It may not be a good game for most, but it is my cup of tea. Strategic gameplay, customizable characters and interesting story. I would say that this is worth any vita gamers time.
As a JRPG fan, I like it a lot. Only complaint, too easy if you instinctively grind. And it sort of soft caps your level unless you focus on free battling.
Still, in my Top 5 3DS exclusives hands down.
Even though the mark might not be very high, we've enjoyed this game. It's great for a handheld, and if you like the concept it is based on, it does deserve a try.
Lost Dimension is a well thought out tactical RPG, but it’s the traitor system which is the star of the game. It constantly makes you second guess your choices as you progress, but it comes at the cost of a compelling story.
Lost Dimension has some interesting ideas but some of its elements, like the level design or the enemies, just don't work that well. Its gameplay could even even become boring after some time.
Certainly, the game’s writing and combat are mediocre. That said, there’s still nothing exactly like Lost Dimension on the market. If you want a dash of intrigue in your dungeon crawler, you may want to see this one through to The End .
The gameplay was pretty much the only reason why I was able to make it all the way to the true ending. But if you’re looking for a good story, oh boy, you’re not going to find it here. Here’s what you’re guaranteed to get with this game: engaging gameplay and an overall soulless story, filled with equally soulless characters.
Lost Dimension by Atlus is unique in terms of gameplay. I am on my 3rd playthrough and each time you ahve new conversations and new situations. What leads to this? The unique traitor system. The traitor system is a unique system in which one of your "allies" is actually an enemy and you must weed them out through various means. Thats not to say the system is flawed as some tricks become more obvious but it is still an extremely fun mechanic. The gameplay plays out like your "modern" tactical JRPG. You don't move around a map like in Fire Emblem, but more you have a circlar area you can move in, and you have your basic RPG elements, your abilities or "gifts" in which each character has a unique set so not everyone can learn pyrokensis or things like that. While the game felt short to me, (Compared to other JRPGS on the vita like "Tales of hearts" it was still worth the buy and a play
What I love about Lost Dimension is the non-linearity of it. Climbing up a labyrinth like tower to stop a terrorist, while you have traitors in your midst, makes every decision about who you spare and sacrifice a crucial one. And with each playthrough, you are very highly unlikely going to have the same traitors each time. I feel Lost Dimension does struggle to make its central antagonist special, and somewhat repetitive combat makes the game a bit of a slog at times. But once you master the gameplay, the game is genuinely fun, and tense to play.
Very entertaining game, with a somewhat different combat system than usual. Graphically it complies, I liked his music a lot, and his characters are interesting. The only bad thing I saw is that you must know English yes or yes, especially by ear, because if not, you will end up VERY bad in the end, since the game tries to find the culprit, and you can be wrong with its consequences in the end.
For my part, a recommended experience.
In this turn-based tactical RPG, you play as Shô, a young man sent in an elite unit called the SEALED. This team has been formed in a hurry to counter a dangerous individual who calls himself The End, and seeking no less than to blow up the entire world.
The battle system is very much like Valkyria Chronicles : each unit of one team act one after another, having a limited movement area. You also do have the possibility of having one or several comrades assisting your current character with an extra shot when the enemy is within range. This aspect is crucial to your progression for a very simple reason : your opponents will do exactly the same! Consequently, you'll have to be careful to keep your characters together so they can cover each other, all the more necessary that even the most common foes cannot be eliminated without the cooperation of several of your characters.
Adding to this, every member of the SEALED posesses a supernatural power : Himeko can cast fire spells, Nagi can levitate, Yoko can boost her teamates' status, etc. something like the Fantastic Four, save that they are twelve. Each character can also allow a buddy whose turn is over to act again, which has a lot of practical uses.Every unit, friend of foe, has a stamina bar that gets depleted as damage is taken. If the enemy's stamina reaches zero, its defense will drop dramatically, making it extremely vulnerable to attacks. When a character's stamina jauge is empty, he goes berserk and attacks the nearest unit, even if it's an ally. A quite perilous situation which clever strategists will know how to use to their advantage. The architecture of the maps is well tought and encourages you to make the best use of the field around you. Technically speaking, Lost Dimension stands out by a decent modeling which kinda makes up for the bland environments.
The particularity in Lost Dimension is that you have in your party several traitors, and you have to find them. Shô is gitfed with psychic powers and will know if there are suspects in the team he has been leading durng one battle. Of course, the suspects are not precisey designated : you just know you had 0,1, 2 or 3 potential traitors in your group. Up to you to switch members regularly and operate by elimination process so as to pin the culprit by entering his mind. This very unuasual setting gives Lost Dimension a tremendous appeal : the atmosphere is dark and oppressing. The SEALED members don't know each other at all and no one can be trusted. The music, very efficient to make you dive further in suspense, features slow and equally opressive.
Shô, with his natural empathy, will be able to gain the trust of his comrades in arms. They will thus share their own story and show their hidden personality, and some of them are far from shallow. Kojirô's true self for example gave me the shivers.
Whatever your friendship might be, you have no room for hesitation : at each floor of The End's giant tower, you will be asked to give a name. The problem is that... it is not your decision alone! Every character votes to get rid of another. From time to time, they will come to ask Shô's opinion, and you will be able to influence them in voting for the traitor, provided you have found him/her already. If you still haven't got a clue when the time comes, you will be at risk to lose an honest buddy, who will be disintegrated, leaving nothing but a small object you can equip to inherit his abilities. The search for the traitors has a big influence on how the story goes and has also a huge impact on the final battle. If you're not rigorous and impartial in your choices, you might be completely unable to clear the game!
That is actually Lost Dimension's biggest flaw : the progression system isn't flexible one bit and you can't set the team you'd want. Not that long (between 10 and 20 hours to reach the summit), you can through it a second time quickly despite a new game+ that is far from generous.
Lost Dimension is an extremely innovative RPG, its atmosphere is unique and the gameplay is rock-solid. For all those reasons, it really deserves your attention and it would be a shame to see it bomb a second time. It's very rich and complex tactically speaking and S-RPG fans should enjoy it despite a somewhat unsatisfying progression system.
Lost Dimension is an attempt at a different kind of turn based strategy game, one where your allies and enemies change with each playthrough. In each chapter of the game, one of your allies becomes a traitor and you have to find out who otherwise at the end of the game, they will join the last boss and fight you. It becomes a task of grinding through an easy stage and switching out your allies until you narrow it down to 3 potential traitors. Then, you have to use the main character's special ability and enter the suspect's mind in order to see if they really are the traitor. Afterwards, you have to manipulate the votes so that the traitor does die. This can get tedious, but there are stages that you can finish in one turn to make it a little easier.
One of the interesting things in the game is that you can pass a fallen comrade's abilities onto another character. Some abilities can only be unlocked by using specific combinations of abilities. For example, if the main character takes on the abilities of the teleporter, they will be able to use a teleporting bullet that guarantees both a back attack and a critical hit on the enemy. This was quite a nice feature. The problem is that the fallen comrade's abilities cannot be improved. They are stuck at the point in which they died. In the case of your first playthrough, you're basically stuck with one near useless Fate Materia because you never even get a chance to level the traitor up.
One problem is the enemies. They more or less try to rush you and gather in a straight line, giving you a chance to just wipe them out with line attack focused abilities. Late game, enemies either kill you in two or three critical hits or you kill them in a similar number of hits with the exception of the large enemies. At the last two chapters of the game, enemies receive a significant boost in health and damage. Getting the best Vit focused armor makes it so that literally only boss enemies or the giant robot enemies can actually deal significant damage to you. There are also a few very annoying stages because there are enemies that spawn other enemies.
Each playthrough changes because of the difference in traitors. It is nice to see that, but the story is fairly thin and basically condensed into first five minutes and the last five minutes of the game. The other characters besides the main character and final boss don't do much other than make a few comments after someone is killed at the end of a chapter. during the opening battles of the last floor, or if you do their special quest.