When I sat down to play Lost Eidolons : Veil of the Witch at PAX East, it had already been about 6 months since I had last attempted to complete the few introductory encounters at PAX West in 2023. In my previous preview, I detailed the general flow of the game along with much of its difficulty, and some of that I’ll touch on here, but primarily my focus on this preview will revolve around my latest experience, and why Ocean Drive’s latest game has caught my attention.
As a quick recap for people that aren’t familiar with the Lost Eidolons series, Veil of the Witch (VotW) is the second game in the series. The first game was exceptionally story heavy, and Creative Director Jin Sang Kim has noted that while VotW does have story aspects, much of the game loop revolves around the roguelike nature of the game, and the variety of encounters players experience.
With numerous games to check out in such a short timeframe during PAX, Lost Eidolons stuck in my mind quite vividly, due to my previous encounter. The game provides you with a limited number of options on your way to the boss battle as many roguelikes do. Previously, my first few choices were built around non-combat encounters until I reached a level that eventually progressed into an ambush. That ambush, and my first real battle, concluded my playtime, and it took about 15 – 20 minutes of playtime which included a hefty explanation of the combat system from Jin Sang.
A Return to Brutal Strategy Combat
This time, I was itching to get back into the game and progress further, as my ego took a huge hit from my previous failure. I love roguelike games and I tend to profess I’m “good” at them, so losing in the first battle wasn’t something I was willing to accept. This time, I started off with the same team, and took on battles immediately out of the gate. This time, it felt like the battle scaled a little better, and I was able to get my bearings and complete the combat, which was a basic “defeat them all” encounter.
As I progressed, I took on more battles, and noticed the wide variety of options. Some of the encounters have choices built within them. One battle saw my party happen upon a group of clerics who were protecting a chest from bandits. The clerics asked for my assistance, and I could choose to help, simply skip the encounter, or I could kill them all. I chose to help the clerics, and after dispatching most of the bandits, I felt I could sneak in and steal the treasure before the encounter ended.
Unfortunately, the remaining clerics didn’t like my attempt at theft, and suddenly my team had to dispatch the remaining clerics if I wanted to make it out of there alive. This was just one of many situational encounters. Another had to do with a camp that had a beast tamer mini-boss. I infiltrated their camp, and there were several beasts alongside the beast tamer, but an untamed beast in a cage was also part of the encounter. I could open the cage and let the untamed beast out, or keep it caged.
Of course, my initial instinct was to set it free, but in this case, the beast wasn’t guaranteed to help me at all, it could attack me alongside everyone else. I asked Jin Sang for a suggestion, but I feel he was excited to see more of the chaotic aspects of the gameplay so he modestly kept his answer vague, and I didn’t take the chance of releasing the beast early on in my encounter.
Eventually, I did release it, and had to defeat it, but at that point I had far fewer enemies to dispatch. In hindsight I probably didn’t need to release it at all to complete the encounter, but my curiosity got the best of me. A lot of what VotW has in store picks at your curiosity, just to see what might happen.
My return to the combat system also felt like a new experience, mostly because my early encounters didn’t have me running for my life. Jin Sang walked me through some of the basics of combat, but the biggest lesson learned was the use of enemy weaknesses. Nearly all enemies will have weaknesses that flank their character and can be easily recognizable to the player. These could be a weakness to archery, magic, or several weapons.
In VotW each of your party members can use two different weapons, so you’ll have the option to swap around your weapons if your foe has a specific weakness. This expanded the depth of the combat system in a lot of ways. Three consecutive weakness attacks with various weaponry will do massive damage to an opponent, but planning out exactly how to line up all your hits is a big part of the strategy.
I learned this the hard way when fighting some larger monsters. I had melee characters that had to move to a certain tile to attack critically with their halberd on the monster’s flank. As soon as I did, the entire monster shifted to face my warrior, which also changed where all of the critical points faced, and I had to come up with a whole new strategy due to the limitations of movement.
Finally, I made it to the final boss of the first act. The encounter seemed very straightforward. Make it to the end and defeat the necromancer. Anyone familiar with necromancers knows that they love to resurrect defeated foes. As she chanted a spell into a glowing orb and turned to face me, I knew that the battle was going to be difficult, but after dispatching a few of her underlings, I was almost certain the battle was in the bag.
I could tell by Jin Sang’s smirk that I was grossly overestimating my position, and when the underlings were resurrected, it was completely expected, and I killed them again, as I made my way to the boss. When they were resurrected a second time, I started feeling the heat, why wouldn’t they stay dead? Maybe I need to kill them a third time? As more enemies closed in on me, and some underlings resurrected yet again, Jin Sang decided to put me out of my misery and divulge the trick here. “You have to destroy the glowing orb, or the enemies just keep respawning.”
But the orb was all the way on the other side of the map, protected by nearly an army of undead at this point. I realized way before my team wiped that I had lost. I turned to Jin Sang, nodding appreciatively. “I thought you made the game easier?” I asked him. “We did!” he responded with a smile. Veil of the Witch was my last appointment for that day, and due to that, I hadn’t even bothered to check what time it was, but the entirety of my run up to my demise took just over an hour – which was the most time I had spent with a game during PAX East.
More surprisingly, it didn’t feel like it had taken an hour of my time. That, in my estimation, is the mark of a pretty engrossing game. While no release date has been provided yet for Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch, the game did open up their Steam Beta access, where you can now put in a request to be a playtester as they head towards a launch later this year. Testers will get to experience the first three acts, which include the storyline and tutorial, five different combat scenarios, a bunch of skills and upgrades to test, and nine characters to slot in your five-person party.
I’m excited to see where Lost Eidolons : Veil of the Witch goes from here. I’ve had two encounters with the game so far, and I know I won’t be satisfied until I complete the challenges and make it to the end. If you’re a roguelike fan, you’ll want to add this to your wishlist, as it’s definitely going to be one of the most challenging strategy roguelike RPGs you’ve ever played.
