Lost Castle 2 Review - Version 1.NO

I might be out of the loop here, but if you looked at the title of this review and asked yourself “what the heck is Lost Castle 2? I haven’t even heard of the first one?” then… well, maybe you’re out of the loop with me. Having seemingly found substantial popularity in China and a more muted but respectable following in the US and elsewhere, the original Lost Castle is a colorful, cooperative roguelite beat-'em-up that has now earned itself a sequel.

Now, I don't play a lot of beat-'em-ups as I often find their gameplay to be as repetitive as those fake mobile games ads YouTube probably forced you to watch at the start of this video. But occasionally, ones like Absolum or Big Helmet Heroes will be great enough to tickle my fancy and earn a recommendation, genre misgivings aside. Is Lost Castle 2 such a game?

Let's start with the narrative, because that will be quick - Lost Castle 2’s narrative is so forgettably basic that I literally had to check the Steam page to remind myself what the story even was. And I played it. You're a treasure hunter, you're going on expeditions to the titular castle and its bizarrely varied surrounding biomes, and there are things called Ethereals that are supposed to be mysterious if you can manage to care. Listen, nobody really plays these games for the plot, so chances are your expectations there will be met. It's just hard not to mention it when the game does have regular interruptions for extremely boring dialogue, at least early on. However, each scene is mercifully brief enough that you won't be held back from the action for long.

The “action” in question is, for better or worse, also exactly what you'd expect from a game of this kind. Each roguelite run will send you through a variety of arenas meant to test your mettle in a fight against a wide variety of foes. You'll press X to attack. You'll hold it to also attack, but more strongly. You'll have a special attack mapped to the right trigger, the ability to roll out of harm's way, a jump button that's not really used for much aside from an airborne ability that really could've just had its own button… You get the idea.

Where Lost Castle 2 tries to twist things up is in the ability to customize your runs as much as feasibly possible, which I consider very important in a good roguelike. At many stops in your run, you can actively choose which biome you want to visit, if you'd like a more difficult encounter in exchange for better loot, and even an overarching difficulty modifier that's appreciated for those who want a lighter or heavier challenge.

At the conclusion of each battle, you'll be met with what sometimes feels like an avalanche of loot - armor pieces, weapons, crafting items, currencies, items that grant special perks, and so on. I'm torn on this approach to roguelite progression for a couple of reasons. For one, I spent a lot of time sorting through loot, seeing what was worth taking and what was worth disassembling into iron ingots I could use for upgrades, and what on earth some items even did, given some of the lengthy descriptions around their function. If you like building complex synergies, then this might very well be up your alley, but I found it a bit overwhelming, finding it hard to keep track of all the various intricacies of items I picked up, especially given how frequently the game encourages you to switch weapons mid-run. Nobody can say there aren't ample opportunities to create interesting character builds for each run, though.

That's further exacerbated by the fact that Lost Castle 2 has a truly enormous amount of weapons, armor pieces, and loot numbering in the hundreds. It was hours in before I even noticed seeing the same thing twice, and the consistent level of surprise that hit me when I found something new with a cool special ability helps a lot in a genre known for its repetition.

What doesn't help, unfortunately, is that the core gameplay here feels like a cold Little Caesar’s pizza with an absurd amount of toppings dumped on it to try to hide the undercurrent of “meh.” For a game that's 80% combat, 15% loot management, and 5% boring story, the combat is surprisingly lacking in punch, with spongy enemies that often take absurd amounts of damage before going down and the general vibe that my weapons are doing little more than slapping them around.

This doesn't quite apply to some of the special abilities and throwable items like dynamite, which can dispatch some low-level mobs with a satisfying BOOM, but all the core weapon types from the bow and arrow to sword and shield to weird phantom lantern whip thing simply don't feel that fun to use. I kept wanting to have more fun than I was actually having, and I don't think the sheer volume of content on offer does much to bandage that problem up.

In between runs, you can browse your camp, talk to characters if you for some reason want to do such a thing, join a multiplayer lobby, use currency to make your way through the game's meta progression skill tree, and use alchemy to craft useful items. I didn't spend any more time here than was strictly necessary to upgrade my character, but those into optimizing their path through the game will want to make sure to spend at least some time in the camp.

As with anything, playing with friends cooperatively in local or online mode can up the fun factor, though unfortunately brings its own problem into the fray, which is that even in two-player local co-op I was constantly losing my character onscreen, mistaking them for my friend or even one of my enemies, especially in battles where huge numbers of enemies are overwhelming you at once. This problem was extremely persistent, and while I didn't personally manage to round up three other people to fill out the whole party because most of my friends don’t play many video games (I know, what losers, right?), I can only imagine the confusion I'd have doing so when I struggled with just two of us. If I'm real with you though, and I always am - on medium difficulty the game felt easy enough that this issue never spelled certain death. Healing areas are common enough and while enemies take a lot of punishment to down, their attack patterns tend to be easily avoided, with many bosses especially lacking in the difficulty department even when having more than one phase.

I hate to be a broken record, but the game's presentation is also on the same generic level as the rest of it. It's nice to be able to customize your character, but no matter the choices, the result will look completely interchangeable with dozens upon dozens of other Indies. There's simply so little about the art style here that feels inspired or unique. But in fairness, there's lots of environmental variety and a sensibility for colorful design that manages to be cute and reasonably eye-catching at times. And hey, it runs great on the Steam Deck, so anybody who wants a roguelite beat-em-up on the go could certainly do worse. At the risk of using the word generic or basic too many times to count, I will call Lost Castle 2’s music… uh… unmemorable? Hard to care about? One of those. Sorry, there are only so many ways I can say the same thing.

Ultimately, in a genre that's already fairly crowded, Lost Castle 2 serves as a reminder that quantity is simply never better than quality. At no point was I having an actively bad time, and yet my hours with the game blend together in my mind as a colorful, cartoony slurry without so much as a single moment standing out. It's the sort of game that gives me a bad sense of déjà vu and the feeling that every moment I was playing it was an opportunity lost to play something more interesting. Diehard beat-em-up fans have plenty of content to get lost in here; the rest of us may want something with a lot more flavor. Lost Castle 2 gets the table lamp.

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