Following on from the success of I Am Setsuna, Tokyo RPG Factory has been hard at work on a new role-playing game called Lost Sphear that will be released early next year.
The premise of Lost Sphear has the protagonist Kanata awake to find out that his hometown is disappearing. To stop this from happening across the world, Kanata and his friends will try to rebuild the world around them by channeling their Memories into matter.
The game itself will follow on functionally from I Am Setsuna but with a revamped and improved ATB system, where players will be able to adjust their strategy mid-fight.
Personally, I am really glad that Square Enix is funding more role-playing games like this. I enjoyed I Am Setsuna a great deal; especially it’s lovely musical score by Tomoki Miyoshi.
What is interesting here though is that the Vita version has been dropped in favor of the Switch. While I have a lot of love for the Vita, I think this is a wise choice, especially as I rate the Switch version of I Am Setsuna over the other releases.
Talking of the Switch version of I Am Setsuna, I do plan to review it soon. It’s a great game and needs to be in any Switch owner’s library.
One final thing about Lost Sphear that does stand out to me is that its narrative sounds very reminiscent of the Ursula K. Le Guin novel The Farthest Shore. Part of the Earthsea series, it features a loss of magic, names and memory which in turn threatens to destroy the world. Some of the events of this book and its sequel Tehanu also made it into the rather disappointing anime movie Tales from Earthsea but I digress.
In any case, a classically structured Japanese role-playing game that channels any form of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work is entirely fine by me and I look forward to playing Lost Sphear once it is released next year.
Lost Sphear will be released on PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch early next year for $49.99.

Source: Forbes