Every so often a game comes around that wears its inspirations on its sleeve but delivers a quality experience all of its own. This is shown in the recently released to early access title, Lost Epic. Developed and published by One or Eight Inc, Lost Epic is another search-action type game that takes heavy inspiration from games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade in both gameplay and style; however this is shaping up to be a game to really watch out for. As this game is in only access I was only able to play two areas of it and as such this review will be based on the game so far. As more of the game is released and unlocked I will revisit it to have a more complete review.
Lost Epic begins by explaining that it’s currently ruled by gods who have taken over each part of the world and have made life hard for people living in each of the realms. It is up to the player to liberate this land of the gods’ reign. You’ll meet a witch that explains your mission and allows you to design your character. Like most games of this style, the world is spread out through the different characters that you meet in missions that you take.
More story is explained when you get to each of the gods’ realms as you’re fighting the bosses. These segments explains a bit of their backstory regarding what they do in that realm. I wish there was a little bit more to explore the game as I didn’t really get a chance to really experience the story. I feel like because the game is in early access so it wasn’t necessarily something that was super invested into. I am curious about where it will go once I am able to pass a particular realm as I really want to see the consequences of my actions in killing these gods.
Where Lost Epic really shines in its fast-paced and smooth combat. Even at the lower levels it is interesting and easy enough to pick up. It has a lot of depth with new skills and other magical items that you can collect. I personally really liked that I could parry and counter most attacks if I had the timing right. This makes defense feel just as important as offense. Throughout your journey, you can also collect weapon upgrades and materials to make sure that you can keep using and improving your arsenal. This includes the costume pieces that you can put on your character. I personally wore a mustache for most of my playthrough.Â
I did have a weird issue getting some of the controls correct. I’m not sure if it was my controller or another issue, but some of the button mappings didn’t necessarily work and I had to spend at least 30 minutes making sure that the button mapped correctly. Given that this game is an early access game I am willing to overlook a couple of things. However I ran into a point where some of the items descriptions defaulted to Japanese text regardless of what language I had set. I did find it weird and can see how that can be off-putting to other players. I’m hoping that this is just an oversight and will be corrected quickly.
One aspect where the game really shines is its character design and sprite work. This is all done by Namie who worked on titles such as Fate Grand Order, Azure Lane, and Arknights. It helps give the players a sense of familiarity given that this artwork is so recognizable. It’s personally what drew me to the game when I originally saw it. All the character designs are very unique but the player character design is still limited in the current early access build. There are some player character models that I saw that I wish I could have used instead of the one that I picked.
Overall, I did get a couple of hours of gameplay out of the early access version of Lost Epic and I would say that I do recommend this game at its current price of $20. I’m not sure if that’s going to be the game’s final price but you can definitely go with way worse things found in Steam’s early access category. I personally believe that Lost Epic is going to be a game that is worth keeping an eye out for and I look forward to revisiting it once it is out of early access.
