Review | The Lonesome Guild - Pip pip, Tallyoh!
The activities of Don’t Nod Entertainment’s publishing wing seem like they’ve been drowned out amongst the barrage of news about the company in the last year. The release of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and the announcement of sci-fi adventure Aphelion have also coincided with the fallout from last year’s strikes by workers at the company. Amid all that activity, the publishing wing continues to operate with its third title, The Lonesome Guild, now out in the wild.
Developed by Italian company Tiny Bull Studios, this action RPG has all the elements of a classic fairy tale. Your band of merry travellers, comprised of various species who inhabit the land of Etere, must join forces with a ghost, literally named Ghost, as the titular guild solves a mystery surrounding a dark mist of loneliness that’s spreading across the lands. This grand quest is interspersed with various side quests, conversations with NPCs in townships and hub areas, and plenty of items to collect.
As you can gather, the bones of this adventure are familiar. Its main mystery is a tale of friendship, battling against cynicism and hatred in a story that wouldn’t be out of place in Kingdom Hearts. That’s sometimes to its advantage, giving a few characters conflicts and drama that blend seamlessly into the narrative and lead to some of the best emotional beats. In particular, the homesick, spirited inventor DaVinci and the cold but earnest Mr. Fox have compelling character arcs. The game even attempts to weave in some theological motifs in its story that look to question the nature of faith and how some individuals can twist people’s inherent desire for it.
Unfortunately, this is undercut by some of the functional elements of the game’s narrative, as some of its villainous characters’ motivations feel thin, particularly when accompanied by oddly bland dialogue. This reduces the weight of decisions made by characters and makes the central story feel predictable.
While its story is a mixed bag, The Lonesome Guild does shine from a presentation standpoint. The fairy-tale nature of the game is depicted excellently through some gorgeous scenery — especially lush forest area Arcolaryum and the snow-covered town Tallyoh — characterized by soft textures illuminated with luminous colour and effective lighting to create interiors that feel lived-in and cityscapes that have an endearing, small scale. In addition to the game’s well-appointed locales, the hand-drawn illustrations both in cutscenes and within castle environments help to capture the tone of a fairy tale and immerse you much more easily in its world.
That immersion then gives rise to the gameplay, a mix of combat and puzzles and mechanics related to building relationships between Ghost and the party. Completing combat encounters, quests, and giving gifts found around the world allow Ghost to increase their relationship points with the party members. Hitting certain milestones in relationships results in additional dialogue at camping spots. By engaging with party members at these rest areas, you earn additional skill points that can be used when levelling up each party member. Aside from fitting thematically, it also gives you a reason to engage with the wider side quests. It can be argued that incentivising this as a tangible reward rather than letting you do this yourself defeats the idea of a game about combatting loneliness through selflessness, but by doing this, The Lonesome Guild encourages exploration and also engages you with the side quests. Some of these are poor — simple fetch quests with little meaning pop up often — but a few later in the game are based around individual members of the party, and offer more valuable and variable quest lines. The latter quests also include more puzzles, which is probably the game’s strongest element. Some are based around riddles and learning about lore in a given area to get through mazes and solve locks and some are based around a central mechanic of switching between your active party of four to move each character between areas, all done conveniently and quickly via the D-pad. Some even require Ghost to use supernatural powers to highlight hidden switches and then moving characters around. Whilst there isn’t anything massively complex in the way of exemplary RPG puzzles as seen in CrossCode, they do help to make some exploration areas like the autumnal Galliant Castle more actively engaging.
Party interaction via the D-pad extends to combat, where Ghost inhabits each of the other three party members. Switching when characters request it gives a boost to their effects via the “emblaze” state, and, separately, party members can perform simple interactions with one another to give the whole party different status effects dependent on the characters used. The use of base attacks and abilities also fills a meter for a big AOE attack provided by Ghost. The Lonesome Guild’s combat seems intriguing at first glance, and there are a few fun character combinations, but it is undone by a few key faults. Firstly, switching between characters feels oddly restrictive. The emblaze state negates any immunities enemies have and gives large power bonuses — and it can only be activated when a switch is requested, not when you switch at other times. Because the requests by party members to achieve the state occur so frequently and there's such a large attack bonus tied to emblaze, there’s no incentive to switch at any other time. This, combined with a lack of evolution of enemy attack patterns, makes combat repetitive over the course of the game’s second half. Boss battles suffer as a result, as the boss arenas have little variety compared to other battle arenas.
In the end, The Lonesome Guild is a fairy tale that is neither exemplary nor bland. Certainly its flaws do come through, particularly as the game proceeds through its main plot in the second half, but it has enough thematic bite, enough heart in its side quests, and enough quality in its presentation to create an experience that’s enjoyable for the senses, if lacking in staying power.
