With cosier games becoming more and more popular in this hobby we all love, it’s not uncommon to be presented with a light-hearted story in your video game. I generally consider myself to be someone who appreciates a bit of whimsy instead of a dark and gritty narrative, but there’s a balance to be had. When a story is too twee and one note it’s hard to really get excited about seeing it to its conclusion, and you’ll need a nice helping of charm or peril to prevent that. Unfortunately The Lonesome Guild struggles with this particular pitfall somewhat, but perhaps its RPG hooks will save it for some.
The Lonesome Guild follows a merry band of animal do-gooders who form the titular guild, although admittedly you’ll start playing as a rabbit called Davinci and his new ghost friend. When they discover that a red mist that’s the concept of loneliness in a gaseous form is spreading across the land, they decide to adventure across the land to find someone who knows how to stop it. Along the way they meet a colourful cast of cuddly characters (like Mr Fox, who is a fox) and help anyone who has been sent into a frenzy by loneliness. It’s an interesting concept for an adventure, but one that never quite goes further than talking about how important friends are at every campfire you stumble across.
When you aren’t busy watching the party chat with each other, you’ll probably be fighting brainwashed foes in The Lonesome Guild. Combat is simple but pretty satisfying initially, with you switching between characters and attacking enemies in a classic isometric style. Each member of your guild has a standard attack and a couple of special attacks that can be used after enough swings of your sword/hammer, and utilising these will make confrontations end much sooner.
The mechanic I appreciated the most in these scraps though involved the ghost, who you technically play as in battles and just sort of possess your teammates (but in a nice consensual way). You can switch between who you control with the D-Pad at any time, but when they call out for you specifically you’ll pump them up to deal extra damage and ignore resistances for a while. This also helps build your ultimate attack meter, so you’re really incentivised to swap around and it helps keep the combat a little fresh.
Outside of combat there are environments to explore, full of chests full of loot and puzzles to solve. The puzzles aren’t anything you haven’t seen before in a game with multiple characters you can swap between, but getting different animal pals to pull different switches or push boxes together is at least a decent distraction from the fluffy violence.
Being an RPG, The Lonesome Guild features a selection of ways to improve the power of its characters. Gear you find can be equipped to boost all the usual stats you’d expect, and of course after you beat up enough baddies you’ll level up. Doing this grants you a skill point for your skill tree, which has different special attacks and buffs you can unlock. There’s one catch though, and that’s that later portions of the skill tree are locked until you’re better friends with the character you’re upgrading.
The relationship system in The Lonesome Guild mainly revolves around campfire chats, where you’ll natter about various topics and be given a conversation option. Based on your answer you’ll gain a relationship point with whoever you resonate with, so if you’re overall optimistic and plucky the bunny will love you more but if you’re a bit more cynical you’ll be better pals with the fox. There’s not much to the system really, and it would frankly be more engaging if the writing wasn’t so repetitive and one note.
I really wanted to love The Lonesome Guild, but it just has too many problems to really impress. Like any good little gamer I love scouting areas for loot and collectibles, but when maps only exist at stationary points it becomes a chore to explore. It’s also not like you really need to spend time looking for impactful pieces of loot either, because the game is so easy that equipping new gear isn’t exactly important.
This distinct lack of difficulty coupled with the repetitive nature of the combat just makes for a slog of a game. It doesn’t help that all the characters function rather similarly too, especially once you grab a couple of different special attacks for them. Initially I was excited to befriend new characters for a bit of a change of pace, but ultimately I just ended up sticking with my initial buddies who I’d put a bit of effort into levelling up already.
I really wanted to enjoy my time with The Lonesome Guild and its charming world, but its cosy take on action RPG gameplay is too one note. Its combat is totally fine in small doses, but it doesn’t take long to realise it’s all a bit samey. Perhaps younger gamers or those less familiar with the genre will get a kick out of it though, as although a bit twee, it’s hard to deny the charm of the guild.
