LumenTale: Memories Of Trey review – nostalgia and frustration in equal measure

LumenTale: Memories Of Trey is a Switch RPG that nails the vibe of late-night Pokémon Black and White sessions and early 2000s JRPG classics — then trips over its own feet the moment it has you hooked.

The reviewer describes being genuinely transported: Switch two millimetres from the face, late at night, suddenly flooded with memories of Pokémon Black and White, Xenoblade on Wii, and guiding Tidus through Spira in FFX. That's a powerful trick for any game to pull off.

But LumenTale keeps interrupting itself. Painfully slow menus, erratic controls, and stretches of wandering aimlessly through buildings for 30 minutes at a time chip away at the goodwill the atmosphere builds. The frustrations aren't bugs — they're design choices, which somehow makes them harder to forgive. The result is a game that's genuinely good at evoking nostalgia, but equally good at shattering it.