Lost Soul Aside Review

Looks good, but does it have any depth?

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Title: Lost Soul Aside

Release: August 28, 2025

Platform: PS5 PC

Developer: Ultizero Games

Publisher: PlayStation Publishing LLC

Genre: Action RPG

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 13 Hours

Lost Soul Aside is one of those games that pulls you in fast with flashy combat and visual style, but the longer you spend with it the more you start to notice the seams. You feel the thrill of chaining combos and dashing through enemies, then catch yourself wondering if the game has enough depth to keep that momentum alive. This is a story about spectacle, but it is also a story about whether spectacle alone is enough.

Where it starts

You will play as Kaser, a man who has returned home and is suddenly thrown into a small rebellion group that includes your sister and some friends she has made. With a skill for weapons, your presence is crucial in achieving their goals. But on the night of the rebellion, the city is attacked by strange creatures. During the chaos, Kaser falls into a pit and meets Arena, an ancient dragon with special powers, willing to help fight these new enemies. Kaser uses Arena’s help to battle his way to the surface to save his sister, but he isn’t quite fast enough. However, he might be able to save her soul with Arena at his side.

Arena the Dragon

Arena will cover your weapons while you fight, block attacks when you tell him, and provide abilities to help. Up to three abilities can be equipped at once, each with its own cooldown period after use. After enough attacks, he can greatly assist Kaser with a bloodrage-like attack period, dealing a lot of damage for a short time. During some fights, after dealing enough damage, you can break the enemy’s guard and use Arena to unleash a long combo during which you’re invincible.

Weapons & Their Uses

As you progress through the game, new weapon types will be introduced, typically when you need to use them to activate a mechanism in the current area. Once unlocked, you’ll start to find different variations of weapons, offering elemental attacks and other features. During combat, you’ll be able to hot swap between any weapon type at any time, providing an opportunity to string together some impressive combos with the right moves.

Spending Skill Points

While opening chests and fighting enemies, you will earn skill points that are spent in the skill trees unlocked by weapons. Each weapon type has its own skill tree with skills that provide new moves and combos, as well as passive abilities like allowing you to wear more trinkets or carry more potions. The further along the tree you go, the more points are needed to unlock a new skill.

Bedazzle Your Weapons

The more you fight and explore, the more weapon ornaments you’ll find. Your weapons can hold a few ornaments, buffing them with better stats in combat. The ornaments come in different shapes and sizes, and can be put anywhere on you weapon. You can even make any ornament look like any other you’ve found, for better symmetry, while you bedazzle your tools of destruction. Or just throw everything in the same spot for the benefits, forgoing any sense of design.

So. Much. Talking!

During combat, Kaser or Arena make callouts based on what’s happening, like if you need to heal or are about to be attacked by a ranged enemy. At first, it seemed like a helpful mechanic, but it didn’t take long to become one of the most obnoxiously annoying aspects of the game. Sometimes they would be talking throughout the entire fight, interrupting each other and themselves so quickly. I looked, but sadly, I couldn’t find a way to turn it off or at least reduce how much they talk.

Can the kids watch (check settings)

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

I didn’t go into this game with high hopes, nor was I dreading the experience. I try to approach games with a neutral mindset and let the game shape my feelings. Fortunately, because of that, I wasn’t too disappointed when the game revealed what it was really about. This didn’t turn out to be a great game, and sadly, one of the few I’d struggle greatly to beat. I ended up setting it aside after thirteen hours of play, there’s only so many times I can yawn before falling asleep while playing. Maybe it improves at hour fourteen, but that’s too long for a game to only start getting good.

Visually, some of the cut scenes looked great, and the game looks good while playing. My biggest issue would be the character designs. Kaser looks awesome from behind, but his face was lacking. In terms of emotions or realism, it was too clean and smooth; it just seemed off. Other characters had some very bizarre proportions—huge shoulders or long legs with tiny heads, and I’m pretty sure that had nothing to do with the story. Aside from those small oddities, graphically, this game was pretty good.

The story had potential, but it was a little convoluted. Voidrax causing problems now was something that had happened before. Someone was having a premonition of everything that would happen, and suddenly I was the only one able to save the day by fighting the bad guys until their corruption was gone. Yet, they wouldn’t help me with their friends. I’ll admit, it was tough to stay engaged with the ongoing narrative and catch everything that was happening. It could be an amazing story, but the delivery just isn’t there.

Along with a boring story, there was a lackluster combat system. It’s a hack-and-slash with some cool-looking moves you can pull off, but it didn’t give a sense of having to learn combos and techniques to win fights. Regardless of weapon type, I would tap a few quick attacks, with a heavy attack thrown in for good measure, using skills and cooldowns when available, and the occasional perfect dodge or block when necessary, would get me through every fight. I was impressed with the variety of boss fights in the game; at least they had unique gimmicks to deal with. Although sometimes, the gimmick was an absurd amount of defense, turning the fight into a test of endurance.

Ultimately, this game didn’t offer anything that would excite me to start it up again. There were far too many annoyances that drove me to the point of being overly critical about nearly every aspect of the game. In the beginning there were tutorial windows over explaining everything, almost to the point of tutorial windows explaining how to read tutorial windows. The repetition of conversations, different people, but the same chat and repeating the need to find a mechanism to use a weapon on. I was especially annoyed at Arena and Kaser repeating themselves during combat, it almost felt condescending when I would use a potion and Arena would call out “Good Idea”, like dam, I know weird dragon guy, my health was low.

Alright, sorry about the small rant there, this is a good point to turn my thoughts into numbers so we can place this game on a shelf.

The visuals were great a lot of the time, but it felt lacking in character design, I’m giving it a 3.

The story was confusing, in part because it didn’t keep my attention enough I’m sure, still, I’m handing it a 2

The gameplay was simple, but very repetitive, Smashing the same button over and over again would get me through without a need or want to learn much more, that’s another 2.

Absolutely no replayability, I couldn’t get through the game once, that’s getting a 0

I had very little fun getting through the game, try as it might, it never sucked me in with much enjoyment, that’s getting a 1

Earning Lost Soul Aside an average score of 1.6 out of 5, placing on my bottom shelf. If you are into hack and slash games, you may want to give this a try after a deep sale, but there are a lot better games like this out there.