When your hotel maid carries a five foot sword in one hand and a gun in the other hand, don’t forget to tip! In the case of our game today, you don’t really have anything to worry about. Yes, the main characters are maids in Maid of Salvation; as in young female and as in wearing old-school, black and white outfits. The weapons they wield are for destroying monsters, however, so you’re safe (unless you’re some sort of malevolent being).

Welcome to purgatory. Your job as one of the Maids is to guide fallen souls (fiends) to a state of purification so they may continue their passage to the next plane of existence. It is also your job to dispatch various monsters and fiends which have fallen so low they can’t be purified (hence the big sword and the handgun). The game calls your first blade the Maid’s Katana even though its size looks more like a Nodachi, but we’ll let that debate go and just accept that it looks cool and does its job with style. The game is a variation of a dungeon crawl with all the typical elements: finding your way around a mazelike level, encountering monsters (and dispatching them with extreme prejudice), collecting valuable resources, levelling up, gaining new skills, facing off against Bosses, and so on.

Movement and weapon controls are a mix of sticks and buttons for attacks, parries, and jumps. You will want to become as fluent with this as soon as possible, unless you like dying frequently. One thing I found to be different from most default settings is the use of the A and B buttons in menus—B is select and A is exit. This may be backwards from most games, but it isn’t a hindrance; you may accidentally exit an option, but you can get back to the decision point easily. The left side buttons are used to scroll through your list of stuff (left or right) and to use the current item (up button). Be careful when using these buttons as you might accidentally consume a potion instead of moving your character about as with other games.

The game does have a story to follow, but it is a bit anemic. There are some tropes you will have anticipated, and the delivery is, shall we say, less than spectacular. Most of the story will be communicated in text, the spoken portions are mostly sighs, grunts, and giggles. It isn’t horrible, but it seems there wasn’t a lot of effort put into this aspect of the game. The story can be mostly ignored in favor of running around and killing monsters, but you may find a few useful bits of information if you pay attention.

The visuals are a mixed bag. There are some elements which look good, and the combat sequences have some flair, but this is muted by the camera viewpoint. The camera is stationed well above your character in a top-down, isometric approach, so you never get a lot of detail in the visuals. The developers came up with some interesting monsters and character designs, but everything is far enough away from the camera that the full effect is lost in the distance.

There are some conversation encounters and you can see a close-up of some of the other characters. Here, the rendering is well done and easy to see. The various Maids in the Sanctuary all look very similar, but, as with any unified organization, this is to be expected. Whether this minimal level of distinction is good or bad is a matter of personal preference, so I’ll leave this in your capable hands.

Combat can range from a simple matter of trimming the weeds (OK so it’s really a fire breathing pod-plant thing, but it’s still green) to large and elaborately rendered Bosses. There is plenty of sword swinging, dodging and dashing about, parrying, jumping, and charging, so there is plenty of action in the action sequences.

There are a handy pair of statues at more than one location; the one on the left is for leveling up, the one on the right is for saving progress.

When you are done leveling up, don’t forget to use the + button to access your equipment, etc. It is in this menu you can access your skills. There is an expansive skill tree where you can spend available resources on skills. The tree is not a free-for-all; you have limited options. There are a few Core Skills, but you can only get new core skills when you have developed enough of the previous Core skill branches.

Back to the statues. There is a set of statues in each level as well as in the Sanctuary. While you are in the Sanctuary, you can get information, take on side quests, and use the level/save statues. There are portals to the other levels, and a large, ominous pit. There is also the obligatory store where you can sell or buy equipment. So, all the normal elements are present in the game.

The music is well done, conveying the appropriate brooding tension or eerie quiet you want in each section of Purgatory. The sound effects are also well done…with one personal exception. The sound of footsteps when you are running around are not equally spaced in time. The cadence is a bit off, which left me with the impression the Maid is running with a limp. Odd, but it is easily ignored.

This is a good game that I enjoyed playing, but there is a lot of level grinding required to gain enough skills and improve your stats.

The game could also use a little help with the puzzles and hints regarding areas you can’t access. In the UI, there are some icons which seem to hold a specific meaning, but you can’t access them or reveal information about them. It lends a little confusion to the player, and left me feeling like I was missing out on something.

Maid of Salvation has a lot of things going for it, but it could be better with a little more polish, a little more substance, and a little more detail.

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Welcome to the other side of the veil. I’m your host, and I’m so happy to see you here in Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. I know it may not be so happy for you, but take heart—I have a mission for you, so I’ll be sending you back to the land of the living…at least for a while.

The first Lost Eidolons title was not released for the Switch, so this spinoff is a new experience (narratively) for me. My first impression was that this game looks good, but it makes use of a lot of well-worn tropes. You died, and a powerful something/someone is sending you back to do their bidding. Maybe you will be rewarded, but you can’t tell because you can’t remember anything. So, you will need to gather help to battle the big baddie. These elements aren’t new, but as I played more, they do appear to be well assembled and blend with other aspects of the game to make it rather engaging.

As usual, I’ll start with what we’re looking at. The graphics are high resolution and well rendered. Even so, it will be a better experience if you leave the console docked and play on a larger screen. The elements of scenery, people, and objects are well balanced and imaginative. The use of color and lighting keep things easy to distinguish and appealing.

The audio effects and music are equally well done. Overall, the game’s presentation is engaging and pleasant.

Considering the way Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch is played (turn-based), there is a grid on the field of battle. The game uses a square pattern layout with subtle but readily distinguishable borders. When it’s your team’s turn, you can use the joystick to move the selection (highlighted border) to the party member you want to use. You can change your mind about your selection until you actually take an action, which I find very handy (I’ve been burned in other games with an accidental double-tap/other selection method).

Another very handy feature is that you can change weapons during combat. It does not cost a “turn,” so you can switch from your tome to your sword and still take a swipe at your opponent.

Veil of the Witch is not all hack-and-slash combat (as fun as that can be); you also get plenty of storytelling. Yes, some of the story elements are things you have seen in other games, but the common themes—redemption, death, uneasy friendships and alliances, and self-discovery—do not detract from having a good time.

The game provides both text and audio/voiceover to tell the story. The voice acting can be a bit extra sometimes, but it is generally well done. Since you don’t remember anything at the start of the game, this dialogue will be important for you to figure out who you are. Your backstory comes in small bites, sometimes at the cost of “memory shards.” These are relics you can use at mirrors to see bits of your forgotten past; not all of it is comforting.

As you learn more and do more, you get the expected experience to gain new skills, enhance old skills, and level up to be more effective at dispatching the bad guys. Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch will provide materials to improve the abilities of you and your party members, as well as a choice of cards. You may only have two cards from which to choose, so consider your options and how skills across the party can complement each other—you’re going to need all the help you can get.

This brings me to a minor point of frustration and a point of relief. The point of frustration comes from engaging in a combat sequence with a healer who can’t seem to get anyone, let alone everyone, healed to the point of surviving combat in the very early stages of the game. I understand the need to level up to be really effective, but many games will make the first few encounters easy enough to allow the player to get familiar with the flow of battle. This game didn’t seem to take that path. If you go into it knowing your party will do plenty of dying (or at least taking enough damage so they can’t continue), things start to make more sense. Be ready for some level grinding and a slow build-up to being formidable.

As you play on, you will encounter new people you can add to your team. You don’t get to take them all into battle at the same time; your party needs to be small and agile (and easier for the game to kill). This provides good opportunities to cultivate alliances, use new combinations of skills, and kick butt in new and unusual ways, which is always fun.

Keep your eyes open for the tips the game will throw your way, as they are usually quite helpful. If your mage has a lightning strike, for example, and if your opponents are standing in water, a hit to one can send a secondary shock to the poor fool standing next to him.

There are some characters you meet who are not human but who are helpful; including a talking crow. Consider his advice carefully, as you have decisions to make. Which fork in the road you take will determine your next encounter and the general path you take through the world as you work your way to the goal. This feature affords a good opportunity for exploration in replaying the game.

Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch offers a good balance of story and action which helps to keep the player engaged. The mechanics of skill management, item collection and use, combat tactics and techniques—along with the ease of play, game pace, and some really nice visuals—make this a good title to have in your game library. Even if you are not normally into roguelike RPGs, there is enough here to make it worth at least checking out the previews.

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