas that aren't linear look pretty good
+Impressive soundtrack
 
Game is the definition of awkward. These guys just had no clue on how to create an actual game. They throw everything but the kitchen sink at it, even in the demo. Out of nowhere Kaser is going to auto run and doing some cool backflips through walls. It feels off, and I'm not used to not having any control anymore. Then the surfboard section, its terrible and just fits absolutely no purpose.

It might've looked a bit cool 10 years ago as an FF fan trailer, but the FFXV ship has sailed ages ago. I reckon this should've stayed a hobbyist concept thing.

I wonder if it really would've been better received if released way back. Its level design and everything I mentioned above is inherently terrible. As is the VA. Every boss I defeated in the demo, including the chick from the boss mode, was a carbon copy. You delete super armor, you mash your specials. Repeat. And this game has to have the WORST sound effects ever, hitting enemies in this game is again, awkward as fuck. Its like he's using a paper weapon.

I gradually started to expect Mindseye scores for this one. It looks the same levels of cheap, flat, awkward and nonsensical. And it looks like a game that should've been released a decade ago on the PS4. Its obviously a horrible game. When the concept was shown everyone was like this is what FFXV should've been. Let me tell you even FFXV is far better than this one, and looks better too. Some cool ass hobbyist trailer doesn't make a good game.
I've read your comments all through this thread and just like the game they're a bit of mess
I'm reading and agreeing but at the same time I'm seeing stuff like this
The combat is good! You can combo, dash, launch, air combo and enders, projectiles.. enemies are eventually open for a finisher. Switching weapons goes on the fly too, there is a straight sword and heavy type sword.
+
It plays like NieR Automata.
+
If you told me Platinum developed this I would've believed it.
And I'm like
Whaaa-Supernatural.gif

And then you say this.
I am down for for old school as well but in my book Stellar blade was a 7.5
I just don't know what to think, I'm more confused by what you've posted in this thread than I was about the game after I played the Demo 😂
 
DS 2, Lost Soul Aside, Ghost Of Yotei and other Shooter from Sony is there any good game this generation?

A game with 90 Metacritic, and another that isn't out until October, and disregarding everything else they've published since 2020...

Try harder brave warrior!
 
You know what's funny, this gameplay video from 4 years ago

Is exactly what you got.
 
Black Myth Monkey Kong was a fluke

People here need to get their tongues out of China and Korea's arse

Their studios aren't fit to lick the dogshit off Japan's boots.
More like setting expectations accordingly

This game was made by one dude, mostly, with no dev background. Black Myth was made by a big studio consisted by veterans. Apples and oranges.

So to me it was pretty obvious that this game would stink.
 
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This game is… Hm. I think I'll be fine happily waiting for Ninja Gaiden 4 to come out in a couple more months lol. Even Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, which was likely a quick UE5 remaster/remake, absolutely demolishes LSA in every category, voice acting included 😂. And, as an NG veteran (16+ years), the fact that the enemies in LSA essentially just stand around and awkwardly wait their turn is hilarious, and far, FAR more egregious than the likes of DMC and Bayonetta. For $70, you could have NG2B and DMC5, or a GOW and a Bayonetta/Stellar Blade combo for the price of one Lost Soul Aside. $40 should have been the maximum price for this game, if not $30.

Back to the drawing board, dev team. Hopefully, the sequel is significantly more competent and confident, if ever there is one.

Play FF17 instead, since LSA seems to riffing off of it, and behold as a 9 year old game dismantles what is being presented as a $70 CAG epic.
 
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I've read your comments all through this thread and just like the game they're a bit of mess
I'm reading and agreeing but at the same time I'm seeing stuff like this

+

+

And I'm like
Whaaa-Supernatural.gif

And then you say this.

I just don't know what to think, I'm more confused by what you've posted in this thread than I was about the game after I played the Demo 😂

Most of it is negative though.

-The combat is the only good thing about this game, though I felt the bosses start to wear out fast. Sound effects just suck.

-It plays like NieR is a negative, its a response to people saying DMC x FF. To me it feels similar to NieR, which has more shallow, weightless combat. Its nothing deep like DMC.

-Platinum. I generally hate their games. Their games are often very low budget with non existent level design. I usually dump on them on this site. LSA looks like the same low budget trash Platinum puts out a lot. Some exceptions, like Vanquish, but... often I don't like what they make. I wasn't positve, lol.

-Stellar Blade is for me a 7.5/10. LSA is much worse. I warn the guy not to fall for the PS2 nostalgia deathtrap.

So basically at first glance the combat of LSA was fun, good first impression on that. After 3 bosses I was tired of the armor gimmick and multiple health bars. So that wore out. In the end game isn't worth it.
 
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I already pre-ordered the $70 deluxe edition months ago.

I don't regret it because I knew I'd like it and wanted to support this passion project of Yang Bing's.

I haven't started it yet partly because I'm in the middle of a couple other RPGs that I wanted to finish first, but also hearing above from the devs that they are making some key fixes that need to happen.

I'll wait a month or two to start it properly to get the prime experience. In the mean time I did try the demo and got some good enjoyment out of that.

Here's a translated article talking about all the troubles they went through during development.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LostSoulAside/s/n3h9dzt4A3

Hell of a lot of drama from 2020 to 2023 it seems. The version we are playing now is one they only started development on back in 2020, they basically had to reboot it that year.

So it's not like this was in development for 9+ years or anything. More like 4. With anywhere from 20 to 40 people tops and COVID drama in the middle of the bulk of development. It's a miracle this came out at all.

For a first ever game, I'd say Ultizero did great.
 
I already pre-ordered the $70 deluxe edition months ago.

I don't regret it because I knew I'd like it and wanted to support this passion project of Yang Bing's.

I haven't started it yet partly because I'm in the middle of a couple other RPGs that I wanted to finish first, but also hearing above from the devs that they are making some key fixes that need to happen.

I'll wait a month or two to start it properly to get the prime experience. In the mean time I did try the demo and got some good enjoyment out of that.

Here's a translated article talking about all the troubles they went through during development.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LostSoulAside/s/n3h9dzt4A3

Hell of a lot of drama from 2020 to 2023 it seems. The version we are playing now is one they only started development on back in 2020, they basically had to reboot it that year.

So it's not like this was in development for 9+ years or anything. More like 4. With anywhere from 20 to 40 people tops and COVID drama in the middle of the bulk of development. It's a miracle this came out at all.

For a first ever game, I'd say Ultizero did great.
That article might be hearsay.
 
I guess it must be because i dont usually play or like these kind of games but i just put 90mins into this and enjoyed it a lot.

Also apart from the prerendered cutscenes being completely messed up, and a touch of loading stutter at the start of new sections, it runs like a deam maxed out (minus RT) for me on my 3700x and RTX 3070. I was actually super surprised after seeing people on Steam moan about the performance and all the 'i get 20fps on my 5090 dudes!' style posts. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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