|| REVIEW || Lost Sea (PC)
Developed By : EastAsiaSoft Published By : EastAsiaSoft
Category : Roguelike, Indie, Action Release Date : July 5, 2016
The genre of roguelikes was one that I got into very late. Ironically, the reason I didn't like them at first was the reason that I love them now. The concept of constantly risking all or nothing to get as far as you can in a single run was frustrating just thinking about it. Until I realized it was just taking the simplicity of how games had to be back in the NES days, and giving them much more depth and a wider variety of things to do.
Lost Sea takes place off the Atlantic coast where you find yourself on an island in the Bermuda Triangle after being swept off by a storm. Naturally you want to escape, but its good ol' Bermudy, nobody's really known for making it out. What you discover is a series of islands, along with dozens of stranded survivors, and a quest for freedom that might not be as reachable as you'd like.
You begin your journey on the game's Tutorial island where you'll learn the gist of everything, as well as obtain your main weapon for the game : a machete. This will be crucial for staying alive and dealing with enemies, as well as hacking down some fences and bushes that might be blocking your paths, and getting inside crates that can contain coins. You'll also be introduced to the fact that each island you visit will have a number of tablets to find on them, as well as various crew members you can recruit to your team temporarily.
Once you're off this intro island, your reveal quest for survival and escape begins. Lost Sea is comprised of five different zones, each one made up of a series of islands. Luckily, while on the intro island, you meet a man who has a ship and is willing to help you navigate. How far you can navigate is determined by the tablets I mentioned above. You can stop at one island at a time, and each island will have up to three tablets scattered on it. The more of these you find, when you leave the current island you'll be able to move further down the chain.
However, getting to these tablets won't be so easy. Of the islands you'll visit, they come in three varying difficulties (simply Easy, Medium, and Hard). The only difference I noticed between these difficulties was the number of enemies you have to hack through on those islands. I personally didn't explore every area available in the later zones of the game, so maybe towards the end it also spices it up the types of enemies you see, but for the most part I saw the exact same types just in greater numbers.
As you kill enemies, you'll collect green orbs from them. These are your experience points which can be spent back on your ship along with all of the coins you collect. Coins can be put towards upgrades for the ship, which will help you on every island you visit. These can help by randomly unveiling different tablets, treasures, or crew members locations on each island you visit. The island itself won't be revealed to you, so you'll still have to explore and risk everything, but it'll be nice to have a particular heading to go in.
The experience points effect you directly. These can extend your health, your stamina, give you the ability to sprint or roll, and expand how many crew members you can recruit (you only start off being able to recruit one). Again, these are only purchasable with the experience you gain from killing enemies, so if you want more of these abilities you'll need to find more baddies to take down.
But, remember, Lost Sea is a roguelike. Which mean that just about everything you unlock and do won't transfer over after you die. All your progress will be lost, all your ship upgrades and abilities will be reset. However, you will be left with a couple of things. First, there is one upgrade you can purchase, which permanently lowers the cost of your abilities, so if you nab this one it stays for good. Second, if you succeed into making it past any zones, you'll be able to warp to starting in any of the later zones on any future runs. Lastly, you'll be awarded 100 gold and 100 experience for each tablet you collected on your last run, which will help you start off with some of those abilities right away.
The crew members you can find can help quite a bit. Each one comes with a set of abilities that can make it hard to choose who you want with you until you open more party slots. These guys can give you extra health, grant you extra attack damage, some are able to unlock big chests which grant you some single-use power ups. Their abilities stack as well, so if you recruit two members and both offer a boost to your attack, you'll have that boost applied twice instead of just once.
In the end, I obviously very much enjoyed the time I have spent playing Lost Sea. Not because of it being a roguelike, but because of how much it didn't feel like one. For some reason, bouncing from island to island broke that feeling up a bit. Nevertheless though, it's a great game. Combat is fun, even in the boss fights where your crew members get yeeted out of the arena, but you still get to enjoy any buffs they apply to you.
So if you're a fan of roguelikes, or if you just like a fun animated game where you can run around and hack at various enemies, this is easily a game for your library. Prepare yourself to lose a ton of time into this one and who knows? Maybe you'll be one of the first to escape the Bermuda Triangle.
Lost Sea takes place off the Atlantic coast where you find yourself on an island in the Bermuda Triangle after being swept off by a storm. Naturally you want to escape, but its good ol' Bermudy, nobody's really known for making it out. What you discover is a series of islands, along with dozens of stranded survivors, and a quest for freedom that might not be as reachable as you'd like.
You begin your journey on the game's Tutorial island where you'll learn the gist of everything, as well as obtain your main weapon for the game : a machete. This will be crucial for staying alive and dealing with enemies, as well as hacking down some fences and bushes that might be blocking your paths, and getting inside crates that can contain coins. You'll also be introduced to the fact that each island you visit will have a number of tablets to find on them, as well as various crew members you can recruit to your team temporarily.
Once you're off this intro island, your reveal quest for survival and escape begins. Lost Sea is comprised of five different zones, each one made up of a series of islands. Luckily, while on the intro island, you meet a man who has a ship and is willing to help you navigate. How far you can navigate is determined by the tablets I mentioned above. You can stop at one island at a time, and each island will have up to three tablets scattered on it. The more of these you find, when you leave the current island you'll be able to move further down the chain.
However, getting to these tablets won't be so easy. Of the islands you'll visit, they come in three varying difficulties (simply Easy, Medium, and Hard). The only difference I noticed between these difficulties was the number of enemies you have to hack through on those islands. I personally didn't explore every area available in the later zones of the game, so maybe towards the end it also spices it up the types of enemies you see, but for the most part I saw the exact same types just in greater numbers.
As you kill enemies, you'll collect green orbs from them. These are your experience points which can be spent back on your ship along with all of the coins you collect. Coins can be put towards upgrades for the ship, which will help you on every island you visit. These can help by randomly unveiling different tablets, treasures, or crew members locations on each island you visit. The island itself won't be revealed to you, so you'll still have to explore and risk everything, but it'll be nice to have a particular heading to go in.
The experience points effect you directly. These can extend your health, your stamina, give you the ability to sprint or roll, and expand how many crew members you can recruit (you only start off being able to recruit one). Again, these are only purchasable with the experience you gain from killing enemies, so if you want more of these abilities you'll need to find more baddies to take down.
But, remember, Lost Sea is a roguelike. Which mean that just about everything you unlock and do won't transfer over after you die. All your progress will be lost, all your ship upgrades and abilities will be reset. However, you will be left with a couple of things. First, there is one upgrade you can purchase, which permanently lowers the cost of your abilities, so if you nab this one it stays for good. Second, if you succeed into making it past any zones, you'll be able to warp to starting in any of the later zones on any future runs. Lastly, you'll be awarded 100 gold and 100 experience for each tablet you collected on your last run, which will help you start off with some of those abilities right away.
The crew members you can find can help quite a bit. Each one comes with a set of abilities that can make it hard to choose who you want with you until you open more party slots. These guys can give you extra health, grant you extra attack damage, some are able to unlock big chests which grant you some single-use power ups. Their abilities stack as well, so if you recruit two members and both offer a boost to your attack, you'll have that boost applied twice instead of just once.
In the end, I obviously very much enjoyed the time I have spent playing Lost Sea. Not because of it being a roguelike, but because of how much it didn't feel like one. For some reason, bouncing from island to island broke that feeling up a bit. Nevertheless though, it's a great game. Combat is fun, even in the boss fights where your crew members get yeeted out of the arena, but you still get to enjoy any buffs they apply to you.
So if you're a fan of roguelikes, or if you just like a fun animated game where you can run around and hack at various enemies, this is easily a game for your library. Prepare yourself to lose a ton of time into this one and who knows? Maybe you'll be one of the first to escape the Bermuda Triangle.
Game Rating : 8/10
Pick up the game HERE on Steam
This game was played and reviewed on PC (Steam)
Also available on : Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Also available on : Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
