The Lost Child Reviews

The Lost Child is a JRPG that follows-up on 2011’s El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. Set in contemporary Japan, you play as an occult journalist named Ha

Kadokawa Games' follow-up-slash-spin-off to El Shaddai takes things in a rather different gameplay direction. Though the spirit-summoning dungeon-crawler invites some obvious comparisons, there are enough distinguishing elements to make it worth a look.

The Lost Child is a dull, uninspired dungeon crawler. On paper, a Lovecraft dungeon crawler with a Japanese flair could be something truly iconic and memorable. Instead of realizing that ideal, The Lost Child apes existing dungeon crawlers and throws a dozen ideas at the wall, with none of them managing to stick. Combat can be fun and the El Shaddai nods are cute, but it isn’t enough to make this cosmic terror worth losing your sanity over.

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Sawaki Takeyasu finally created a follow-up to his stylish 2011 action game but it's not quite what you'd expect. The Lost Child is a first-person dungeon crawler but does it do enough to stand out in this somewhat crowded genre?

Old-school dungeon crawlers aren’t all that common these days, so The Lost Child made for a refreshing experience. A little more depth – and better balanced difficulty – in the combat wouldn’t have gone amiss, though. But even as it is, The Lost Child is worth picking up. Whether its age-old tale of angels and demons does it for you is your call, but gameplay alone is enough to make this a worthwhile timesink. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more demons to go and capture.

This dungeon crawler takes heavy influence from Shin Megami Tensei but mostly feels like a poor imitation.