Welcome Back to the Race

Welcome back to the Race to Git Gud, where I’ll be trouncing through the dark, depressing worlds of FromSoftware with reckless abandon and firmly below-average ability.

This time, we’re kicking off the Lost Kingdoms arc—an often forgotten child in the FromSoft family. Despite that, it lived in my GameCube rotation right alongside Gauntlet Dark Legacy and Mario Superstar Baseball all the way into adulthood. Even now, I’ll usually run through this game every few years.

So let’s shuffle our decks and drop straight into the world of Lost Kingdoms.

A Forgotten FromSoft Experiment

Released in 2002—around the end of the King’s Field line and midstream in the Armored Core era—Lost Kingdoms kind of just… appeared. No fanfare, no massive hype cycle, just plop.

I still remember my grandfather buying it for me completely out of nowhere. I hadn’t asked for it, didn’t know what it was. One glance at the cover and my young brain zeroed in immediately: a skeleton with a sword AND a red dragon? Extremely awesome.

Then I realized you play as a girl.

As a young boy, that felt very un-awesome. But I gave it a chance—and I’m very glad that I did.

Princess, Fog, and the Runestone

You play as Princess Katia, daughter of King Feobane of Argwyll. A mysterious black fog has been rolling across the land, and anywhere it lingers, monsters overrun the towns. Your father marches out to confront the threat head-on.

By the time the game begins, that same black fog has reached Argwyll, and monsters are about to show up in your backyard.

Katia sprints through the castle halls to claim the kingdom’s greatest treasure: the Runestone. Each of the five kingdoms has one, and whoever wields it can summon and control monsters via a deck of cards.

It’s a weird premise, but in a way it fits perfectly with FromSoft’s brand of “sure, why not?” fantasy.

Learning the Card-Slinging Ropes

You’re thrown straight into danger as two skeletons appear in front of Katia. A quick cutscene shows off your Birdman card absolutely demolishing one of the skelemen, and then it’s your turn.

The game draws four cards for you, each falling into one of three types:

• Summons – Big flashy monsters that appear in a short cutscene, hit hard, and usually take the longest to execute.
  
• Independents – Creatures that roam the battlefield, automatically hunting down enemies and smacking them around.
  
• Weapons – Quick, snappy attacks that trigger right in front of Katia. Usually weaker, but fast and reliable.
  

On top of that, you’re juggling magic stones, the currency that fuels your deck. Each card costs a certain amount of stones to use, and enemies can drop more when you attack them. Naturally, the stronger monsters demand more stones.

Once the skeletons are down, you’ve officially graduated from “helpless princess” to “mildly competent card-slinging princess.”

Gurd, the Plains, and My First Missed Skeleton

Running deeper into the castle, Katia runs into a strange old woman named Gurd. She kindly volunteers to teach you how to be a Pokémon master—sorry, a Runestone master.

After finishing the level, you’re given a choice of prize cards. Depending on how well you did, you’ll get between one and three picks. One of those options is usually the boss of the area.

Naturally, I do not get the skeleton. Off to a strong start.

Gurd then leads you to the Plains of Rowahl, your standard tutorial zone filled with low-level Hobgoblins and Man Traps. At the end of the path, you face the towering Sand Golem backed by a small army of Hobgoblins. He goes down easily enough, and I snag his card as my consolation prize for whiffing on Skeleton Man earlier.

From there, Gurd drags you over to the Apothecary, her home base and the game’s main hub for card management. This is where you:

• Buy and sell cards
  
• Transform cards when they gain enough XP into entirely new monsters
  
• Copy cards you really like by burning some of that XP
  

I buy a couple of new toys for the deck and head back out.

Welcome to Blessoon: Fog, Rats, and Random Encounters

Next stop: Blessoon, a village swallowed by the black fog. It’s your first real look at what this fog does to a place. The town is basically empty, aside from some soldiers and a truly unreasonable number of Plague Rats.

This is also where the game’s encounter system really introduces itself—and where my patience starts to thin.

Encounters are random. You’ll hear a weird gong sound, the screen shifts, and suddenly you’re in a big square arena, face-to-face with enemies. You can move freely within that space, summon monsters, drop independents, and try to draw aggro away from your more fragile cards so they can get some hits in.

I do not like random encounters. I did not like them then, and I do not like them now. Lost Kingdoms is no exception.

(Spoilers: this is something they actually fix in the sequel, and bless them for it.)

Red Fairies and Side-Quest Hell

As Katia weaves through the burned-out shells of houses, looting chests and unlocking a big door with four colored locks, she runs into Alexander—a guy surrounded by red fairies.

He explains that these red fairies are scattered all over the world. There are 100 total, and if you bring him any that you find, he’ll reward you with some surprisingly powerful cards. How he has these cards? Why he has them? Unknown. Gift horse, mouth, etc.

This unlocks his house on the overworld map and kicks off the main side activity of the game: hunting these tiny red menaces. They’re:

• Under rubble
  
• Inside cacti
  
• Hiding in suits of armor
  
• Or just floating around, minding their business
  

I could never find all 100 as a kid, and I’m not convinced I’ll manage it in this run either.

Fire Golem and Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors

Past Alexander waits the boss of Blessoon: the Fire Golem.

This is a good time to talk elements. Every monster card belongs to one of five elements:

• Fire
  
• Wood
  
• Water
  
• Earth
  
• Neutral
  

Each element has strengths and weaknesses: fire over wood, water over fire, etc. Neutral sits in the middle—not hitting harder, but not taking extra damage either.

The Fire Golem is very obviously water.

Kidding, he’s fire.

A few clean hits from my Dragon Knight (a water-element card) and he goes down. Unfortunately, I fail to pull his card from the reward selection.

Cards, Crossovers, and Bee-Rumors Ahead

Back on the overworld, I run my errands:

• Drop off whatever red fairies I’ve found with Alexander, who rewards me with a Fire Gargoyle card. Dark Souls fans might recognize the model—it’s reused later for some of the fire guys in Lost Izalith.
  
• Swing by the Apothecary to check in with Gurd. It’s worth talking to her regularly; she’ll drop hints about new areas and quests opening up.
  

This time, she points me toward Dahi-Hok Valley, where rumors of giant bees causing problems are starting to buzz (sorry).

My deck is a little stronger, my understanding of the card system is warming back up, and the fog isn’t going anywhere.

Stay tuned for more Lost Kingdoms as the Race to Git Gud continues—next stop: angry bees and probably several bad deck decisions.