A young girl named Yuzu (her name and appearance can be customized, but her Canon Name is Yuzu) one day wakes up in a strange forest with no memory of how she got there. She wanders through the forest alone and afraid until she comes across a mysterious girl. The mysterious girl appears to know Yuzu, but Yuzu doesn't seem to recall the mysterious girl in her memories. In fact, Yuzu is having trouble recalling memories in general. This is bad news because Yuzu has actually been cursed and her memories are the key to lifting it. The mysterious girl tells Yuzu that she has till morning to regain her memories and lift the curse, and the only way she will be able to do so is by traversing her spirit-ridden town for clues. Can Yuzu undo her curse before it's too late?
This game provides examples of:
- Achievement Mockery:
- The "Indomitable" achievement is gotten by dying 30 times.
- To get the "Look Both Ways" achievement, you need to ignore the crosswalk signal on the way to the bamboo forest. Predictably, this will kill Yuzu.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: If you return to plot-relevant areas and do favors for the spirits there, they'll give Yuzu a clothing item (usually a hair accessory, but not always) as a way to say thanks.
- Bittersweet Ending: Even after everything they've done Kotori cannot be cured of her curse and stays behind in the forest despite Yuzu's pleas. However, Yuzu's curse is cured and grows more confident in herself.
- Breaking Old Trends:
- The player is given a degree of Character Customization, allowing the player to choose Yuzu's name, hair, outfit, and accessories. In the previous games, the names and appearance of the protagonists are locked.
- In previous games, to safely detect hostile spirits, the protagonist needed to get into a hiding place (usually a bush), at which point they close their eyes. In Lost in the Dark, Yuzu only needs to close her eyes to detect spirits as there are no longer any hiding spots, which they can do at any time. This allows Yuzu to detect spirits while mobile (albeit at a significantly slower speed), but it leaves her vulnerable to larger or more aggressive spirits.
- The little girl and Haru respectively loses an eye and an arm in their respective games. Yuzu, however, does not lose any of her body parts. In exchange, however, she loses both her pet and friend in the end, whereas the little girl is able to save her sister and Haru takes care of Yui's remaining dog, Chaco.
- Previous games only had one song in the entire game because Reality Has No Soundtrack, said song only being played when the credits began to roll. In the third installment, menu music is added, which means there are two whole songs! The menu theme is also played during the fakeout credits to trick the player into thinking the menu theme is the main theme, while the real main theme is played during the real credits.
- The game also includes the only instance of a soundtrack in the series being played in-game. Once the game is completed and the credits roll, Yuzu can collect a bouquet of seven blue flowers to bring to the rooftop for Kotori. Kotori will be satisfied that Yuzu remembered her and has grown braver, causing her to disappear shortly after, leaving the music player seen in the rest stop memory. Yuzu takes this back to her house and is able to listen to it while inside. What was Kotori listening to on her music player? The game's main theme.
- But Thou Must!: Yuzu is railroaded into several choices throughout the game. However, the trope gets played with as the game progresses.
- In Yuzu's memories involving the mysterious girl, the option to talk to her is scribbled out. When you revisit those memories near end of the game, the mysterious girl teaches Yuzu to imagine a small bell in her hand and shake it whenever she's afraid or upset. Doing so calms Yuzu down, allowing her to see past her fear and make better choices. In-game, this allows the player to unlock the scribbled-out options during Yuzu's memories, allowing her to properly recall her memories.
- In the beginning of the game, Yuzu is forced to eat a worm by the classmates bullying her, and she is too meek to say no. At the end, the player experiences the scene again, but is now able to use the aforementioned bell trick that Kotori taught Yuzu. This gives the player the option to refuse the worm, allowing Yuzu to stand up for herself and not give in to her bullies.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Whereas the little girl from Night Alone remained unnamed (aside from some supplementary materials) and Haru from Midnight Shadows is already named, the player is able to give Yuzu a different name if they desire. Additionally, the player is able to customize Yuzu's appearance whereas the previous protagonists' appearances are locked. Yuzu also owns a cat whereas both the little girl and Haru are dog owners. Yuzu's memories reveals that she has interacted with spirits in the past and is thus not as frightened toward sympathetic spirits unlike the little girl and Haru who had to learn to grow accustomed to them. Finally, unlike the previous heroines, Yuzu doesn't lose any of her body parts by the end, though she ends up losing both her pet and her friend.
- Creepy Doll: In the bamboo forest, there's a whole mansion full of haunted dolls, mannequins and what have you.
- Curse: Yuzu and the mysterious girl are both under a curse that is slowly turning the two of them into bird-like ghosts.
- Dead All Along:
- Mugi. Despite making appearances throughout the game and helping Yuzu, Mugi has been dead since before the start of the game. All of his appearances are hallucinations brought about by Yuzu refusing to believe he's dead. Yuzu's inability to accept his death ends up being the catalyst for much of the game as her trying to chase after "Mugi" while she and her friends break into the school is what leads to her being ostracized and she can't fully regain her memories and the bell necessary to break the curse until she remembers and accepts Mugi's death.
- Subverted with Yuzu. While it appears that she committed suicide at the beginning of the game and that she would be revealed to be a spirit the entire time (much like Yui from Midnight Shadows), she's alive throughout the game.
- Downer Beginning: The player gets to see Yuzu get bullied at school before throwing herself off the school's roof.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted both times. At the beginning of the game and in a memory, Yuzu and the mysterious girl fall off the school rooftop. It's eventually revealed that the school rooftop is the entrance to the forest.
- Due to the Dead: If a spirit is suffering, Yuzu will try to help the spirit find peace whether its building a grave for them, reuniting them with a loved one, or even take part in their creepy games. All the spirits show their appreciation by gifting new accessories or decorations for her room.
- Fission Mailed: Even after you've collected all your memories, it isn't enough and the girl rejects Yuzu, saying she hasn't really recovered her true memories. Yuzu leaves and starts to succumb to the curse and has a memory of herself and Kotori when they were younger. The title then shows up as if the game's over, but then credits scroll by at an unreadably fast pace. When they're over, it cuts to Yuzu in her house, resolving to recover her true memories.
- Eerie Anatomy Model: According to one of the notes about The Seven Mysteries found at the school, the Skeleton models found in the science classrooms will move when you close your eyes. True to the notes, the Skeleton models will start moving towards Yuzu if her eyes are closed, but will remain still once they're opened. Several Skeleton models will block Yuzu's path so the player needs to get good at timing the eye covering mechanic to open up paths.
- Evil-Detecting Animal:
- The dogs in the shopping district level will bark at invisible parts of the area that will kill Yuzu if she goes into them, acting as a warning.
- Mugi tends to growl and hiss whenever spirits are around. It's unknown whether or not Mugi's is a spirit and can detect these other spirits, or if it's just Yuzu hallucinating him doing so.
- Eye Scream: A wandering Giant Hands of Doom spirit will cling to the screen if it catches Yuzu. If the player grabs the nearby large needle, Yuzu will stab the eye in the hand's palm, freeing her and granting her the "Something's Eyeball" item. Using the large needle before then, however, will lead Yuzu to an instant death as she stabs out her *own* eyes instead.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Unlike the first two games, few if any of the boss spirits have any kind of backstory. It's anyone's guess why Slender Mannote is stalking the school, the local sea caves are inhabited by a reality-warping starfish monster, or the rice field is haunted by what appear to be the ghosts of aborted babies.
- Guide Dang It!: In series tradition, you won't be getting all the items without a guide. It's not likely, for example, that anyone would see a ghost whale and think "I should feed him rocks until he explodes."
- Interface Screw: The starfish spirit will try to obstruct Yuzu by inverting the player's control scheme or by distorting the environment.
- Kaizo Trap: Utilized at the end of the Mansion chapter. Yuzu wins at hide and seek and collects her lost memory. All's good, right? Well, turns out the haunted doll isn't done playing yet, meaning you have to make a beeline for the exit before you can fully recover your memory.
- Kappa: Yuzu will find one by the river wearing a straw hat. This Kappa is a non-hostile spirit who simply jumps out of the water and looks for another part of the river to dive into. If Yuzu helps the Kappa up after it falls on its shell and feeds it a cucumber, the Kappa will leave its shell as a reward.
- Kids Are Cruel: Yuzu's only interactions with kids her age consist of them viciously bullying her to the point of seemingly driving her to suicide. The reason for all this? Two kids thought she was possessed by a ghost and started spreading rumors to isolate her from everyone.
- Magical Camera: The one Yuzu picks up in the abandoned boat can take out spirits when the flash goes off.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Like the previous Yomawari games, the trailers and promotional material hide a good chunk of the context behind the premise that is eventually revealed in the tutorial. The tutorial forces the player to experience Yuzu's savage bullying before she throws herself off the school roof and finds herself lost in the forest. None of this is ever hinted at in any capacity.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: In the postgame, they'll be a lot new spirits in the streets...and pretty much all of them are lifted right from the first two games.
- Not Always Evil: While there are plenty of hostile spirits who will harm Yuzu, there are also many spirits who simply wish to be entertained or need help and won't harm Yuzu if she helps them. In fact, Yuzu will encounter several of the main story spirits who are simply looking out wistfully, waiting for someone to help them.
- Once More, with Clarity: Even after regaining all of her memories, Yuzu learns that some parts of her memories are still missing, which results in a Non-Standard Game Over. This ending, however, gives the player a clue in the form of the Broken Flashlight. This forces the player to go over Yuzu's memories once more, using the clues they've learned to properly piece together her memories. The parts of her memories where she encounters a hostile spirit at first glance turn out to be Kotori trying to help her.
- Self-Contained Demo: The Lost in the Dark demo, which takes the "Letter to Someone" memory and expands it to introduce the game's mechanics and some of the spirits.
- Where It All Began: Just like the first two games, the game begins and ends with Yuzu going to school before jumping off the roof and ending in the snowy forest.
