I love Namie's art, metroidvanias and souls-likes, so I had to play it. Lost Epic is enjoyable for the most part, but the spam of repeated enemies was getting on my nerves. Sidequests are usually just fighting hordes of enemies. Mini-bosses feature a bunch of adds. After doing your main objectives, the game still makes you go and collect a bunch of shit in order to finally get to the end.

So, why even play this game? Well... The combat is just way too satisfying! There are many weapons and skills to unlock, so you can do some cool combos and kill enemies pretty fast if you're good enough (I'm not). Also, while I don't like the basic enemies (of course, after having to fight so many of them...), the bosses are quite decent.

I keep complaining about the enemies, but I have to say: bow and arrows did make the game more bearable. I also learned that parrying and blocking are more reliable than just dodging like in Dark Souls. Still, I hold my ground about the lack in enemy variety.

Gameplay: B
Level design: D
Visuals: B
Music: B
Difficulty: Hard

Have you ever come across that rare game which you actually never heard about before, but you immediately fall in love with when you see, and end up buying that very instant? Because that's exactly my experience with Lost Epic, and I can only think of a few games that feel made for me and vibe with me like that. Lost Epic is a 2D side-scrolling action RPG, it combines a lot of elements from the Metroidvania and the Souls-like genre, which both of them are basically the core of its narrative and its gameplay.

The game has a common fantasy setting, with knights, witches, dragons and Gods, and even in the intro, it doesn't hide its inspiration from Dark Souls at all. Along your journey, you meet various NPCs, each one with their own short story, usually asking you to complete a task for them. While the game leans more to the "anime" aesthetic, with cutesy characters and some more over the top situations, I feel it succeeds really well in also mixing in the more moody atmosphere of a dark fantasy story. The story is probably secondary to the game itself, but I really enjoyed the world and its inner workings.

You're tasked with slaying six Gods as a knight, and from there you basically have the freedom to go anywhere you want, and tackle them at any order. The game is as open world as such a genre can allow, there are a few places that you can't visit without the necessary items, in a traditional Metroidvania fashion, but more often than not its the level of encounters that will probably hinder you. Still, exploration feels really rewarding because you often might find a good weapon early, or rare materials to craft items.

As far as the map goes, each one of the areas is distinct and for the most part, they also don't really feel like they consist of only one type of room each, there's always some sort of progressions visually, like exploring an infested castle and starting from the outskirts, progressing to the walls and then, you start to see more fucked up places as you go deeper into it. The areas usually employ some gimmicks too, which I'm a bit more mixed about, as they probably feel more frustrating than fun. However, once you start unlocking more shortcuts or finding the next checkpoint and resting station, navigation becomes a lot easier, so in the end they're not that bad.

What really impressed me with the game is how many different systems there are, that actually work quite well with each other. The combat itself is stamina based, with a roll for dodging, and there are four main weapon types to pick from and several sub weapons that act as support. By using the weapons, you unlock skills, that you can pass to other weapons, and despite the massive grind required to fully take advantage of this, you can still make some really cool builds, with most of the skills being really extravagant in both power and visuals. Furthermore, by leveling up, progressing or doing quests, you can boost your stats and get some neat passive skills as well. The game also features a lot of RPG staples like fishing, cooking and crafting, which a lot of quests are usually about as well.

The game is overly ambitious in its content, and while the main quest is straightforward, there are a lot side activities to do, a lot of endgame content and four endings to unlock. However, this is kind of my main issue with Lost Epic, most of that content feels like padding, many fetching and slaying quests, and there's a loooot of repetition with the enemies and the bosses. Even though each area introduces new enemy types, you still see some of them over and over again. The endgame itself is also a bit tedious and eventually requires a lot of backtracking, though the abundance of checkpoints helps with it. Difficulty wise, Lost epic is actually decently challenging, as far as an RPG's grinding allows it, but they also allow increasing and decreasing the difficulty of each individual area, similarly to what Dark Souls II does.

Last but not least, the main reason I even bought this game is actually the art. It's a strange fit for such a game, but I fell in love with Namie's character designs, and the game's aesthetics are awfully similar to what you'd expect from a Vanillaware game, with very vibrant colors and characters that pop. The game is an indie, and despite its ambitions, is not the most polished game ever, leading to some awkward bits, but despite that it feels like it has so much love poured to it.

Overall, it's a game that hits all the right boxes for me, and a massive surprise that I loved. Good combat, fantastic art and a cool narrative, it combines two of my favorite genres for something really special. It has its shortcomings, like the repetition or the movement being a bit janky at times, but I don't think any of them really detract from the fact that the core of it is just really good. It's a very enjoyable experience, with some neat levels and bosses.