Lost Soul Aside Takes the Wrong Page From Horizon’s Script

Ultizero Games' Lost Soul Aside showed a lot of promise ahead of its launch, and in some ways, it delivered on that promise. Unfortunately, in many other ways, it has failed to live up to the hype that carried it toward its launch, with significant performance issues, repetitive gameplay, underwhelming English voice acting, and more. While the developer has committed to putting some oil on Lost Soul Aside's performance issues, there is little that can be done about the game's other points of criticism, which boil down to the heart and soul of its story and gameplay.

One thing that is really difficult to ignore about Lost Soul Aside is its dialogue, especially if the game is played with English voice acting turned on. This is largely because the bulk of its dialogue is incredibly cheesy, and even though it's cheesy to the point of almost being endearing, it has a way of taking large chunks out of the game's immersion and what is supposed to be a very serious world-threatening problem. While Lost Soul Aside's dialogue in general is craggy, though, a lot of those rough edges are the result of something that even Guerrilla Games' Horizon series has been guilty of: overexplaining pretty much everything.

Lost Soul Aside Talks as Much as Horizon's Aloy

Horizon's Aloy Is Known for Overexplaining Things

While it's not necessarily a universal criticism, one thing that many players have noted about Horizon's Aloy is how much she overexplains things. Even when she's not with anyone, players can hear her making comments about what she's doing, where she's going, and what's happening in the story. On the one hand, that kind of self-dialogue is okay, as it serves as a window into the character's mind when there's no one else around for her to talk to. However, it's when she begins basically guiding players through exploration, puzzles, and combat scenarios that tends to take the joy of discovery out of it all.

Aloy Training in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

This is ultimately where Aloy's tendency to overexplain things gets in the way. Players who prefer not to have their hand held through everything they're doing might want Aloy to just stop talking for a bit so they can have a chance to figure things out on their own. This is where the criticism about Horizon's Aloy talking too much is actually pretty divisive, though, as some not only see it as the game's way of communicating her thoughts, but also as a way to gently nudge players in the right direction without spelling things out with a clear objective marker or path to follow.

Lost Soul Aside Talks so Much It Interrupts Itself

Lost Soul Aside, on the other hand, isn't even modest enough to be divisive. From the beginning of the game, Lost Soul Aside's Kaser shows himself to be an expert at all puzzles, even when those puzzles aren't really challenging enough to be referred to as such. He frequently chimes in with solutions that are almost too helpful in light of how simple each problem is. It's the same issue Horizon's Aloy has run into, though one could say Kaser is on an entirely different level.

It's not just Kaser either, as the game talks so much that it often interrupts itself. Rarely does Lost Soul Aside's story take a beat between moments just to let characters breathe for a bit, and conversations between characters frequently play out like an episode of Gilmore Girls, where each character seems to know what the other is going to say before they even say it, resulting in a pre-emptively reply. Apart from conversations, Lost Soul Aside's characters spend too much time explaining things that can be clearly seen, and even if they can't, it might have been better if they were left to assumptions.

To be fair, overexplanation has been a characteristic of Chinese/Japanese role-playing games since their inception, but Lost Soul Aside feels like it took what was once just a habit and made it an intentional practice. Fortunately, this intentionality has almost made Lost Soul Aside unintentionally funny, but that depends on perspective.

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