Lost sphear
the early months of a new year are an exciting time for UK cinemagoers, with many of the Oscar hopefuls appearing on screen just as awards season enters full swing. Recently, that’s been true of games, too. January and February, typically fallow, have become a prime slot for delayed games – occasionally postponed to avoid the preChristmas rush, but more often to simply get them finished – to grab the limelight. This year, however, things have reverted to form, which means a meagre clutch of smaller games get a rare chance to shine.
Lost Sphear is typical of the more modest early-year releases we’re used to seeing. It might come from a publishing giant, Square Enix, but it’s been assembled at subsidiary Tokyo RPG Factory, a small studio whose debut, I Am Setsuna, made a moderate splash two years ago.
This follow-up is a similarly affectionate throwback to when the Japanese role-playing game was in its pomp, deliberately inviting comparisons with classics from the
late Super Nintendo/early PlayStation era. At times, it seems specifically tailored towards those old enough to remember a time before lengthy CG cutscenes and overwrought acting were genre standards, when games had to rely on text-based storytelling and systemic depth to keep players hooked.
Warts and all, it certainly evokes those mid-’90s favourites. There’s a world in peril, and a group of orphaned youngsters hoping to save it, led by a hero with a mysterious power. But this is no ordinary apocalypse: chunks of the world are inexplicably vanishing, leaving behind vast tracts of empty space. Your job is to – quite literally – fill in the gaps, slaying monsters that have absorbed memories of the missing places, which you’ll subsequently use to restore them.
Combat smartly balances turn-based tactics and timed actions. Enemies will pause while you choose your moves, but not while you’re manoeuvring characters into position for special or combination attacks. Away from the battlefield, the characterisation is strong – with insufferably good-natured protagonist Kanata the exception – and while it’s a little too reliant on miraculous last-minute escapes, the plot conjures a couple of honest-togoodness shocks. The biggest problem is a script that falls into a common genre trap: why use a few well-chosen words when screeds of exposition will do? Still, RPG fans or nostalgia addicts looking for something to occupy them until the big hitters arrive could do an awful lot worse. Chris Schilling