Lost Sea, Cloned Bosses and Blocked Controllers

Lost Sea was purchased – surprisingly, not even on sale, but just like that, at full price, because it’s July and the traditional dead season. Simple, but not annoying graphics, island theme and levels that are rebuilt from cubes stored in the library each time – well, who knows, maybe it’s actually a good game being sold?

Again, there’s nothing to play anyway. Like in jokes about a lady’s wardrobe having nothing to wear, of course, but still having nothing to wear.

The fact that I couldn’t play my personal new game from Steam with a keyboard and mouse, I discovered only after purchasing it. In an arcade role-playing computer game with an isometric camera, the mouse is disabled. Forever. I was so happy about it that I even forgot that you can return a product on Steam nowadays, and just tossed Lost Sea into the virtual attic for a couple of weeks.

But July continued, and there were no other cacti at hand. So Lost Sea was found again in the library, and the PlayStation 4 gamepad was plugged into the USB port so as not to struggle with the keyboard. And, you know, the first couple of levels, the miserable arcade didn’t seem so bad.

My hero (optionally – heroine) was immediately declared a great hero who ended up in the Bermuda Triangle. And right away, they gave him a ship with a steward and a first mate. However, it quickly became clear that the ship was only suitable for loading swims between levels, and the first mate, although he follows you like a trailer, won’t fight and is only capable of inglorious self-sacrifice and opening locked chests.

Well, it’s okay, I’ll level up a bit and find someone else, learn the local kung fu, and then the party will start! Just let me run through a couple of starting locations and figure out what’s what. I can already see coins scattered around like in Super Mario Bros, which means life will soon get better!

Well, let me tell you this joke about those two levels. It turned out that the developers not only disabled my mouse, but also gave me a protagonist who is some kind of disabled person who can’t do anything except wave a machete. No special attacks, no rolls, no running, damn it, nothing. In some Legend of Zelda game, you have to collect currency and fight monsters to teach Link some magic, in Lost Sea, you have to grind for half an hour just to unlock half of the gamepad. And then another half an hour (or more) to unlock basic two-button combinations.

Meanwhile, I, being a fool, managed to stumble through the jungle to the first boss. It turned out to be a boring pirate, following a rigid algorithm from the 16-bit era, and requiring the classic four hits. Not fancy, but according to ancestral traditions, right?

The boss of the second chain of islands – which were already desert islands! – turned out to be… the same damn pirate with almost the same algorithm. After deeply contemplating what $10 and four hours of a person’s life are really worth nowadays, your humble servant finally decided: I need to finish the third location, finally run around with a fully unlocked controller and three assistants, and if that same comrade-buccaneer awaits me at the end of the swamp archipelago, I will delete Lost Sea to hell.

Practice has shown the following. Firstly, if you have more than two assistants, those dumb idiots who used to get stuck on local stairs become completely mentally retarded cannon fodder, unable to survive even half of the island. The helpers start to slow down, stop following the leader’s example, and as a result, they die under the pressure of slow arrows, lazy attacks, and the same careless stair flights.

Secondly, playing with running and rolls enabled is two or three times more enjoyable than just playing normally. It’s hard to understand why Lost Sea kept the basic mechanics locked behind leveling up for hours. Dear developers, you didn’t stretch the gameplay duration, you just pissed off the gamer for no reason. Maybe I would have started to get some pleasure from your game if I could run fast and dodge attacks from the start.

The swamp was already ending when your humble servant began to wonder if he got a mobile project port. Let’s count the flaws: poor controls, basic-basic-basic functionality, hidden behind useless upgrades, levels that are basically the same but slightly repainted, and definitely two identical bosses. It all seems suspicious.

However, if we think further, the origins of Lost Sea are completely irrelevant. Maybe the game really came to Steam from mobile devices, or maybe not. The flaws in this particular product cannot be justified by its other versions. Calling it a computer arcade role-playing game is a stretch.

At the end of the third chain of islands, I was met by a familiar pirate who made my blood boil. The scoundrel increased in speed and deadliness, but uninstalling the Lost Sea client did not save me from this fact. Just like the fact that there should be five more archipelagos ahead, and the money spent cannot be recovered. At least I will save some time and nerves.