The Lonesome Guild Review

Something is amiss in the cute, wondrous world of The Lonesome Guild after Etere’s centennial sacred rite fails. Crimson mist spreads into the forests, hearts become corrupted by Loneliness, and a mysterious celestial entity (simply named Ghost) falls from the sky. That last one isn’t so bad, as the being’s appearance is exactly the catalyst that draws our titular rag-tag guild of heroes together, letting us embark on a top-down action RPG where friendship could save the day.

The Lonesome Guild sees you gathering an ensemble of six heroes who will fight against the Loneliness plaguing Etere, which is making people act from their deeply rooted fears, insecurities, and anger. Early on, your group is small, consisting of a cute Bumblebun named Davinci, who's an optimistic inventor/astronomer, and the aforementioned Ghost, who doesn’t know how or why they landed on this whimsical world. Soon you’ll meet the stoic yet dependable Mr. Fox, the chaotic Ran Tran Trum, and many more! Design-wise, these characters are delightfully cute and visually distinct from one another. While I wished their 3D models expressed more emotions and additional body language during conversations, the 2D detailed dialogue portraits portrayed their unique personalities well.

Exploring, solving puzzles, and fighting make up much of your time in Etere, and once you have your full ensemble, you’ll do much of it with a party of four (three heroes and Ghost). Your team is easily customisable, allowing you to swap out heroes at any time to experiment with different group compositions. However, it’s important to note that your fourth companion by default is always Ghost, so technically, you can only mix-and-match three allies at a time. What’s especially fun is that you can control each hero or Ghost while exploring, using them all to coordinate pulling levers, pushing obstacles, or standing on platforms to unlock gates. Whether you’re furthering the story or engaging in combat, teamwork is always the way forward, which aligns with The Lonesome Guild’s narrative themes nicely.

The way you level up also supports the focus on togetherness, as there are many ways to strengthen the bond between Ghost and the guild. Through story progress, quests, and conversations, you’ll earn Relationship Points (RP), which are used to unlock four sections of your skill tree: Acquaintance, Companion, Friend, and Best Friend. New skills and stat upgrades become available with each relationship status. During combat, you’ll earn normal EXP, which gives you skill points to spend across the tree each time you level up. This system is easy to use and feels thematically appropriate. On the topic of stats, such as Strength, Magical Defense, Crit Chance, and others, your upgrades often feel pretty insignificant, and it's tough to notice their impact early on, as many increases are small. That said, by the end, I did see my investments were paying off, especially in the last boss fight, so I’d say patience is key.

When facing the cute yet deadly foes of The Lonesome Guild, Ghost will merge with one of your allies, either the one you’re presently controlling or the first available character in your party (if you’re already controlling Ghost). If you swap between characters mid-battle, Ghost will meld into whoever you choose. From there, you get to dish out base attacks or dodge to avoid damage. Usually, enemies telegraph their attacks and have obvious tells, but I did get frustrated quite a bit when it felt like a hit registered outside of their range.

You do get access to two Skills per character during combat, most of which are fun to use, such as the Merry-Go-Pound, a spinning punch that deals damage, or Shooting Star, which conjures a magic ray that deals damage and heals. As you level up your characters, you can unlock more abilities from each ally’s upgrade tree, though after completing the game, many felt redundant as companions had very similar skills. Enemies also became repetitive to go against, lacking interesting abilities, and featuring many of the same moves. Boss fights could’ve added variation, but there were only two sequences that stood out, with the rest feeling like normal fights just prolonged due to the higher health pool.

You can quickly swap between characters during battles, which should make fights feel fast-paced, but the heavy, slow movement of your characters drags down the experience. Whether you’re swinging your weapon for a basic attack or dodging, it’s almost like you’re doing those things underwater. It doesn’t help that battles occur in really small arenas, making it difficult to put distance between you and enemies. On a positive note, however, enemies react to your attacks either by being pushed back or falling over; granted, some abilities don’t have any punch to them, and while they deal damage, they’re just quietly absorbed by the foe.

With so much emphasis on teamwork, I thought that there was a missed opportunity to include cool combos by synergising different allied skills. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t assist your non-controlled companions, as you’ll build up Support Charges during battles, which you can use to heal nearby characters and give them stat boosts. Heroes will also signal for Ghost’s help mid-fight; switching to them triggers Emblaze, a temporary state that empowers the characters by boosting their stats whilst allowing them to ignore enemy resistances to Magical or Physical damage. As you can probably tell, there are many ways to give your party an advantage through stats and support. If an ally falls in battle, you can simply revive them by holding down a button. While I appreciate that casual aspect of combat, it’s still difficult to enjoy due to the clunky movement, which also becomes stale from the similar abilities used by your party and foes.

The story is told through dialogue and beautifully illustrated memories, revealing character backgrounds and much of Etere’s lore. Whenever you save at a Rest Point, you get to engage in conversations and respond as Ghost, earning Relationship Points based on your answers. By the end of the game, you’re supposed to feel like the guild has become close friends. I’ll admit I can very easily get attached to characters, crying at emotional moments and cheering their triumphs, but that didn’t happen for me across the 23 hours I spent with The Lonesome Guild. With heavy exposition dumps and a tendency to tell rather than show, it’s difficult to become immersed in this world. The characters themselves seemed more like walking history books with wordy, dense dialogue, making them hard to connect to.

I will say the small conversations that came with upgrading a relationship were nice, though. Ghost gets to talk to the ally one-on-one, and they’re thankfully more grounded interactions. That said, by the end, the characters seem less like a big group of friends and more mutually tied through Ghost. I couldn’t believe that the guild would have long-lasting relationships beyond their immediate quest; we’re told they’ve deeply bonded (becoming best friends, even), but that seems forced. The story beats also felt quite rushed all throughout, which likely contributed to my inability to truly connect to this group and their plights. Panning out to plot twists and the ending, everything plays out as expected, and while the narrative doesn’t do anything new, it tells a wholesome tale, even with the issues listed above.

With combat and story being serviceable, I had hoped the towns and landscapes would stand out, but they were just alright. While I appreciate the vibrant colour palette and hidden areas to find chests, these spaces felt like they could’ve offered more, especially once you complete any of the casual puzzles in the area. There’s little environmental storytelling going on to supplement the worldbuilding. That was pretty unfortunate, as the game later wants you to backtrack to those areas to collect other ghosts/spirits hidden in obscure spots, which leads to you running around these very empty locations. Navigation isn’t made easy either since maps are kept in fixed locations, typically near Rest Points; you can’t access them while exploring.

As for puzzles and quests, they’re good for those looking for a chill time. Usually, you’ll solve riddles, use Ghost to unveil hidden levers, or coordinate your companions to pull levers at certain times; success yields items that give stat boosts or food that can heal your team outside of battle. Quests are almost always fetch quests, but they’re often placed at the beginning of an area, so you just have to keep an eye out for those items while following the main story. They’re not that interesting to complete, but they do yield EXP and helpful rewards.

The Lonesome Guild earns charm from its vibrant colour palette, cute characters, and delightful music. Combat, storytelling, and exploring fall a bit short compared to those elements, though; while what’s here is alright and does offer enjoyable moments, it becomes repetitive, especially toward the last portion of its 20+ hour playthrough.