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Misplaced Soul Apart has come a good distance since its preliminary promotional video went viral again in 2016, with tremendous slick fight and visuals being sufficient to catch Sony’s consideration. 9 years later, the ultimate product is a PS5 console exclusive that largely lives as much as the exhilarating battles and landscapes that have been proven that day.
Nonetheless, its shallow story and poor efficiency on PC makes Misplaced Soul Apart generally really feel like a husk of an motion journey recreation.
Lost Soul Aside follows a young man named Kaser as he joins a resistance group named Glimmer against the empire. It starts off as a potentially intriguing and politically engaged story, but quickly devolves into a generic adventure about saving the world against interdimensional monsters called Voidrax and their commander, Aramon. The plot twists are obvious, so it’s hard to really stay invested, even when the stakes are increased when the Voidrax steal the soul of Kaser’s sister, Louisa.
Along the way, Kaser joins forces with a floating dragon-shaped Voidrax creature named Arena, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed their banter together as they traveled across different biomes and dimensions. Arena expresses regrets about his past actions and vows to make amends by giving Kaser the ability to fight back against the Voidrax. Learning more about Arena’s backstory kept me engaged with the game outside of the combat even when the story itself was a plodding bore.
DMC meets Final Fantasy
The gameplay is where it really shines. Its real-time action combat plays most like Devil May Cry with its heavy emphasis on combos, and also you’ll achieve entry to extra weapons as the sport progresses. Between Kaser’s 4 choices, a sword, greatsword, spear, and scythe, it’s immensely satisfying to seamlessly change between every of them through the warmth of battle.
Whereas the tempo at which the spear and scythe are unlocked later within the recreation could also be a bit gradual, there are many combos to execute with the sword and greatsword through the first half. That is as a result of glorious improve system. Kaser has a talent tree for every of his weapons, and every node offers a stat enhance or some type of observe up assault to his combos. It isn’t essentially revolutionary, however its simple nature will get the job accomplished. This helps to alleviate the pacing hole between unlocking all of Kaser’s weapons.
Misplaced Soul Apart will get much more of a visible spectacle by giving Kaser his personal Voidrax-infused particular assaults with Enviornment. They change up the gameplay sufficient so it’s not a relentless button mashing affair. Kaser can equip as much as three at a time they usually differ fairly a bit.
My favourite ones embrace Breath Barrage, which summons two floating smaller Enviornment-shaped heads that robotically hearth like turrets. Lifeforce Bestower summons a tree that slowly heals Kaser so long as he stays inside vary.
Greatest bit
Misplaced Soul Apart is at its greatest if you’ve unlocked all of Kaser’s weapons. The fight is probably the most refined facet of the sport and with the ability to change between weapons on the fly makes battles really feel like butter, even with the lower than best body price. The weapon trinkets and equipment that Kaser can equip have a compounding affect on the moment-to-moment motion, including a stunning quantity of depth and customization to fight.
These powers additionally add a extra strategic factor to the fights. After breaking an enemy’s protect, I’d activate Breath Barrage in order that I can maximize my injury output earlier than they will get better, and Lifeforce Bestower lets me reserve my very own therapeutic potions so long as I play conservatively for an period of time. Experimenting with how Enviornment’s powers may synergize with Kaser’s combos gave the gameplay a brand new dimension to have enjoyable with.
Kaser may also increase his weapons with equipment discovered all through ranges in chests or rewards for story development. They offer numerous results like merely rising your injury output by 5% or restoring some quantity of HP when touchdown a crucial hit. At first, these don’t actually appear to make speedy modifications. Nevertheless, as you accumulate extra weapon equipment and even stronger ones, their affect turns into obvious. It actually scratches the min-max a part of my mind though there’s no conventional stat improve system.
Not so smooth
On the graphical side, Lost Soul Aside is impressive. It’s got the hyper-realistic anime style that Final Fantasy is thought for. The quite a few biomes and environments are breathtaking to take a look at too. Whereas ranges can really feel a bit railroaded generally, there are situations the place you’re inspired to discover and might discover chests containing gold or generally even trinkets Kaser may equip on himself for passive results.
There are additionally particular fight trials known as Dispersed Dimensions hidden all through the degrees that present rewards for beating them below sure situations like finishing below a time restrict or Kaser’s well being always drains. The rewards have been undoubtedly worthwhile because the trinkets have been rarer and had extra highly effective results than those you’d discover in chests.
Nevertheless, the expertise is mired by poor efficiency on PC. There are fixed stutters and framerate drops in every single place, each out and in of battle. Even opening up the menu causes a little bit of lag, and there’s a few second of a delay the place the display turns to black earlier than returning again into the sport, which is noticeably annoying. The efficiency is especially detrimental contemplating Misplaced Soul Apart is a fast-paced motion recreation and each second issues otherwise you threat dropping.
For instance, there’s a particular Dispersed Dimension problem the place enemies can solely be broken by Enviornment’s assaults. With all the particle results activating concurrently, this precipitated my recreation to decelerate to a crawl, and even freeze for a couple of seconds earlier than resuming. This identical trial additionally provides a bonus reward if full with out taking any injury. With efficiency points like these, assembly this situation was frustratingly unattainable.
The stuttering may also be an enormous drawback throughout platforming segments. Lacking a platform bounce actually will get on the nerves, particularly when it sends you all the way in which again to the beginning of the part. The platforming itself is awkward as effectively. His leaping vary fluctuates an excessive amount of, inflicting me to overlook extra platforms than I’d prefer to admit. When Kaser’s toes contact the bottom, it by no means feels fairly proper—the sensory affect feels too comfortable and doesn’t fairly follow the touchdown for me.
Misplaced Soul Apart arguably excels probably the most the place it issues: the frantic and thrilling gameplay, together with the beautiful visuals. The whole lot else round it, nevertheless, isn’t actually as much as par. Its story isn’t all that attention-grabbing, and the efficiency points on PC depart a lot to be desired. Its influences are actually obvious, but it surely’s clear that its blade isn’t practically as sharp.
Should you play Lost Soul Aside?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility features
Lost Soul Aside has disappointingly few accessibility features compared to other Sony-published games.
However, there are options for Colorblind mode (Red, Green, Blue) and a Colorblind intensity slider. There are also sliders for adjusting camera sensitivity and motion blur.
How I reviewed Lost Soul Aside
I played Lost Soul Aside on PC for 23 hours and finished the main campaign, along with doing a majority of the Dispersed Dimensions and finding as many collectibles as I could. I used an Xbox Wireless Controller.
Your first playthrough may also be on Regular problem, and each Laborious and Nightmare difficulties are unlocked when you beat the marketing campaign for the primary time. You additionally get entry to degree replay.
My key PC specs embrace an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Processor CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM.
First reviewed August 2025.
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