Parent's Guide: Lost Dimension - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is Lost Dimension?

Part "choose your own adventure" style visual novel, part turn-based strategy, Lost Dimension a game of trust and betrayal. As ten strangers are locked in a tower by a villain known as The End - a villain who plans to blow the world up in just thirteen days time - it's up to you to work together and put a stop to his evil scheme. But there's a catch - The End hasn't come to the party without any backup, and it turns out there's are several traitors amongst your midst. With every floor you climb, you'll have to leave one of your party behind before you can continue - play your cards right, and you'll ditch the traitor on every floor. Get it wrong, and by the time you make it to the final showdown, you'll be outnumbered and outgunned. So it's up to you to figure out who's most likely to betray you, as your number of teammates rapidly dwindles around you.

What do you do in Lost Dimension?

In terms of the actual gameplay, you and your team members have various missions you need to complete - which mostly involve heading out onto the battlefields of the tower and taking out all the enemies you come across in a number of turn based, strategy centric battles. Being of the strategic variety, how you position your troops here is key. Taking it in turns to move each character, the maximum distance they can move each go is shown by an orange circle around their feet, while any enemies you're close enough to attack will flash blue. From there, you can pick a target, based on which has the highest chance of being hit, is least likely to counter or is one your companions can launch follow up attacks on in order to take down the bad guys in as few turns as possible. Different characters have different strengths and weaknesses, so you'll want to try and keep the stronger, more melee-focused guys on the front line, with the weaker longer-range attackers further back, out of harm's way - all while buffing and healing your teammates with support characters. There's a lot to think about and a lot to manage, making this a game for the more logical thinkers, who prefer to take their time with things, rather than those who prefer more quick-fire action - think more Fire Emblem and Disgaea than Mario or Kingdom Hearts! Between the missions, you can chat with your teammates, increase their trust levels and hopefully figure out who the bad eggs are before it's too late.

How tricky is it to get the hang of Lost Dimension?

With strategy focussed battles, Lost Dimension requires a lot of forward planning, and plenty of logical thought. You'll need to be careful not to leave your weaker characters exposed, whilst making good use of each character's unique abilities - something best suited to older players. Outside of the missions, Lost Dimension gets very text heavy, and while a good portion of it is fully voiced in English, there are some sections that aren't, making a good reading ability pretty much a must to fully understand the goings on.

In terms of mature content, Lost Dimension is probably fairly average - aimed at the older player, there's a few instances of bad language (b*stard, sh*t, w*nker and b*gger, for example), the occasional blood splatter effect from a slashing sword attack (although enemies simply fall over and disappear when defeated), and a handful of innuendos during conversations. Stuff like "I've no intention of accepting your friendliness tinged in sexual desire", "I wouldn't know in terms of physical pleasure. I've never had sex before" and "I'm sure the chance to debut is higher with a cute face and big boobs" is about as risque as it gets though - and nothing untoward is shown whatsoever.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: PS Vita