Lost Kingdoms

Lost Kingdoms may not have much of a plot, but the battle system makes it a fine game worth the attention of all action/RPG fans.

A great game, with a great fantasy storyline to boot.

I have a feeling that hardcore role-players will completely devour and praise Lost Kingdoms for its ingenious strategies and addictive design. [July 2002, p.84]

As an RPG, Lost Kingdoms lacks a lot of the depth, scope, and production values that makes the genre so compelling.

The idea behind the game is sound, and the game is a delight to look at, but Lost Kingdoms falters when it comes to the way the game plays out.

The problem is that in its execution there are some balance issues. The lack of a deep storyline and inventive gameplay only hurts more.

Barely saved only by its sense of strategy, Lost Kingdoms is a lost cause if you’re not into card games.

This game is really cool and very unique. But not unique in the "this isn't fun" way, it's a very straightforward and fun game. You have cards and you push one of the face buttons to use each card. Every card has a type and an element. one of the types is a straight forward attack and the other ones are summons or single use magic. It's really refreshing to play a fun game like this that I missed when the console was current. I wish I'd played it back when I was 13, I would have loved it even more because it was new.

The moment I saw they had Hobgoblin in this game I was sold. Now it might not be the best card but at least goblins are real. I wouldnt call this game challenging (it is not the Dark souls of video games, dont worry), its just fun. Not sure why they stopped making these, maybe because people are füddlibisler + habaschä, idk.

Fun and addictive game on the Gamecube. The main draw is that you use a variety of different cards, be it summons, transformation or weapon-based cards to progress through levels. The combat is fairly fun, and stocking up on weapon cards early can be a life saver. The challenge comes from managing your cards, as if you use one in a mission, it is gone until the next mission starts. Making sure you still have adequate damage output and a decent card count by the end of a level is key. The enemies themselves aren't too difficult, but you can be left with no cards due to improper card management and be SOL and have to restart a mission. It's a unique take on combat and can be fun to play around with and create decks.

very simple game in every way, but the graphics are smooth and the battles are fun, the card collection is also good, the overall experience is nice but short

Lost Kingdoms is a highly obscure game that isn't the best and can even be argued to not be exactly good, but regardless, it is definitely worth a playthrough at the very least. In terms of gameplay, it is a very unique hybrid of genres that you won't really find anywhere else and if you are a fan of RPG's, Realtime-Tactics games and resource management, i believe you will like this game. Minor spoilers on the finale & spoilers on overall gamesystems. The game revolves around a princess who is incapable of fighting (realistic) and must instead use Cards, the power of which is granted to her from a ancient family heirloom/artifact. Said cards are organized into decks with each Card having limited use depending on type and once expended cannot be reused again unless a checkpoint is reached, a card that regenerates cards is used or a fairy gives a few back. Cards vary in terms of types; Weapon which directly attacks infront of her, Independent which spawns a uncontrollable monster/creature/animal that moves independently and can fight, Helper which are support cards that can do things such as buff or healing, Summon which is basically a hybrid between Weapon & Independent. The game is structured around open maps devoid of enemies that have a chance to throw you into a encounter largely based on RNG, when engaged in battle it creates a pseudo-instance with wall-barriers that you can't escape unless the enemies are defeated. Both of the above combined create qualitative gameplay where you must intelligently manage your deck throughout the levels or you risk running out of Cards and therefore dying, inwhich you must then restart from the beginning. Overall the game is challenging while not unfair (except one level, more on that later) and is a fun experience to playthrough. It looks good too; Aesthetically while relatively primitive in terms of graphical fidelity, it has a good artstyle & color pallette that still holds up well to this day. Music is acceptable and most importantly, not annoying. Ambience exists. Control scheme on the Gamecube controller worked very well. While barely any story, i'd say the basic hero good vs evil journey is done well and is to my taste. Outside of that though, there are some major problems: I. The pathfinding of the Independent monsters (my favorite monster type) are honestly just bad. They have a tendency to get stuck on things and have a hard time when alot of corners & objects are involved on the field. In terms of AI they are better and relatively consistent in attacking, but rarely they spergout and effectively let themselves get killed. II. The card Exp system works terribly in this game. Basically, in order for a card to get XP, it *must* land a killing blow. Contributing damage to a enemy does not count. This leads to many card types, especially Independent cards, to be utterly starved from XP and the result is often many cards you have never gain enough to level up. For many cards you will gain their new version by finding or buying them later on in the game rather than levelling them up. III. Finally, the final level is a severe case of old games and their bosses. I noticed a pattern in many old game's final bosses either being pathetically easy (i.e RE4) or a extreme spike in difficulty (this game). The final level is a case of sadism on the developers part (it's fromsoft after all) and while i was enjoying the game, once i got there i quickly got massively frustrated and my joy got replaced with "i want this game to end now". The (first!) final boss has a massive run-up to him designed to drain you of your cards & health and once you get to him he is a card user himself who will infinitely spawn & spam cards, has infinite crystals to spawn them with, can heal himself and he only spams high-tier cards. Oh, he also moves fast and can dodge your weapon cards. Once you beat him, you are then greeted by ANOTHER real final boss that can damn-near one-shot you and who's arena is small and is basically a bullet hell. Luckily on the attempt where i finally beat the first boss i also beat the second boss first try (i am a souls game veteran!) by simply manuvering, i later found out i beat him the "improper" way too. If i died to him i would of just ragequit the game honestly. It feels very odd and out-of-left-field because all the other bosses are fine and while the game of course ramped up in difficulty overtime the curve was acceptable, then the final level happened. Overall, these negatives, specifically the final level, made it really hard for me to decide if this was a 6 or a 7. While I & II are definitive flaws, the final level is really just a major lowpoint in the game that drags the rest down. Overall i decided on a 6 even though my personal desire/bias demanded (and still does) a 7, but despite it only being relatively average i really do like the game and can recommend it for at least a playthrough.