I can tell you one thing right now: Lost Kingdoms is extremely underrated. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this title by From Software, as their RPG software has traditionally been, erm... less than stunning. However, their first Gamecube offering proves to be an enjoyable journey through the land of Argwyll.

Graphics are certainly not awe-inspiring, but the absolutely gorgeous art direction, coupled with the Monster’s animation rounds brings this game from the depths of mediocrity. The main problem I have with the visuals is that while what is there is nicely modeled and detailed, there is simply not enough onscreen at one time. “Sparse” is the word that comes to mind almost instantaneously when you are wandering around any of the mission levels. I must press upon the issue that the art within the game is excellent. One can only wish that every game had such beautiful artwork. It is such a shame that Activision did not choose any of numerous pieces of original artwork for the box art, rather than that ugly amalgamation of CG render and random monster designs.

One thing that has definitely disappointed is the music. All tracks are very short and repeat ad nauseum. The most important theme – the Battling track – is extremely annoying and will make you want to turn the music off, which you can thankfully do via the Options menu. Some of the later areas have particularly nice melodies, but the bad sadly outweighs the good. Sound effects themselves are well done; beast cries and magical effects all sound as one would think they should. Thankfully, Activision left in the Japanese “voice acting” which consists of OoT-like voice samples.

Another annoyance is the load times. To enter any area you’re greeted with approximately ten or more seconds of a load screen. This isn’t particularly horrible, but after seeing so many GC games with minimal loading, one wishes they could have managed something better.

The control system is simple and effective. You run with the Control stick, and out of battle, the A button is your main action button to throw switches and whatnot. The C-Stick will shift the camera; in both regular play and battle sequences. In battle your four face buttons are dealt a card randomly shuffled from your selected deck. You can discard unwanted cards in battle by holding the R trigger and then pushing the button the card is set at. After that battle, the cards are immediately returned to the top of your deck. If you hold the L trigger and then hit a card button, you’ll throw it and attempt to perform a Card Capture throw. Essentially if the enemy is weak enough and you kill the beast with the Capture throw, you’ll trap it in a card and receive it at the end of the fight.

The card system is quite deep and RPG fans will definitely enjoy what it has to offer. A player may have up to thirty cards of their choice per deck, and one may create multiple decks to take advantage of any Elemental weaknesses. The four Elements in the land of Argwyll are as follows: Fire, Water, Earth and Wood. Fire is effective against Wood and weak against Water. Water will decimate Fire and be overpowered by Earth. Earth is the best to use against Water enemies, but will be killed off by Wood. There are three types of cards: Summon, Independent and Weapon. Summons act like your typical “Final Fantasy” summon spell. A monster will appear, do their thing and then disappear. Summons can only be used once. Independent cards bring a creature to the battlefield and then will attack on their own until their HP has been completely depleted. As they get hit, the card will go from coloured to monochrome in colour, an easy way to judge how healthy your monster currently is. Finally, Weapon types act much as their name suggests: you use them in real-time and attack the enemy with Katia herself. Most Weapon types have three or four uses, though the most powerful only have two swings per card use. After use, a card must be recharged and can be done one of two ways: leaving the area or using a card whose purpose is to recharge a random number of cards from your current deck.

This brings me to the battle setup. Katia runs around in realtime, avoiding enemy attacks and collecting Magic Gems. Gems have two uses: to allow you to use your cards and to gain EXP for your entire deck. If you do not have a sufficient amount of Gems to call up a creature, you may still summon it, at the price of your HP. This is the sort of detail I wish was in more RPGs as one would think that when you are short a single magic point, there would be the option to sacrifice health to let loose one last spell. At the end of battle, the card that managed to kill an enemy outright gets an EXP bonus.

Whilst in battle you can destroy certain items, such as barrels or sometimes furniture. You must do this to gain access to all the treasures and/or faeries in the area. Characters can collect red faeries and give them to a scholar named Alexander. For certain amounts of faeries traded you’ll receive cards. There are also Blue Faeries that populate the overworld, and when you touch them they’ll do one of three things: restore all of your Magic Gems, return 10% of your HP, or restore one used card to your deck. This can be quite useful in long missions.

This brings me to the two-player mode. Characters get to choose their level (more HP/Gem Ability) and can use their customized decks. There’s also a fair amount of applicable rules, such as “Fair Play” where neither character may use any sort of healing cards, whether they be HP or card regeneration. It’s quite fun, but it can be a pain as you seem to run out of gems quickly. The key is to attack each other’s monsters to fuel your next attack. You can even bet cards in your deck if you’re feeling confident.

Overall, Lost Kingdoms is a respectable addition to one’s GameCube collection. I am really enjoying the game: There’s so much to see and do (along with four bonus dungeons and many secret cards!), along with an enjoyable battle system. If you’re any sort of RPGer, you should definitely give this game a try. I highly recommend everyone at least give the title a rent.