Trust is a funny thing, really. It's not always easy to put your faith in someone or something, without question, often having no proof it's the right thing to do, and instead having to rely solely on gut feelings. The odds are someone, somewhere, at some point in time has betrayed that trust too - a deep-rooted feeling that perhaps took years to build, shattered in an instant, and hard to get back again. Even so, you likely carry on trusting new people each and every day regardless - a bus driver not to crash, the guy in front of you in Tesco not to turn around and stab you, the battenburg cake you're eating not to be laced with cyanide - the list goes on. But what if you found yourself locked in a mysterious tower with ten strangers, only to be told you have to work together - but there was a traitor in your midst. Would you find it so easy to trust then? Such is the story for the recent Playstation 3 and PS Vita game, Lost Dimension...
There's several, in fact...
Setting the scene, the world is now on the brink of total destruction - but not because of some massive natural disaster or World War III. No, some loony calling himself 'The End' has aimed a boat-load of nuclear missiles at all the world's major cities and is planning to press the button in thirteen days time. Being a bit of an ego maniac, he's erected a huge tower, affectionately known as The Pillar, where he sits at the top, waiting for you and your team of eleven to put a stop to his evil scheme, before it's too late. Luckily, you're not just some average joes. Part of a group of elite psychics, known as the SEALED, you're part of a unit that have been cobbled together by the government to help fight The End. Despite having never met before, it's up to you to work together with your team to reach The End, building up trust with your team-mates as you go - but there's one catch. According to the bad guy himself, there are traitor(s) in your midst, who'll fight on his side come the final showdown. And as if that didn't make your job tricky enough, in order to work your way up the floors, you'll need to sacrifice one of your team each time. As your team gets smaller, the threat of the traitor(s) becomes ever more real, so you'd best pray you eliminate the right one each time!
A "getting to know your team-mates" themed visual novel, with added tactical role-playing battles tacked on for good measure, Lost Dimension certainly has an interesting premise, with more than a hint of a Dangonronpa-esque sense of foreboding. You and each of your ten companions have their own unique personalities and super powers, from the seemingly totally normal girl Yoko and her gift for telepathy; to the possibly American, justice-obsessed George who can apparently read the latent thoughts of objects (is that even a thing?!); to a calm and collected doctor, Sojiro, gifted in the healing arts - and let's not forget the kooky, cute-obsessed Mana, who puts on an 'adorable' fake English accent for… reasons, yet is seriously skilled when it comes to 'unfeminine' high-powered melee attacks. While a few characters and their abilities do seem a bit redundant, such as the guy who can copy others abilities (why not just use the original one?), and the aforementioned George's ability to talk to objects (although to be fair, he is pretty good with his sword), almost everyone on your team has their own unique way of making themselves useful. As for yourself, you play a character called Sho, whose secret ability is premonition, letting him see snippets of the future and hear chunks of his companions' thoughts - something that comes in rather useful when it comes to tracking down and eliminating the traitors in your midst.
Er... nice to meet you too, George...
Split into individual quests and missions, the meat of the game takes place on the battlefield, as you take down The End's many, many minions in turn-based, strategic battles. Deploying your character and five of your companions to the dilapidated city streets, ivy-covered ruins and underground factories of The Pillar, you'll need to take it in turns with your opponents to move around the stage and attack, defend and unleash special skills. Each character has a large orange circle around their feet, which shows the limits of how far you can move each turn, and any enemies within that zone will flash blue to show you can hit them with an attack - selecting your victim will bring up a percentage chance of you successfully hitting them, as well as whether they're likely to launch a counter attack afterwards. Nearby team members may also pile on the bad guy in question, and launch a few follow up attacks, providing the trust level between them is high enough.
One of Lost Dimension's more interesting mechanics though is it's 'Defer' option, which lets the active unit effectively give it's turn to one which has already gone. So, if you have some weaker units stacked behind some tougher guys, out of harms way, they can pass off their go to the ones closer to the enemies in the hope of defeating them quicker. However, it's not without it's costs - each time you use a 'Defer' (or even one of your special 'gift' abilities), the character's 'sanity' stat will drop slightly, and when it reaches zero, they'll become dazed, slicing their stats and stopping them moving for a turn - turning them into veritable sitting ducks.
We promise - battles aren't as complicated as they look!
Like general attacks, you have to be fairly close to your friends to be able to 'Defer' your turn to them, meaning that the placement of your party in and around the map is fairly important. With alleyways, corners and bits and pieces of scenery scattered around, placing weaker units in places where they'll avoid the most damage is key - although such close quarters can have their consequences. You see, Lost Dimension, at least on the portable Vita version, doesn't like you hiding in alleys, around corners and the like, and the camera does go a bit wacky during your opponents' turns. Where it's intending to show you what the enemy is doing on their turn, it actually ends up showing you close-ups of the wall or floor instead, leaving you to largely guess where your out-of-sight opponents are plotting instead. Still, we suppose it adds an air of mystery to the battles...
#wow #SuchStrategy #VeryEnemy
Between the missions, you're able to find out how things are hanging with your companions - and most importantly, increase your trust levels and try to figure out who the traitor(s) are. Only the first couple of folks you talk to will receive a boost in their friendship levels though, so it's up to you whether you decide to spread your love around or simply focus on one or two at a time (seeing as there are trophies for maxing out your relationship with each person) - although be warned: you'll likely need to bond with everyone fully in order to get the game's true ending. Likewise, the members you take with you on missions will also get a boost in their trust levels, so it's up to you whether you stick with a tried-and-trusted team or mix and match to keep everyone on a roughly equal footing. We recommend the former though, because you can never be 100% sure who's going to show themselves as the next traitorous scumbag. You'll also be able to upgrade your team member's skills and 'Gift' powers - strengthening their teleportation, healing or pyromaniac abilities and such - using the points they obtain each time they fight enough battles to level up, via a branching skill tree thing you can choose to power up existing abilities and unlock new ones to help you in future battles.
There's one problem though - however long you spend chatting, levelling up and upgrading these characters, there's always the possibility that they may not make it to the next floor of The End's tower. You see, once you reach the end of each stage, usually several story and side missions later, you and your companions are forced to make some tough decisions and vote off one of your party to be 'erased'. Erased, eliminated, killed - it doesn't matter what you call it, but once they're gone, they're gone, and you're left praying everyone voted the right way, and they were the traitor. Not quite everything is lost though, as the erased companion leaves behind a 'chip' of sorts that you can equip to get access to all their old skills - particularly useful in the unfortunate event of your main healing guy, Sojiro, being written out.
There's always a catch...
Fortunately you can give yourself a heads up of sorts by using the 'Vision' option between battles, which makes full use of our Sho's premonition skills. You see, following each and every mission, your guy will have a brief scene where he overhears the thoughts of the teammates he took with him - and when he senses a traitor among them, he'll let you know something seems off, although he won't be able to pinpoint exactly who to begin with. By shuffling folks in and out of teams and checking his response after each mission, you'll be able to get an idea of who the bad apples are - at which point you can head into the 'Vision' part of the menu and expend 'Vision Points' to confirm or deny your suspicions by digging through the accused's thoughts for a bit. There's one small problem though - these Vision Points come in limited quantities, earned through certain battles, and you can't afford to use them all willy-nilly.
An interesting concept, Lost Dimension is a great game for those who prefer their games slower paced and story-driven, and while tactical turn-based battles won't be everyone's cup of tea, they're not the most head-scratchingly intensive affairs either. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the whole game is it's writing, and sense of impending doom, with regards to whittling out the probable traitors in your midst - the identities of whom are shuffled around from playthrough to playthrough, meaning that you can never be 100% sure you've got the right guy until the final showdown…
Format Reviewed: PS Vita
