Lost Soul Aside's Kaser Isn't Final Fantasy 15's Noctis…

Lost Soul Aside may be more Devil May Cry than Final Fantasy, but that hasn't stopped comparisons to Square Enix's famed franchise. In fact, Lost Soul Aside looks like Final Fantasy so much that it's likely some players have jumped into it thinking it would be more akin to a class JRPG than the action-adventure hack-and-slash game that it really is. While the visuals in general conjure that Final Fantasy feeling, though, it's really Lost Soul Aside's main character, Kaser, that fuels those comparisons, as he is almost a spitting image of Final Fantasy 15's Noctis.

The more I play Lost Soul Aside, however, the more I find those comparisons are truly only skin-deep. Kaser is nothing like Noctis, despite the physical resemblance, and while I would like to say it's because he's better than Noctis, that's not the case at all. From what I've seen and heard, Kaser is nothing more than an ordinary hero — a face simply because the story needs one, but a face with no soul, no depth, no personality, and very little reason for me to see him as anything more than a tool in my hands for beating up Voidrax. At this point, I wish he were more like Noctis.

I Wish Lost Soul Aside's Kaser Were More Like His Big Brother

FF15's Noctis, Initially Written Off, Is an Incredibly Nuanced and Deep Protagonist

If anything proves just how interesting Final Fantasy 15's Noctis is as a protagonist, it's the fact that he was initially written off for being bland, angsty, and difficult to connect with. He is very soft-spoken and a bit aloof in his demeanor, making him seem like a shallow character — at least, at first. Over time, perceptions of Noctis drastically changed, my own included, as the latter half of Final Fantasy 15, as well as its DLCs, fleshed out his character to the point that I found him to be an incredibly nuanced and deep protagonist. And I wasn't alone in that perception either.

I will admit, I initially found Noctis to be this emo, insecure teenager that I just wanted to grab by the shoulders and shake some sense into. However, as I played more of Final Fantasy 15's story, and especially as I reached its end, he became one of my favorite Final Fantasy protagonists. I mean, he's no Clive Rosfield, but I'd give him a seat at Clive's right hand if it were up to me. What sealed the deal for me was his growth, as the story saw him going from this reluctant prince to a self-sacrificing king, but the game's emphasis on brotherhood also made him out to be a much stronger character than I initially gave him credit for.

Lost Soul Aside's Kaser Is Flat, Shallow, and Uninteresting

But that's just it for Lost Soul Aside's Kaser. The biggest problem with him is that he seems incapable of growing. I feel like the Kaser I have already seen in the few chapters I've completed is the Kaser he will be forever, largely because it seems like something should have changed by now, but he's still just this static, black-cloak-wearing, monotone hero who almost seems too mature to grow in any way that matters. He has the face and dialogue of a hero without the personality, the depth, and even the charm that makes one a more interesting protagonist to watch.

Even when tragedy struck him within Lost Soul Aside's prologue, I found his pain, not just difficult to believe, but challenging to even care about. For some reason, it just feels like something like that should have taken more of a toll on him than it did, but because his lack of personality makes him out to be this ghost of a man inside a Noctis-looking shell, if he tried to communicate that pain to me, I either missed it or it just wasn't communicated very well. If nothing else, his resemblance to Noctis just makes me miss the multi-layered emo prince and wish Kaser was more like his big brother. Hopefully I'm wrong about this one and something eventually changes, but it looks rather set in stone at this point.

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