Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch review

It’s a shame that, being a tactical RPG, Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch is launching just after Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, perhaps the best tactical RPG ever made. Although maybe it’s a blessing instead? Could the re-release of that classic spark new interest in the genre? In any case, Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch has something else going for it that should endear it to modern audiences: it’s also a roguelike.

While Veil of the Witch is the second game in the Lost Eidolons series, it switches up the formula to offer something fresh and is completely playable as a standalone experience. It features that staple of the RPG genre – an amnesiac protagonist – who, having found themselves stranded on an island, must now do what they can to recover their memories. Thankfully they have a mysterious benefactor, too: a witch called Sable who will bring them back to life again and again in order to achieve their goal.

Like all roguelikes, Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch is a challenging game, tasking players with attempting one run after another, though here they’re called ‘Expeditions’. Thankfully your character never has to fight alone; straight off the bat they gain a number of companions who are eager to join them in their travels, if only to crack the skulls of some imperials along the way. And so even from the outset, while you inevitably won’t succeed in completing your expedition, you might make some decent progress.

Ultimately, your goal here is to make your way through three areas, or Acts, defeating the boss standing in your way at the end of each. Along the way, you’ll frequently encounter forks in your path, forcing you to make decisions as to how you proceed. One route might lead to plenty of coin, for example, while another might present an opportunity to gain some valuable loot or develop your relationship with a party member. These choices go some way to make each expedition feel fairly unique. And of course, they often also lead to combat encounters.

If you’ve ever played a tactical RPG before, you’ll feel right at home with the combat of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. With the field of battle acting as a grid, on your turn you’re free to move your units in any order that you wish, though once they’ve performed an action, such as attacking or using their skill, they can no longer be moved. Once you’re done, the CPU performs actions with enemy units. Rinse and repeat until you’ve either completed your objective, which is typically to wipe out all enemy units, or triggered a fail state.

There are some aspects of the combat that make Lost Eidolons: Veil for the Witch stand out from others in the genre, though. You’ll sometimes encounter monsters that take up multiple squares on the battle grid, for example; to take these down effectively you’ll need to strike them with a combination of attacks using various weapons during a turn. The placement of units needs to be given more consideration than ever here, too, as there’s a system in place which typically prohibits free movement when enemies are nearby.

All in all, the action of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch feels welcomingly familiar but also somewhat fresh thanks to its smattering of unique features. And the roguelike structure further adds to that feeling of uniqueness. While ending an expedition here results in your party members returning back to level 1 and also losing their learned skills and upgrades, the prospect of learning new skills and developing them differently on the next expedition is always enticing.

There’s a permanent upgrade system in place, too, and a wealth of other options to make each expedition feel rewarding, such as being able to recruit more companions and, once you’ve completed an expedition, enable trials to raise the difficulty and earn more rewards. This is very welcome, as you’ll have to complete numerous expeditions if you wish to fully explore the game’s story and content.

A small number of issues do crop up as you play Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch, though, such as certain combat scenarios being repeated which might make your interest wane a little. The visuals are pretty lacklustre, too, at least on PS5. Still, these don’t bring down the experience all that much, so if you’re a tactical RPG or a roguelike fan looking for something new to play, you’d be very wise to give this some consideration.