Lost at Sea review

Lost at Sea review for Xbox Series X

Today I want to bring you the analysis of Lost at sea, of Studio Fizbin and head held high. Gaming today is more of an emotional experience than a regular video game, and it lasts for a few hours. It is therefore difficult to expand too much in this analysis. However, if you accompany me during the following paragraphs, I will take you by the hand to the island where our story takes place and I will tell you about the mechanics and mysteries that are there. Lost at Sea can offer an interesting moment, even if you have to know how to look with the right eye.

Lost at Sea puts us in the shoes of Anna, a woman lost on a desert island in the middle of the sea. In this strange situation, he must recover the fragments of his most relevant memories and thus piece together his tragic past. It is not clear how he got to this place, it looks more like a dreamlike space where memories blend together and create impossible landscapes. Also, the island is seized by the shadow of remorse

, which blocks access to the highest point of the island, and pursues us along the way if we cross it. There is no combat system to use, so if remorse haunts us, we will have to face it or flee. Dealing with it in essence is aiming with sight (we’re playing first person) at what shines until it eclipses the darkness.

With the premise on the table, and in first person, we explore the island and find different Unnatural biomes like toy buildings, crowded buses or townhouses, and several Audis. They are not officially Audi as I do not remember that they had the logo on them, but they could be recognized by the shape. Each of these areas symbolizes a part of the protagonist’s life. If we search among the landscapes, we find incomplete memories that we must find in the rest of the island. For this task we have a compass à la Jack Sparrow which indicates what we want to find. This way, when interacting with the missing memories, the compass will bring us to where the lost patch is.

When we come to the different pieces that we have to overcome puzzles and mini-games. Some are more obvious than others, although in some cases I have resolved the situation without being very clear why. In essence, there are “obstacle courses, logic tests, and platform challenges. Nothing complicated. Unfortunately I felt that most of the challenges were uninspired and even repeated among themselves

. It should be noted that among all the small challenges, there were some that surprised me with its originality, as well as its representation of memory. That is to say, there is some genius in a few moments by representing memories through puzzles.

Lost at Sea doesn’t take us between islands or drift across the sea, rather it leaves us stranded on an island. This situation leads to a small open world to explore. Unfortunately, trying to explain a tragedy by scattering the scenes of a world without giving direction leads to a messy situation. In my personal case, I experienced the second stage after overcoming the third and fourth. I did not find the second until later. I don’t think it’s appropriate to present a crowded scenario based on how the player moves around the map. On the other hand, the whole story is told in elaborate tales and drawings

, but there are no cutscenes.

If we are talking about the visual and playable section, we are before a simple game in all aspects. Visually, it doesn’t stand out too much. The biomes are pretty and the themed memorabilia sections interesting. However, the light shows are somewhat erratic and uncontrollable. When remorse haunts us, the world darkens, and when we defeat or flee it, the light returns. However, sometimes light does shine out and the image becomes distracting and too bright. In the playable, you can walk, run or jump. But if we touch water above the knees we will die instantly, but if we jump from a mountain we don’t. These are conflicting design decisions. Especially since there is no life bar.

Ultimately, Lost at Sea offers a story full of thoughts and situations that can give us examples and advice. However, the execution as a video game leaves a lot to be desired. Few puzzles are capable of surprising, and the open world upsets the order of the story itself. On the other hand, a lot of the game is like a racing simulator where we go from A to B and flip the product.