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| Lost Dimension: What Is Truly Fearsome Is The Betrayal You Can't See |
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Trust and friendship are critical when you’re working in a team. These bonds become more vital when you’re faced with a task that has a time limit tacked on to it as well, but what happens if you can’t rely on these basic bonds? That’s the question that plagues players in Lost Dimension, an upcoming game developed by Lancarse and published by Atlus. In Lost Dimension, players find themselves trapped in a pillar with ten other teammates and they have to stop the villain waiting at the top. The biggest twist, however, is that there are traitors among your ranks. Really makes the phrase "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" have a good bit of truth behind it.
Players experience the game through the eyes of Sho Kasugai, the main character who commands the gift of Vision. Sho assumes a leadership position for his squad and he is the one to make many of the important calls and decisions, including weeding out the traitors and erasing them. Weeding out traitors is no easy task however, as the traitors are randomized. You could be on one floor and figure out one person isn’t a traitor, only to move to another floor and they’ve decided to turn their back on you. That truly is a hurtful feeling. |
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Lost Dimension doesn’t waste time on getting players into the action. The first mission acts as a tutorial and gives players the rundown on what to expect and how to stay alive. In battle, players will immediately notice the various bars on the screen. To the lower right is a window showing your currently selected character’s stats. Present are the Hit Points bar, the Gift Points bar and the Sanity bar. Hit Points represents a character’s life and once they hit 0, the character is knocked out. The character can be revived by a Gift ability or an item, so don’t count them out. The Gift Points functions as a Mana Bar, and deplete every time you use a Gift. The Sanity Bar also depletes every time you use a Gift, but once this hits 0, your character will go berserk. Berserk status restores Hit Points and Gift Points, but will lower the character’s defense and also take control of the character away from you, making them attack anything within range. Berserk also inflicts nearby allies with the Fear status, causing their Sanity costs to be increased. Berserk, as well as Fear, can be cured with Gift abilities or items, but players may be inclined to use it to their advantage if possible.
Combat is a turn-based affair and players will issue commands to the entire group one by one. After pressing the (X) button to bring up the Command Menu, characters are able to attack normally, use a Gift ability, use an item on themselves or a teammate, transfer their acting turn to another ally who has already taken a turn, or simply wait without doing anything. Every attack has a hit percentage which will be seen over the opponent. Naturally, the higher the percentage, the better the chance you’ll hit. This also applies for enemy attacks, but let’s rewind a bit. Before issuing a command, characters are able to travel a distance across the map using the Left Analog Stick. You can only move as far as the circle around your character will allow. Once you start moving in a direction, the circle will begin to collapse around your character until you reach your max distance and you will be stopped. You can return to your original position, or cancel another action, by pressing the (Circle) button. Your best friend will proper planning and preparation in battle.
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The Lobby is the area players will become most familiar with. This is the main hub of the game and where players will return after a mission. From the Lobby, players are able to use the Gate, talk to teammates, buy new items or equipment, check character stats and customize equipment, and also use Sho’s Vision gift. The Gate allows players to select a mission to take on. Missions are sorted in a list and the stars next to a mission represent the mission’s difficulty level. Upon selecting a mission, players will then be shown a map displaying enemy locations, as well as player spawn locations. From here, players can then select up to five other characters to accompany on the mission for a total of six members per mission. Sho is always locked in, so you can’t change him out. Players may also check the mission details to see what their objective and rewards are, check what enemy types are present, and then deploy when ready. Take careful note of the mission details, as you may not always have to kill every enemy present.
Your best friend in Lost Dimension and the most useful ability is Sho’s Vision. Not only can he use it in battle, but he can also use it outside of battle in the Lobby and the purpose of the ability changes here. From the Lobby, players can select the Vision tab and a screen with four more tabs will pop up. These four tabs are Trust, Battle Rankings, Vote Forecast and the Vision History. Trust displays the teams trust among one another and players can hover over a different portrait to check a character's trust with other characters. Battle Rankings displays how much a teammate has contributed to battle and the higher the number, the higher ranked the character will be. The top three characters each have higher voting rights than the other characters and I’ll explain this shortly. The Vote Forecast displays who will be voted off during the next Judgment. Finally, the Vision History displays your previous teammates from a past mission and will show how many voices Sho heard from that specific team combination. This is important as this allows players to do a bit of detective work and figure out who the traitors are. Using Vision Points, players will be able to perform a Deep Vision on suspected characters and figure out if the character truly is a traitor. Make sure you are absolutely certain as you only have three chances to use Deep Vision per floor. If you’re a master sleuth, any Vision Points unused on a floor will be rolled over to the next floor. Do your best to figure out the traitors and get them out of there. |
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So, I mentioned this thing called Judgment just a moment ago. After completing the missions on a floor, players will gain access to a special room called Judgment. This is where players will go in order to ascend to the next floor in the Pillar. It’s not as easy as just climbing a few stairs, though. Players will be forced to select a teammate to vote off in order to proceed to the next floor. The whole process kind of reminds me of a certain show that used to be popular, but that’s beyond the point. The Vote Forecast will be extremely useful in telling you who is most likely to be erased during the next Judgment. It’s your job as the leader to figure out who the traitor is and get your team to vote for them. Otherwise, you’ll just vote off an innocent person and be left with a traitor. No one wants that, so choose wisely.
From my initial moments with the game, Lost Dimension had an incredibly addictive quality. I’ve also been a fan of RPG games and I’m used to the idea of using a squad to take down opponents, but the traitor aspect really throws a wrench in your plans for a happy team. I always tend to develop favorites within a cast of characters and gravitate more towards my favorites, but it’s harder to do so when you don’t know whether or not you can trust that character. In an environment where anyone can be a traitor, the prevailing question shifts from "How do I work together with my team?" to "Who can I trust in my team?" and when trust breaks down, how can you hope to have efficient teamwork in battle? It’s hard enough to fight an enemy you can see, and near impossible to fight the enemy you can’t see. Stay tuned for the full Lost Dimension review posting on July 27th. |
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-SS-54, GameVortex Communications AKA Ren Plummer |
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