The Lost Child

The Lost Child is a dungeon crawler RPG developed by Kadokawa Games led by Takayasu Sawaki – the creator of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. Among other platforms, the game is available on PS4, SWITCH and PSV.

Plot

The main protagonist of The Lost Child is Hayato Ibuki – a journalist who investigates a suicide committed on the Shinjuku station in Tokyo. On site, the main protagonist is pushed by the mysterious dark shadow right under the incoming train. He is rescued by Barcia – a beautiful woman, who offers him a mysterious suitcase. The suitcase contains a device called Demon Gun Gangour – allowing its user to capture and enslave both demons and fallen angels. This way, Hayato's life takes an unexpected turn – henceforth, he is tasked with finding Barcia and solving the mysteries plotted by the dark forces out of this world. On his journey, he encounters numerous astral beings – some of them are hostile, while other quite helpful.

Interestingly enough, even though the action of The Lost Child for PS4, SWITCH and PSV is set in a real world, the game hides certain references to Sawaki's previous game – the aforementioned El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. The most obvious references are Lucifel and Enoch – the main protagonists of that game, which are encountered by Hayato on his journey.

Mechanics

In the PS4, SWITCH and PSV release of The Lost Child players observe the action from first-person perspective. Gameplay revolves around traversing vast underground tunnels and fighting the demons crawling there – combat is turn based. The defeated enemies can be enslaved with the aforementioned device in order to use their unique traits in the battles to come.

Occasionally, a player gets to the surface where he can acquire useful information from NPCs – the interactions have been designed to resemble the form of visual novels – during an interaction, player can see 2D sprites of the participating characters with little animation effects, as well as the backgrounds presenting locations where the conversation is taking place.

Technical aspects

The Lost Child for PS4, SWITCH and PSV features mediocre visuals – this, however, regards only the 3D elements such as the models of the enemies who participate in the battles or the poor surroundings. It is much different when it comes to the aforementioned sprites, which feature a style typical for manga series, making the whole experience pleasing to one's eye.

Last updated on 21 August 2017