LOST SPHEAR

LOST SPHEAR is a traditional Japanese role-playing game developed by Tokyo RPG Factory and published by Square Enix. Released in 2018, the game was designed as a spiritual continuation of the studio’s philosophy of recreating the atmosphere of classic JRPGs from the 1990s. Built with deliberate inspiration from genre classics like Chrono Trigger and early Final Fantasy titles, LOST SPHEAR attempts to capture the emotional tone, turn-based combat, and world-saving narrative structure that defined that era. Rather than pushing toward modern open-world design or real-time action combat, the game intentionally embraces a nostalgic framework, presenting a story-driven adventure where exploration, character relationships, and strategic battles form the core experience. While this design philosophy gives the game a distinctive retro charm, it also means the title walks a delicate line between homage and familiarity. The narrative centers on a young boy named Kanata who lives in a quiet village on the outskirts of a fading world. His peaceful life is disrupted when a mysterious phenomenon begins erasing parts of reality itself. Entire locations, structures, and even people vanish into a s…

slow and boring

my recommendation comes with a caviat: get it on a sale it is a decent (not throwback) jrpg with lots of mediocre to downright bad components a) the combat is standout good. mixing the ATB-system with positioning (Chrono Trigger style) and the added ressource (MC) mixed with the encounter design is just fun. it is a pretty good system. sadly the rest of the game realy cannot keep up. b) the audio-visual presentation is way better than videos or screenshots make it look like there are some downright stunning scenes and some realy creative music-tracks. the color-choice was great and the backrounds (and units) look very clean but that is (sadly) where the good ends since Octopath Traveller the writing SE spits out is just horrible and by now it infected every game published by SE FF16 had it's moments, but in a twist of fate was just a horrible gameplay experience just like with the Traveller games the writing is infantile, childish, often just gugugaga-teletubby-gibberish with little to no nuance, sarcasm, "fun" (puns, etc.) and horrible pacing. something incredible dramatic happens? 2 dialogue lines later everything is a-okay again. the aspects that made jrpgs good are just miss…

Lost Sphear is Tokyo RPG Factory's follow-up to I Am Setsuna. Mechanically and gameplay-wise this entry is an improvement. There is a lot of deep mechanics to sort through, such as suits of armor called Vulcosuits, skills, momentum points, weapon upgrades a lot of which goes beyond the standard jrpg fare. This entry is also quite a bit more difficult which caught me a little off guard. I Am Setsuna was a bit of a cakewalk, so I was a little surprised when several of the bosses wiped the floor with my party. You'll need to utilize every game mechanic to tilt the odds in your favor. You won't be able to cheese through this one (at least on normal mode). All in all the story was ok, I liked the companions though the world was a bit generic and the game seems to be missing some of the heart that I Am Setsuna had. Overall, I'd recommend this game to jrpg veterans who have already gone through the standard FF, Trails, Tales fare and want to try something different. If you're new to the genre there are plenty of better games to start with. This one took me around 40 hours on normal mode.

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