About a year ago, XBLAZE Code: Embryo released for the PS3 and PS Vita. It was a visual novel that took place in the Blazblue universe. The story was set 150 years before those events however, so it's connection to the source material was tenuous at best. The true canonical ending did end on a cliffhanger, which is where Lost: Memories takes place. Well, it sort of does, as it's more of a fan-disc. But the content of the game is a bit lacking, and the conclusion to the storyline is lacking as well.

The game starts of by taking the perspective of a new character who actually doesn't have a name. That is, unless you want them being referred to as Me. The reason for this is that she wanders into a mysterious world called the Phantom Field, upon which she loses most of her memory. including her name. She was looking for her missing sister when she got sucked into the Phantom Field. Luckily for her, a girl called Nobody knows where Me's sister is. Yes, this game's writers were very imaginative. Even Me's sister is named Little Sister, and their dad and mom are named Father and Mother respectively. This is actually a step down from the terms used for some of Code: Embryo's lexicon like 'Unions' and 'Discover Calls'. You are intentionally kept in the dark as to who they really are, apparently with the idea of revealing it for a planned third game. 

Gameplay is actually put into the game. In order to get to Me's sister, you have to move in a very 16-bit looking series of maps to find memory fragments to get to the next floor. Once you clear a floor, the memory will play. It's actually a memory of the person whose perspective you will take control of in the game's second half. Since it's stuff from Code Embryo, players might be a bit confused about what's going on. While Lost: Memories does try it's best to acclimate the player with extra memories to view, it's not quite a decent substitute. Although they do present the key parts of the story from different character perspectives. It feels more like a fan-disc, especially with the DLC memories that act like filler content. The story itself is linear, but the second half does have B routes, with chapters 15-22 being all dead endings.

Code: Embryo and Lost: Memories' overall story is fairly average, with the writing being either boring or unimaginative. It's pretty generic anime stuff. Not bad or even good. Just starkly average. As for the interface, it hasn't been improved all that much from the previous game. You can't save in the middle of extra memories, and the lexicon doesn't highlight new terms to show you what exactly has been updated. There is still no cross-saving between the two platforms. The story also not nearly as interesting either. Not that the plot of Code: Embryo was all that interesting to begin with. Considering it's rather fan-disc nature, it's hard to recommend to fans of either the series or genre, as there are better Visual Novels out there. But if you want to check it out, I suggest waiting for a sale on both.     

The Bottom Line: A follow-up Visual Novel to Code: Embryo which acts more like a fan-disc with the epilogue of the previous game's story on the second half. The overall story of the two games is pretty weak though.

Acquisition method: digital code provided by Aksys Games.