Lost Soul Aside: Repetitive and bland

Genshin Impact, Marvel Rivals and Black Myth: Wukong put China’s vibrant gaming industry on the map, with games such as Phantom Blade Zero and the recently revealed Black Myth: Zhong Kui holding a lot of promise. Lost Soul Aside was one of those eagerly anticipated games, and now that it is here, it does a lot of things right. However, it does feel the packaging of the game should not have been a Final Fantasy-style RPG; instead, it could have made a competent action game in the vein of Devil May Cry. 

If you have ever wondered what Venom, the symbiote from Spiderman, would feel like, Lost Soul Aside comes close. You play Kaser, a rebel, who with his sister Lousia, joins the resistance to fend off the evil Empire. Except, in a mission gone wrong, the world is invaded by portal-hopping crystal monsters who destroy everything in their wake.

Kaser is a regular soldier with decent fighting skills who finds himself thrown into a secret underground lab where he bonds with a Venom-like crystal dragon called Lord Arena. With their powers combined, Kaser has to save his sister by getting her soul back from soul-stealing aliens.

The story beats feel like they have been cherry picked from popular games and then threaded together with cut scenes and sudden twists. In the first hour alone, there were so many characters on screen which were then casually thrown away. Then out of nowhere, the game dazzles you with magic, aliens and dragons, and nothing really feels grounded.

In the middle of it all, you have to contend with a fashionable cast of characters dressed more to inspire cosplay. While the narrative of Kaser saving his sister is good enough to get you invested, there so much tacked on, it dizzies more than it dazzles.

Sadly, Lost Soul Aside has an annoying cast of characters. Many of them are introduced as clever story devices, but are quickly shoved aside to make way for more. The breaking point was one particular character who serves as a scantily-clad save point and it feels wrong to wade through her dialogue just to checkpoint your game. Thankfully, Kaser and Lord Arena are decent, but the rest are quite hard to stomach. 

Where Lost Soul Aside shines is in its Devil May Cry inspired battle system, allowing you to pull off some very slick combos and moves. With the help of the dragon Lord Arena’s crystalline floating head, you are able to juggle enemies, send slashes of energy flying and then, when you fuse together, you can manifest giant claws. With just the action, without its terrible roster of characters or the RPG trappings, Lost Soul Aside would have been a Bayonetta, with the added twist of a morphing companion weapon, making it an excellent action game. 

Yet, the game we get is a third-person, action RPG which is tonally reminiscent of Final Fantasy XVI — from its world, mechanics and action, to RPG elements and its map and menus. Everything feels it was stretched to fit a game of that scope, leading to segments that seem repetitive and padded.

Take for instance, the shoddy platforming sections, which are jump puzzles as seen in games such as Mario Odyssey or Split Fiction. While the levels themselves have interesting elements, the character jumps are awkward and imprecise.

Normally in platforming games, if you double jump across a larger jump, you would jab the dash button to quickly close the distance. That is the secret to great traversal across platforms. Except here, it triggers a dive that looks like a dash, and before you know it, you respawn to a snarky remark from Lost Arena, which keeps repeating because it is stuck in a bug loop.

Graphically, there is nothing wrong with Lost Soul Aside. It looks decent, and in many cases beautiful. However, environments feel too spaced and out of proportion. The characters are a bit too tall and somewhat disproportionate. The action feedback is great, and moves react well with an appropriate level of flash.

This cements the fact that this game should not have been a bloated RPG. There is just not enough of it and you have to slog through cut scene after cut scene of annoying characters dumping their life stories on you, just to be able to swing the sword again. 

Lost Soul Aside is a collection of interesting ideas. You have a world that is full of magic, you have individuals with excellent superpowers, you have a protagonist who can bond with a dragon for some incredible moves. All of that in theory should make for an excellent game. Yet, all the bad ideas seem to pull down some of the great ones. It is tough recommending a game like this, since there is so much out there, like Death Stranding 2 or the upcoming Ghost of Yotei that would be well worth your gaming rupee.

Published – September 13, 2025 05:51 pm IST