Developed By: Ultizero Games

Published By: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Platforms: PlayStation 5 & PC

Reviewed On: PC

Review Code Provided By: PlayStation Asia

China has quickly become a major force in the gaming industry, producing billion-dollar successes like Genshin Impact and the highly anticipated Black Myth: Wukong. Global companies are paying attention—Sony even launched the China Hero Project to support local developers. One of the standout titles from this initiative is Lost Soul Aside.

A Familiar Story

You play as Kaser, a young man who grew up with his sister Louise as an orphan of war. Together, they join GLIMMER, a resistance group fighting against the Empire. During a festival in the Imperial Capital, GLIMMER launches an operation to spark rebellion. Kaser reluctantly lets Louise take part—a choice that soon proves disastrous.

Not long after, he encounters Lord Arena, who grants him part of his power and reveals the truth about the Voidrax, strange creatures suddenly attacking the city. It’s a serviceable setup, but the story quickly collapses under predictable and sometimes cringeworthy tropes. Kaser spends most of his journey moving from one area to another, collecting fragments in a desperate attempt to save Louise.

The real problem is that the game never gives you a reason to care about her. It clearly wants to deliver the emotional weight of The Last of Us, but when Louise dies, the moment is so poorly executed it borders on laughable. Instead of pulling me in, the story pushed me away. For players hoping for a rich, narrative-driven experience—this isn’t it.

Visuals Across Generations

If the story disappoints, maybe the visuals can impress? Unfortunately, they don’t. Lost Soul Aside awkwardly mixes PlayStation 5-quality assets with PlayStation 3-era textures, resulting in a presentation that feels both jarring and directionless. At times, it felt like a modern Final Fantasy dropped into an old Dynasty Warriors map.

On PC, the issues stand out even more—frequent texture pop-ins and dated effects like water splashes and lava flows break immersion. While character models show some promise, their designs lack creativity. Many wear masks, which conveniently saves the developers from animating dialogue.

Even enabling ray tracing feels pointless. I noticed no visual improvement, and my PC didn’t show any performance strain, leaving me wondering if the feature even works.

Audio and Animation Missteps

Audio design fares no better. The voice acting is flat, emotionless, and often unintentionally funny. When Kaser loses his sister, he sounds more like someone who misplaced his wallet than someone grieving.

Animations don’t match dialogue delivery either. Characters cycle through the same few gestures, while NPCs either flap their mouths out of sync—or don’t animate at all. Combined with the weak voice work, these issues break immersion and make the world feel half-finished.

Gameplay: The Saving Grace

Thankfully, combat is where Lost Soul Aside finally shines. The combo system is fluid, satisfying, and offers impressive depth. Each weapon tree expands your arsenal with new moves and attributes, and quick weapon-swapping allows for seamless combo chains that feel genuinely rewarding to master. It is easier to fight one enemy but in battles with multiple enemies, unreliable auto-targeting creates chaos, and off-screen attacks are poorly signaled. Your companion Lord Arena calls out warnings, but his voice often gets lost in the noise of combat.

Customization adds another layer, letting you tweak weapon stats and appearances. Unfortunately, clipping issues make some designs look unpolished. It has it novelty but after a few trying, I rather just hide the accessory from view. Weapon’s stats on the other hand can be modified with the accessories and is a good way to customize your playstyle. Luckily there are no meaningless stats so any stat increment will boost the characters combat effectiveness.

A thing that confuses me is the UI layout. Controller prompts are oddly placed, making certain inputs harder to follow than they should be. I always found it confusing that the skills trigger is L2 but the display for the skill is on the lower right side together with the weapons switching UI which is R2. Stamina also is hidden and only shown when you use it during gameplay in the middle of the screen, where all the action is. Little things like this seems menial but could effect a user experience with the game.

Exploration with a roll back

Outside combat, exploration leans on simple platforming, but stiff controls and sluggish movement make even basic jumps frustrating. There are multiple ways to traverse and explore in the game and it want you to with hidden rooms and areas which you can only access by testing your platforming skills.

That is if the game does not forget what you did and it will. The game has the weirdest save system where if you have explored and area and loot everything AND somehow died, you will be returned to the last auto save with all the items reset so you have to do it all again. This force me to save manually frequently incase I forget to return to collect the loot again.

A Project Gone Off the Rails

Despite flashes of fun, Lost Soul Aside feels like a game held together by duct tape. Encounters quickly turn grindy, with elites and bosses hiding behind shields that must be broken before you can deal real damage—a lazy mechanic that drags fights out.

Technical issues also pile up. Even PlayStation account link bonuses don’t work properly, leaving a stuck notification in the in-game mail. Meanwhile, the art direction feels confused—Western-style characters performing wuxia-inspired moves look out of place, and the “focus” effect makes environments look miniaturized, likely to mask weak textures.

The PC control also are all over the place where in some menu, you can press ESC key to return to the previous page but some menus the use right click as the return button. This inconsistency makes the game that feels unfinished.

What I Really Liked About Lost Soul Aside

• Combos — Deep, fluid, and rewarding to master. The combo system and its weapon types are clearly the shining star in this game.
• Weapon Customization — Adjusting stats and appearances adds welcome variety. It might look comical at first but it is really there to help with character improvement

What Missed The Mark

• Story — Predictable, clichéd, and poorly executed. Adding with the poor voice acting, the story felt like a cheap interpretation of another games story.
• Visuals — A messy mix of new and old assets with weak art direction. With texture pop in and also mixture of high and low resolution assets, it feels very displeasing to the eyes.
• Gameplay Loop — Repetitive grind, padded by frustrating shield mechanics. It does complement the combo centric system because of the amount of hits need to take an enemy down but it does cause some frustration.

Final Thoughts

Lost Soul Aside is a game of contrasts: an excellent combo system buried inside an otherwise sloppy and uninspired package. At RM259 on PlayStation, the asking price feels steep for what’s offered.

For those who love experimenting with complex combos, there’s some fun to be had. But for everyone else, the poor story, dated visuals, and repetitive design make it a disappointment. As one of the early showcases of Sony’s China Hero Project, it’s a shaky first impression—and in gaming, first impressions matter.

Final Score – 5/10