These days if a niche Japanese game is taking itself seriously, you can bet your figure collection that it’s probably centered on a Battle Royale-style “zero sum” gimmick. It’s an easy way to both shock the audience regardless of context, as well as make some laser-focused commentary on some of the more negative aspects of Japanese culture. Like the Battle Royale novel, Lost Dimension and many of its peers introduce a set of rules forced upon the cast, ostensibly forcing them to murder one another at a first glance.

The gimmick in Lost Dimension is sudden betrayal. You take on the role of an elite task force sent to take out The End, a cartoonish villain who somehow got his hands on a ton of nukes. At some point before the game begins he gets the better of your team, fiddles with your memories and traps you in a tower full of evil-villain-lair tech. All The End wants the heroes to do is climb the tower and challenge him at the top, with one caveat: Traitors are in the group, and after each floor’s mission the team has to vote on who to “erase.” Drama!

Lost Dimension has a goofy setup, a slick look and compelling combat, but the writing is a little dry. Here's the thing: the traitors are random. Each run through the game switches up which characters are the culprits, therefore which characters die and which characters stick around through the game. In what may have been an attempt to circumvent larger challenges, the storytelling is pretty bare-bones.

This is problematic, as Lost Dimension wants you to take the time to talk to everyone, to build relationships and finally despair when your favorite character betrays you and must be punished, or you vote wrong and lose even more. But every character ha the personality of a wood plank, and talking to them never amounts to more than small talk.

Beyond the writing, when a character disappears they leave an item behind that can attach to another character. This item grants that character’s unique skills to whoever equips it. At this point, the gimmick falls apart. The characters aren't interesting enough to carry weight when they leave your party, and the mechanical stakes are proportionately low. From a storytelling standpoint, Lost Dimension isn't quite on par with such offerings as 999 or Danganronpa.

That said, Lost Dimension does succeed quite a bit as a tactical RPG. It has a neat pseudo-cyberpunk visual style, involved, unique skill trees for each character and smart, engaging combat.

For starters, each character has their own “Gift,” which inform their individual skill sets all the way through. The main character has inhuman perception for example, and in addition to plot-related shenanigans he also has a bunch of neat passive skills and accuracy-centric attacks. Another character levitates and a third I was fond of could punch things really, really hard.

On the battlefield, positioning is key. Proximity to other characters, within their respective attack ranges means assist combos. One character leads a strike, then anyone nearby pops off a shot or throws a punch. You can seriously swarm enemies of done well, and enemies can do the same right back. Honestly, this sole mechanic does a lot to shake up the usual tactics RPG fare and bolster the pace as well as any added nuance.

Lost Dimension is a great game to play, but not a great game to experience if you need a good story to go along with your dozens-of-hours JRPG. The idea of any character suddenly turning traitor and/or leaving the game for good is intriguing on paper, but the developers and writers played it far too safe, as if they were worried about challenging the player too much. That said, just going through the levels is a blast, as the assist combos are super satisfying to set up and the various skill trees all feel distinct and meaningful. Lost Dimension is a good time in terms of pure gameplay, but it also suffers from a case of Lost Identity.

Hint: It can be hard to see at first, especially on Vita, but pay attention to where you're setting your units before a battle. It isn't totally clear at first glance. Positioning matters, especially considering the variety of skill sets at play.

by Lucas White