Lost Soul Aside review — A diamond in the rough

After nearly a decade of development, Lost Soul Aside has finally emerged from the shadows of its ambitious origins. What began as one person’s passion project in 2014 has evolved into Sony’s latest showcase for the China Hero Project, bringing Ultizero Games’ action role-playing game to life. Lost Soul Aside presents a fascinating case of how raw talent and genuine enthusiasm can’t always overcome core design flaws, but when the game’s combat system clicks and you’re flowing between weapons in perfect harmony, you catch glimpses of the truly special game this could have been.

The story feels like it was assembled from a bag of overused fantasy tropes. You play as Kaser, a warrior whose sister, Louisa, gets her soul abducted by interdimensional beings called the Voidrax during what should have been a routine rebellion against the oppressive Empire. If you’ve seen any anime or played any JRPG from the past two decades, you’ve basically seen this story before. The narrative hits every predictable stereotype from “ragtag resistance group” to “ancient evil awakening after a thousand years.” What makes it worse is that the game drowns you in exposition through scattered documents and character monologues.

Buried beneath all the narrative rubble is a combat system that absolutely deserves your attention. The action feels like someone took Devil May Cry’s combo philosophy and gave it a Final Fantasy makeover, and the results are absolutely spectacular when everything clicks. The weapon switching system lets you seamlessly flow between four distinct styles: the agile sword for quick strikes, devastating greatsword for breaking through defenses, poleblade for keeping enemies at distance, and scythe for sweeping crowd control. Once a gauge is filled up, you can also press R2 and L2 to trigger Fusion Merge, empowering all of your attacks for a short duration.

Arena, your dragon companion, also provides additional abilities like protective shields, healing boosts, and devastating area-of-effect attacks. Enemy encounters become these beautiful dances of aggression where you’re constantly switching weapons mid-combo, perfect parrying, dodging attacks with split-second timing, and building up to powerful fusion attacks. The game gives you tremendous freedom to express yourself through battle, rewarding creativity and skill in ways that make you feel genuinely powerful. You can even break through an enemy’s stance and perform a flashy sync finisher on them.

That being said, the boss battles represent both the game’s highest highs and most frustrating lows, often within the same fight. When everything works as intended, these battles can be spectacular affairs that showcase the combat system at its most dynamic. Fights against enemies like the Rose Queen and Holy Knight Commander Victor demand that you master weapon switching, timing-based parries, and Arena’s special skills in ways that are rewarding when executed properly.

But many bosses feature multiple health bars, creating a somewhat artificial difficulty that transforms epic duels into dragged-out encounters. The hyper armor system means that many of your flashiest combos become completely useless against these major enemies, forcing you into a more methodical style that doesn’t quite match the game’s kinetic energy. 

Progression revolves around a traditional skill tree that unlocks as you earn experience points from fighting. The upgrades are split between Kaser’s personal weapon skills and Arena’s power abilities, creating two parallel paths that eventually interweave during gameplay. Kaser’s sword skills include things like “Phantom Slash,” which lets you instantly close gaps to enemies and can chain into “Shadow Rend” for charged-up massive damage attacks. Arena’s powers include upgrade abilities like Arena Claws, Crystal Blast for ranged attacks, and various defensive powers.

What makes this more interesting than your typical action RPG leveling is the weapon accessory system. These function as both cosmetic and mechanical modifiers that you collect throughout your journey across the different dimensions. Think of them like enchantments or modification chips that you can attach to your weapons to enhance how they perform. Some focus purely on damage enhancement, boosting your attack power, or adding elemental effects to your strikes. Others modify your healing capabilities, which becomes particularly valuable during longer boss encounters. These fragments can also dramatically change how your weapons look, which matters if you’re more into the fashion aspect of things.

Lost Soul Aside includes a New Game Plus mode that allows you to carry over most of your progression into a fresh playthrough. Your unlocked skills, discovered items, equipment, and your dragon companion’s power upgrades all transfer over, letting you tackle the early game with significantly more power and variety than your first time through. The game is split across 4 chapters and a prologue and should last you around 15-20 hours, depending on how much of a completionist you are.

After beating the game on Normal difficulty, you unlock Hard difficulty, which serves as the intermediate challenge level. The real endgame challenge comes with Nightmare difficulty, which unlocks after completing Hard mode. This is where the game gets truly punishing. You’ll need to complete both if you want the Platinum trophy.

While Lost Soul Aside is fundamentally a linear experience, it does offer specific challenge modes that feel more like mini-trials than proper side content. These “Dispersed Dimension” challenges feature arena-style combat encounters that test your mastery. Completing them rewards you with bonus materials and unlockables. There’s also a Boss Rush mode that becomes available later in the game, letting you face off against previous bosses under specific conditions.

Fortunately, I’ve run into no issues in terms of technical performance on a base PlayStation 5, probably thanks to the Day One patch. Performance mode maintains smooth framerates during exploration and combat. Load times are quick and seamless, coming in at around 4 seconds. The PlayStation 5 Pro version is more or less flawless, with fantastic framerate available from its exclusive Pro Performance mode. The only minor complaints I have are that the transitions between defeating a boss to a cutscene seem a bit abrupt and janky, and the inability to rebind controls. The dodge button is L1 for whatever reason…

The game’s art direction shows clear Final Fantasy influences, with elaborate character designs and fantastical environments that look artistically striking. Some of the boss designs are beautifully impressive, with creatures that look intimidating and memorable. The various dimensional worlds you traverse offer great variety, from snow-covered landscapes to ancient ruins that create a sense of wonder. Unfortunately, most of them are unexplorable.

The audio landscape of Lost Soul Aside is frustratingly uneven. Combat sound effects generally do their job well enough, with weapon strikes feeling appropriately impactful and Arena’s abilities providing satisfying feedback. However, the audio mixing is poorly optimized, with music cutting in and out during transitions and sound effects ending abruptly. Voice acting, especially in English, ranges from merely adequate to cringeworthy. The soundtrack, composed by Cody Matthew Johnson with support from Yoko Shimomura, offers an orchestral score that showcases spectacular musical craftsmanship.

Yang Bing’s passion project exists in this weird space where its greatest strengths and most glaring weaknesses stand side by side. When you’re locked into a cinematic fight, seamlessly switching between weapons and executing perfectly timed combos, the game absolutely soars and reminds you why character action games can be so compelling. But the linear structure and lack of meaningful side content also make the experience seem somewhat thin compared to modern expectations. If you’re on the fence, there’s a free demo that provides an excellent way to experience what the game has to offer.

Affiliate Links