Lost in Loss Review (Switch)

Does this item jog any memories?

I don’t normally go for hidden object games, but Lost in Loss managed to not only catch my eye, but also pique my interest enough to pick it up. I definitely found the art style cute, but the story pushed me to play it to see what it had in store. So, how was Lost in Loss?

In Lost in Loss, you play as a detective who is well known for solving strange cases. As you’re in your office, you get a new client asking for help as something happened in the town she lives in. Something that is indeed strange. Your client, Celeste, tells you about how the town citizens have been acting strange lately. They not only have lost their memories, but their sense of self. Who they were is not the same as who they are now.

While the game makes it out like the whole town is under this strange affliction, you’ll be handling five specific cases. Throughout the game, you’ll help these five residents find the items they’re missing, uncover their memories and true selves, and figure out what or who caused this. Don’t worry you’re not alone as Celeste joins you during this investigation as she wants to find out what happened too. Plus she does the talking since you’re a silent protagonist.

The story here is pretty alright. Most of the dialogue is to push you to the next level’s location, but when it pertains to the story I think it was good. While the true identities of your clients seem crazy, looking back I think the clues are there to point to it and I did like the slow burn (well as slow as a short game can be haha) of uncovering the mystery. It was fun trying to guess what a client’s true self was and why this whole situation happened. I also did like the reasoning the culprit had for what they did. It was very understandable.

While I did wish Celeste was the detective, and actually I thought she was, the ending is pretty crazy. I was not expecting that to happen and in hindsight, it makes sense. I didn’t even pick up on the hints thinking it was just how it was being written. Talking about the writing style, it was also fine. It does feel like Lost in Loss had kids in mind for its target audience and there was some weird wording here and there, but it was a nice read nonetheless. There were also some jokes sprinkled in, which I liked and honestly did giggle a bit at.

Lost in Loss’s gameplay is the standard hidden object fair. Matching how the story is about a detective trying to solve a case, all 40 levels in story mode are split up between the five cases you’ll be solving (though not all of them share the same amount of levels). You’ll return to your little notebook after each level to select the next and you even get a little blurb to summarize what you learned about the client. And once you unlock their memories and learn who they actually are, you’ll also get a blurb and an updated picture of them. Anyway, all you have to do is select the level you’re on to get right into it.

Each level will task you with finding a handful of items that have been hidden in the environment. Though, unlike other hidden object games where you get the full list, you only get one at a time. Once you find the item it’s asking for, it’ll tell you the next one. Even if you click an item that is on the list, you won’t “find” it unless it’s the one you’re currently on. This is for a reason as the last item on the list is the item your client lost and will help recover some memories for them and get them one step closer to remembering who they truly are.

Finding each item itself is actually pretty easy, though there are some tricky placements sprinkled in towards the latter half of the game. Items vary between being easy to spot to being hard to spot and I did find that the game did slowly get harder as you progressed. A lot of items are pretty much hidden in plain sight or even big. The ones that are in the middle are ones that are smaller objects that are in plain sight but blend in a bit more and items that are slightly hidden behind something in the environment or sticking out of something like a backpack. Then the hardest and most tricky ones are ones that happen to be placed where it blends in really well that your gaze just naturally glides right past it or concealed in a way that the part sticking out doesn’t immediately read as the item you’re looking for.

It helps that the level artwork doesn’t exceed the size of the screen (so no need to move around the camera), details are bold enough that you don’t need to zoom in even in some levels where you’re looking at the location from a bird’s eye view, and the items do have a slightly different art style that makes them pop out a bit from its surroundings. Which also does let you take a mental note of possible items that could be on the list so you can go “Oh, I just saw that riiiiight here!”

There are also some puzzle minigames here, one for each case. Most of them were easy to figure out, but I did find two of them pretty tricky. These puzzle minigames were a nice change of pace from the hidden object gameplay and was nice how they connected to the storyline.

If you want to replay any level, but don’t want the story to get in your way and make you skip through dialogue, you can! In the pause menu, you can go to the map where you’ll have access to all 40 levels grouped up by their location in the town. Though, while you’ll notice that levels do have more out of place objects than you’d be tasked to find, it doesn’t mix things up when you play levels through this method. A bit of a disappointment if I have to be honest.

It’s just classic hidden object gameplay and if you like it, you’ll like this game. Lost in Loss is simple, so you don’t have the added mechanics other games implement or add anything new, but it’s still good. Especially if you just want an easy hidden object title. It stinks that there’s no hint system, but most items are easy to find and you’ll eventually spot the more difficult ones to spot (or eventually one of your blind taps will overlap the item haha). I did also like the addition of the puzzles.

Also this has touch screen controls, so that’s a plus. I honestly would be so disappointed if it didn’t since Lost in Loss released on the Switch first. I played mostly with the touch screen, but I did switch to the thumbsticks (which brings up a cursor) whenever I wasn’t quite getting the hitbox by tapping. It does seem like the item hitbox is the middle of the item so you can miss it with your finger if you’re like me and tapped the part of the item that was sticking out.

In terms of negatives, I can see people being a bit disappointed that a lot of the dialogue is to move you along to the next location and how extra items being scattered in levels doesn’t mean that the list of items you need to find get a remix when replaying them through the map. Lost in loss also doesn’t have a hint system. It wasn’t a problem most of the time as, like I said, as most items are easy to spot, but there are some items that were in really tricky spots and I did get stuck on the two tricky puzzles for a little bit since I didn’t get what it was trying to tell me to do or I thought the correct symbol fit with the hint more than the actual solution did. I did find the items and figure out the puzzles, of course, but it would have been nice to get a hint.

To tie everything up, the visuals and audio here are great. I love the art style used for Lost in Loss, both for the characters and for the level artwork. The level artwork is so cute and colorful and I loved every location that the game took me to. There are even some surprise locations and some even have some animation to it. I do have some favorite locations though, one which uses the item placement really well. The character sprites here were also well done and I loved how they all looked and how they’re animated. The characters, mainly Celeste, move so weird it works. I didn’t notice this until I was looking at the artwork of the whole town, but I also really appreciate how on the map you can spot the exact spot some of the levels were at from the aerial view. For the audio, you’ll either have nothing, just ambience, just music, and rarely both. Ambience is more common to hear while playing a level though. Either way, whatever you’ll hear during levels will fit with the location and add to the vibe. There is voice acting, but it’s just at the beginning and is from the trailer. I wish there was more voice acting, but the voice actor that voices the trailer sounds so nice and really fits with the town’s vibe. Oh and I really liked the song that plays over the credits when you get to it through the last story cutscene (the song is different if you go through the pause menu and I didn’t like that one as much).

As for performance, it plays flawlessly on the Switch. There was one spot that it lagged a bit, but after replaying the level to test out why it was due to me clicking to reveal the whole text line right as the character sprites were sliding in. So just bad timing on my part.

Verdict

Overall, Lost in Loss was alright. It’s not a game I would recommend for full price, but it is worth it if you pick it up discounted. It’s a short and sweet hidden object game that leans more towards being simple, but I liked it despite the flaws it had…or the expectations I had going in. The story here is good, I like the slow burn of uncovering the mystery and finding the clients’ real identities, the art is so cute and great, I liked the puzzle minigames, and I personally didn’t mind how simple and easy the hidden object gameplay was. It was weird, as someone where most hidden object games I’ve played did have gimmicks, but it was nice. If you’re in the mood for an easy hidden object game, or maybe you’re new to the genre and you want to jump into one that’s simple and easy, Lost in Loss is that title.

I also hope we get that sequel. It’ll be interesting to see how that one is framed.