My 5 favourite things about Lost Dimension:

Now that the mighty Lost Dimension has been revealed as the next title that Ghostlight is bringing to PC in 2017, we thought it was only sensible to talk about the game in a little more detail for those who missed out when it was released on PS3 and Vita in 2015. So, here goes!

Lost Dimension is a strategy RPG featuring some visual novel elements. The player takes control of 11 of the world’s most talented young psychics, brought together by world leaders to form the S.E.A.L.E.D. team: the only force who can take down a mysterious alien mastermind called ‘The End.’ This evil being has sworn to inflict an apocalyptic event on the world’s major cities in 13 days, unless the S.E.A.L.E.D. team can reach the top of the mysterious ‘Pillar’ and defeat him. The Pillar is a towering alien structure that appeared out of nowhere, is impervious to damage and which only the young psychics under your control can enter.

Once inside the Pillar, the S.E.A.L.E.D. team find their memories have become hazy and uncertain, meaning they’ll have to learn to trust one another as they work their way to the top of the Pillar’s five distinct levels. The problem here is that many of the team are secretly in league with ‘The End’ and his evil plot, and these traitors must be uncovered if the team are to reach ‘The End’s’ lair at the top of the Pillar.

The only way the team can advance is by conquering the deadly enemies patrolling each level of the Pillar and voting to eliminate one of their teammates in each floor’s Judgment Room. Only by ‘erasing’ the teammates (hopefully the correct traitors and not innocent victims!) can the S.E.A.L.E.D. team hope to succeed. Every time you play through Lost Dimension the traitors are different, meaning only logic and building good relationships will get you through unscathed!

Outside of its highly original plot, Lost Dimension also offers really satisfying, intuitive and speedy turn-based combat, which flows exceptionally well, while also offering several original elements that give it a flavor all of its own. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the game and even though I’ve completed it several times I still find myself coming back to it over and over. 

As promised at the top of this post, here are my top 5 favourite things about the game:

1.) Deferring Turns: During combat, any of your team can choose to ‘Defer’ their turn instead of performing an attack, skill or using an item. As long as an ally is in range and hasn’t already been deferred to, you can effectively sacrifice one teammate’s turn to move the second character again.

Deferring offers a huge amount of scope for tactical choices: it can be great to move larger distances in a hurry for example, to double down on attacks or to more quickly surround enemies, taking advantage of my next favourite thing…

2.) Assist Attacks: If other characters are within range of an enemy you’re attacking (and provided your current character has a good relationship with them) then the secondary character(s) will provide an assist attack each time you attack an enemy. 

Assists happen every time you attack single enemies (although not via Area attacks, so be warned!) and can knock off massive chunks of damage by providing up to 5 assists, assuming that you mob the enemy with your whole team. This never, EVER gets old!

3.) The Skill Tree: Of all the cool things in Lost Dimension, the interesting skills of the characters could well be my favourite. With only one healer, and a couple of characters that seem initially only to buff allies and de-buff enemies, yet reveal themselves to offer huge tactical depth, these could be the most interesting skills I’ve played in recent years. 

From Yoko’s crazy-good assist options to Zenji’s links and Agito’s ability to zap enemies and teammates around the map (not to mention walking through doors!) this team offers plenty of replay appeal and a genuinely tempting challenge to max out the Skill tree over several play throughs (I know I have!)

4.) Judgement: The pesky traitors in your midst need to be erased in the Judgement room at the end of each floor. You’ll need to build relationships with each of your teammates, going on side missions to build trust and having visual novel style one-to-one chats with them to earn their trust. 

The better your relationship with each teammate, the more likely you’ll be able to persuade them to vote your way once you’ve found who the traitors are…

5.) The Vision system: OK, so you know you must figure out who the traitors are, but how do you do that? The answer is the Vision System, and – lucky for us! – it’s a blast. After each battle, you hear voices telling you if the team you just led might include the traitor. 

By comparing team rosters after each battle, you can use logic to narrow the traitor down to a few options. You can then use Sho’s Deep Vision skill to probe the psyches of your suspects and get to the truth. Then it’s a simple matter of persuading everyone else to vote with you when Judgement time comes. Er, simple, right? O_o

There you have it – the 5 things I feel make Lost Dimension an awesomely fun and unique title that stands out among other strategic RPGs. It’s certainly the RPG I’ve found myself thinking most about when I’m not playing, in quite some time! Here at Ghostlight Towers, we’re really excited to bring you the latest and best version of this gem of a game later this year. For more details on Lost Dimension as we work towards its PC release, keep an eye right here on the Blog as we’re aiming to post more info every week or so.  Until next time, take care.

- Blog written by Ghostlight Ltd.

All screens are taken from the PS3 version of Lost Dimension