4.5/5 ★ – Diluted_Thought's review of Lost Kingdoms.

Lets once again start with a story. When I graduated high school in 2003, I was the only kid in my entire graduating class to have 4 years of perfect attendance. A feat that I am still proud of to this day. But with that, I was given this beautiful plaque, a telephone (yes a regular telephone) and a $20 gift card to a Sam's Club. Sooo I took my $20 to Sam's Club and immediately hit the small video game section they had. There, for $20 was a game I'd never heard of and nothing else of note was cheap enough for me to get. So I took it home that day and was pleasantly surprised. Lost Kingdoms was developed by the people behind Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Blood Born, Sekrio & Elden Ring. Yes From Software made this weird little card RPG that came out with no fan fare and was basically lost in the shuffle of other titles released around the same time. Yet, there was some fun to be had in this game as it had you run around as a princess with a Rune stone that allowed her to call upon all types of creatures to help her kill...well, all types of creatures. But what made the game fun was collecting monster cards to be able to use their power to push through the games tough bosses. So you could find cards hiding under rubble, out on a field, hidden in chests and so on. But the best card were the level bosses! Everytime you finished a level you had the option of choosing between 1 and 3 cards (depending on your score at the end of the level). Using any of these monster cards also levels up the card which also allows you to upgrade it to a more powerful monster. By the time you reach the last level of the game, you could also unlock 4 hidden dungeons, each with some really cool bosses to collect in the form of ancient (and very powerful) monsters who would aid you on your quest so long as you could beat them in a fight. And if you by chance finished the game you could unlock the final and most powerful card, The God of Destruction. Allowing for some very cheap fights if you choose to play through the levels again. I must have played through this game a hand full of times because i still remember most of it and it was such a great memory for me. Listen, Card RPGs were a big thing at this time, with stuff like Magic the Gathering, Pokemon and Yugi-Oh, being some of the most major selling things on the market, it was only a matter of time that videogames wanted to get in on the craze. Lost Kingdom's, in my opinion did it right. I'm still a little bummed that this franchise lived and died in this generation. I'm still looking to see if there's an independent studio out there trying their hand at a good card RPG. I'd go back to this one but unfortunately It's currently not in my possession. I'll always have love for this underrated title no matter what.