Lost Dimension Review (PS Vita)

Game: Lost Dimension
Developer: Lancarse
Publisher: Atlus
Genre: Strategy RPG
Platform: PlayStation 3/PlayStation Vita (PS TV compatible)
Release: July 28, 2015
Price: $39.99
Size: 985 MB
PSN: https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/lost-dimension/cid=UP0005-PCSE00673_00-LOSTDIMENSION001

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I am a big fan of RPG game and after hearing about Lost Dimension, I got really interested because the gameplay looks similar to my favorite SRPG game, Valkyria Chronicles.

The game starts with an opening anime cutscene of city underfire from an unknown threat. Moments later, a huge tower called “The Pillar” emerges. On top of that tower, a man calling himself “The End” appeared and threatening everyone that he will destroy the world in 13 days. To counter this threat, the UN formed a group called SEALED which consist of 11 people with extraordinary powers called “Gifts”. Their mission is to stop “The End” from destroying the world.

After the event, you will now be able to control the hero named “Sho”. You will start in a battlefield. You will also get to control the 5 other SEALED members. This battle is basically the battle tutorial. After the battle, you will meet the other 5 remaining members of the SEALED team. Then, “The End” appears and telling everyone that there is a traitor among the team.

Your mission is to find the traitor and save the world from destruction. You will need to investigate your teammates by monitoring their behavior in and out of the battle and by talking to them to find out any clue on who is the traitor in your team. You will be able to interact with your teammates in the Lobby. As you talk to each of your teammates, the trust meter will go up. He/she will open up something that might give hint on finding out the traitor in your team.

The story is presented as a visual novel. The cutscenes are voiced. I like the anime-style art of each character during a conversation. I also like how each character’s expression will change depending on their mood and the smooth animation.

In the lobby, you can choose “TALK” (Talk to members), “SETUP” (Equipment, Items, Gift and Status), “GATE” (Mission selection screen), “GENERATOR” (This is where you create your Equipment and items by spending EN), “VISION” (This is where check the current trust level on each character, Vote forecast, Battle Rankings and Vision History) and “JUDGEMENT” (This is where you will cast your vote on who will be evicted from the Big Brothe… I mean in your group.).

There are 2 types of mission you can take, one is the story mission and the other is the side mission. Each mission are repeatable. You can only bring 5 members, excluding Sho, in a battle. Each member of your team has a different GIFT that they can use in the battle. Each of them also have different type of weapon that they carry in the battle. Some are ranged and the others are melee type.

In the battle, during your phase, you can move each of your character anywhere inside his/her movement range. You can choose who goes first by cycling through them using the shoulder buttons of your PS Vita. After moving, you will be able to choose attack, use gift, defer (gives additional turn to the other member in range), item and wait. Some Gifts can attack multiple enemies in range, some can extend range, use elemental magic and heal friends. When you attack, your teammates will Assist you if they are within the range of the enemy or if the trust level of that attacker is good with his teammates. You can easily take down an enemy by setting up your teammates to a certain enemy to do a chain assist attack. Just be careful when you use Gifts and Defer because both also uses SAN. When your character’s SAN dropped to 0, he or she will enter berserk mode and will randomly attack anyone including teammates within his range.

Probably the most useful and my personal favorite feature in this game is the “Defer”. Using Defer, you will be able to give another turn to your character who has ended his or her turn in expense of losing some SAN on the character who’ve used Defer. This is very helpful if you wish to reach a certain destination quickly by giving another turn to the that character. You can only use defer once per turn on each character and you can only use defer on the character that is within the caster’s range.

You can learn and strengthen gifts by spending Gift point. Gift point can only be obtained when you level up. You will need to spend Gift point on a certain Gift to unlock the next bracket

After completing a couple of missions in the every floor, a new room called “JUDGEMENT” will be unlocked. This room is where you and your teammates will vote on who is the possible traitor in your group. Voting out a teammate will kill him or her. Your teammates will vote based on who you’ve selected as a possible traitor when they talk to you about it.

Finding the possible traitor requires a lot of patience because you will be repeating a mission again and again just to figure out who is the traitor in the 5 other members you’ve selected to join you in the battle. Each time you finish a mission, Sho will activate a psychic ability that let him hear the thoughts of his party members. There are always 3 possible traitors in each floor, but only one is the real traitor. If you’ve already figured out who the possible traitors are, you can use Vision point on each of them to identify the real traitor. Just do not go wating your Vision point on anyone else unless you are possible that the person you will use it to is the possible traitor because you only have 3 Vision points per floor.

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This game is all about investigating and saving the world. I like the similarity of the gameplay to Valkyria Chronicles but this game feels much better thanks to the Defer ability. Only thing I didn’t like was the repetition of mission objectives on each floor. I think there are only 2 mission objectives available in the game and they are to kill a certain enemy and kill all the enemies. Other than that, I’ve enjoyed everything in the game and specially the investigation part. I’ve finished the game with more than 10 hours of gameplay (I can’t see the total amount of hours) and will play it again to unlock the real ending.

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Score: 4 / 5

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Website: http://www.atlus.com/lostdimension/
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sat6lSkSnPw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AtlusUSA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AtlusUSA

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