Whatever moral fibre Lost Sphear had seems to have been 'lost' by the immaculate moon.

The great irony is, of course, that is was precisely this combination of feature creep and narrative bloat that moved the JRPG away from the tight-focused joys of the Super Nintendo era and which, eventually, inspired the creation of Tokyo RPG Factory.

Going into 2018, Lost Sphear was one of my most anticipated games of this year. That's because I am Setsuna was easily one of my favorite games last year, specifically on Nintendo Switch where I played it.

The new combat system is a dazzling dance of turn-based action; Each area is gorgeous and colorful; The Memories system lets you shape the world how you see fit

A cast of lifeless characters with no real personality; Occasional stuttering and frame rate problems on Switch; Tags

From Square Enix's Tokyo RPG Factory comes Lost Sphear , a spiritual successor of sorts to I Am Setsuna, and like its predecessor, Lost Sphear is a nod back to the popular, and often lauded, '90s RPGs such as Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger .

If there ever was a blueprint for how a JRPG from the 90s should be designed, Lost Sphear is a game that would follow it to the letter. But instead of it having some form of special valuable selling point or aspect that sets itself apart from the norm, the game just simply exists as some form of...

Decently engaging combat; Story becomes engaging later on; Streamlined and traditional mechanics; Options to skip and fast forward are pretty welcome; Some nice vistas at times

Characters are basically embodiments of tropes; Really traditional and predictable story; despite it becoming engaging in later acts; Extremely slow paced; Visuals leave much to be desired; Plain boring at the best of times

One of my favorite aspects of video games as a medium is its penchant to evolve. Japanese role playing games have been around for over decades and they've gone through a myriad of changes over the years.

Old school JRPG fans will find much to enjoy here, but the refusal to innovate does more harm than good for the genre's reputation.

Solid battle system and plenty of ancillary features and systems; The ideas behind the main plot are interesting, and unusually meta; Great soundtrack

A purposeful lack of new ideas, and sloppy implementation of a number of old ones; Bland script and characters; Surprisingly short and unwarrantedly expensive

Lost Sphear is out now on PS4, and in times of turmoil and uncertainty, we always know that Square Enix will keep those RPGs coming. This is a game from the developers of I am Setsuma, which was an enjoyable adventure that ended up getting a little tedious come the later hours.

The developers of the little jRPG I Am Setsuna, which released in 2016, are back 18 months later with Lost Sphear. Fans of their previous release know exactly what they are in for, a throwback to the old days of jRPG's on SNES and PSOne with enough updates to the formula to be enjoyable in the...

Since the moderate success of I Am Setsuna, it was clear that Tokyo RPG Factory had captured that classic JRPG vibe that had been missing for quite some time, namely the battle system that put Chrono Trigger on the map.

Great introduction; Story ramps up towards the end; Positional combat and other improvements over I Am Setsuna

Bland characters with linear middle of plot; No one mechanic gets the chance to excel; Highly derivative of classic JRPG tropes