Lost Odyssey

Comments

1. Terry Mesnard says:
   July 17, 2010 at 9:21 pm

   Review by Terry Mesnard for Lost Odyssey
   Rating:
   One prominent feature of JRPGs is the emo male protagonist. Only a handful of games break this mold. One such game would be Lunar: Silver Star Story and Eternal Blue. While Lunar held to the same themes as most JRPGs by discussing the importance of friendship, the battle of Good versus Evil, it maintained a general sense of joviality. Even when things inevitably went dark, the characters kept their happy-go-lucky attitude.

   Lost Odyssey is the antithesis of Lunar.

   Kaim is your typical tortured soul protagonist, except that, unlike most others who write bad poetry while metaphorically slitting their wrists and bemoaning their wretched life, he actually has a reason to be. He’s an immortal, apparently cursed to live forever and has already lived 1,000 years. So, when the game begins with a climactic battle involving a meteor, he’s had many lifetimes of sorrow, guilt, death and tragedy that would obviously make anyone’s existence incredibly dour. If you’re a sucker for sad stories, Kaim’s tale will undoubtably tug at your heart strings.

   Basically, two stories are going on at once in Lost Odyssey. There’s the current story that I’ll get to in a bit. There’s also the back story that comes flitting through in written form every once in awhile. You see, Kaim suffers from another JRPG staple: the amnesiac hero. He, and other immortals like him, don’t remember much about their past for some reason. And so, as Kaim continues his quest, events will trigger memories and you have the option of reading them. These little vignettes are written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, an award-winning Japanese novelist, and it shows.

   These 34 stories, in fact, often overshadow the main story line. The main quest involves discovering why Kaim and the other immortals are amnesiac and they quickly become embroiled in a political landscape more polarizing than the current times we live in. A few different countries eye each other ominously and one of the main points of contention comes down to technology and magic. Add in some political backstabbing and enough emotional baggage to sink the Titanic and you basically have the very interesting and mature story in a nutshell.

   The combat is typical JRPG; turn-based and random. Eschewing their previous game’s encounter system (Blue Dragon), Lost Odyssey has plenty of random encounters. Fortunately, with the exception of a few areas, the encounters aren’t as frequent as they have been in some games. A couple additions to the combat and leveling system add to the thrill. For instance, taking a cue from Shadow Hearts, you can equip various “Rings” on characters which will add various abilities to their attacks. The twist is that you have to trigger these additions by holding the right trigger and releasing it as a big circle perfectly shrinks to match a smaller circle. This little homage to Shadow Hearts should be expected since Feel Plus, a studio working with Mistwalker on this title, is comprised of some ex-Sacnoth employees who had created the Shadow Hearts series.

   The leveling system is also pretty interesting as you have Immortals who don’t learn skills when they level and Mortals who do. Consequently, you can “skill link” an Immortal to a specific Mortal Skill and learn it eventually. This creates an interesting dynamic where you want to have Mortals and Immortals in your party to gain their knowledge and also to have them level up. The one complaint I have is that members not in your party don’t automatically gain experience. And due to the fact that you’ll want your mortals to level so you can learn more skills, you’ll constantly be flipping your formation around (you can have five members in your party at a time).

   From a sound perspective, Lost Odyssey surprised me. The score from Final Fantasy mainstay Nobuo Uematsu is familiar and different, bringing to mind some of his excellent compositions from Final Fantasy. Meanwhile, this is one of the few JRPGs to offer a Japanese vocal track if you’d like to listen to that…and it’s one of the only games where I don’t want it. The English vocal staff is excellent for the most part. I really, really like it and the dialogue is (mostly) written well.

   So there’s obviously a big elephant in the room. Lost Odyssey is very reminiscient of Final Fantasy which is to be expected since you have Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the entire Final Fantasy series, and his cohort in musical crime onboard. Then you add in the fact that Feel Plus is made of ex-Sacnoth employees who were, in turn, former Square employees…and you have the recipe for a game that’s pretty close to Square’s long-winded series.

   Along with the aforementioned party-swapping to level, a few other complaints bring the score down. For one, there’s a lot of load times. And load times during cut scenes which is a huge no-no in my book. The frame rate does take a few dips every so often and while it’s not a deal-breaker, it is noticeable. And the beautiful graphics are often marred with aliasing issues, resulting in what’s called “jaggies.” Combat also takes awhile to load into, as the game shows you various images, then the main characters are introduced before finally showing the enemies and the battle starts. All of this is to hide the load times, I’m sure, but it slows combat down a lot.

   Ultimately, though, the complaints are minor nuisances in what is a great addition to the JRPG line. It’s fun, mature, dark and sad, sometimes all at once. Unfortunately, Lost Odyssey seems to be taking a beating in the mainstream gaming press who have said it’s “soooo old fashioned,” a claim that probably wouldn’t be made if you switch the words “Lost” and “Odyssey” with “Final” and “Fantasy” with some roman numeral…maybe with a dash and a number.
2. A. Morris says:
   July 17, 2010 at 10:17 pm

   Review by A. Morris for Lost Odyssey
   Rating:
   I got my copy of the game and I have to say I am shocked. The game consists of four discs. I’m on the fourth disc of the game at the moment, and the story is amazing. The graphics are a lot better than what I would expect from a JRPG and the cinematic scenes are even better (I am not playing the game in HD, so its hard to give a comparison, but I would say the graphics are on par with Gears of War) . It looks like the character designers spent a WHOLE lot of time doing each and every character ( I also like how every character has his/her own name, like Quest 64 lol) The battle system is a normal turn based battle system with some “press the buttons with good timing” feature that makes it not as boring as most turn based battle systems, the battles in the game are like candy for your eyes (the kind of candy that will give you a mind orgasm every once and a while). The farther I get into the game the deeper and more complex the story gets. I didn’t know about this game until a few days before it released. I am so happy that I pre-ordered it. If you own an Xbox 360 and like RPGs, then I highly recommend purchasing this game. It feels a lot like a Final Fantasy game, but the story is unique and complex. The memories and the story combined will have you riding on an emotional roller-coaster. I have already been sucked into the game and I don’t think I will be able to play many other video games until I finish this one. The sound and music in the game is also excellent; it adds more suspense to the battles and cinematic action scenes in the game and makes the whole game feel like a good “epic” movie. Some of the boss battles that I’ve experienced are pretty challenging, and you really have to strategize to beat them (A lot like Final Fantasy). Its not too hard either though, it feels just about right and overcoming some of the more challenging parts of the game feel very rewarding. Also, the voice acting is very good for a JRPG and some of the dialogue will make you laugh out loud. I am not going to give any spoilers about the story, so if this review has you interested in the game then I recommend that you ATLEAST rent it. Purchasing it will probably be worth it though (Each disc is around fifteen hours long, maybe longer if you take your time leveling up.) A basic reading ability is needed to fully enjoy this game (The memories are in a storybook style and very enjoyable to read).
3. KithkinMD says:
   July 17, 2010 at 11:01 pm

   Review by KithkinMD for Lost Odyssey
   Rating:
   Initially on release I was very excited about this title, I had high hopes for the Mistwalker stable, and despite not being a DragonQuest fan enjoyed my romp through Blue Dragon. On loading the graphics and voice acting were impressive, and I felt that, while sometimes tipping into melodrama, the dreams were a compelling part of the story.

   I actually had to stop playing the game when I reached the regenerating worm monster boss (very early on in game play). The combat system irritated me, and after multiple failures (and several heated discussions with my more avid gamer husband) I put the game away. I am not exactly naive to RPGs, have played all the FF games, am a rapid Tri-Ace fan, and have other favorite titles, including the Elder Scrolls series. My personal style does involve some grinding, as with my schedule sometimes if I grind for my hour of gameplay every night for a week, I can complete a major battle without my fingernails gripping the controller and my nerves being overset. This particular title made grinding close to impossible, and I got more frustration than pleasure out of it.

   It was visually stunning, however, and I wish that my husband had completed it so that I could have watched, but he had other complaints with the game.
4. frangelico says:
   July 17, 2010 at 11:49 pm

   Review by frangelico for Lost Odyssey
   Rating:
   Just as a counterpoint to the overwhelming good reviews of this game, here are a few things you should know before buying this game.

   1) Make sure you enjoy Japanese-style RPGs, because they have a format which, unless you’re a fan, can be extremely tedious and repetitive. It’s a lot of turn-based fighting over-and-over again, watching the characters taking their turns in orderly fashion to hit the bad guys. If you like that sort of thing, great, but if you don’t, it will get old fast.
   
   2) The story and dramatics of the game are pretty corny and occasionally obnoxious.
   
   3) The pacing of the game is pretty awful at times. There will be very long stretches where you have to make your way through a maze only to be interrupted a dozen times by the same random battle encounter. There will be very long stretches of long cutscenes. There will be very long stretches of wandering around for the sake of wandering around.
   
   4) Games where you can’t save your progress at will have always seemed mistaken to me, but here there will be maddeningly long spaces between Save points. Um, sometimes you’re just ready to put the game down right? This is most annoying where there is some sort of difficult boss battle long after the most recent Save.

   I hate to sound overly negative about this game, it has its good points, (or maybe it just appealed to the obsessive-compulsive in me) but I just wanted to make it clear to potential players that this game, in my opinion, isn’t as great as most reviews out there say, nor does it break much new ground in game design.
5. KD says:
   July 17, 2010 at 11:58 pm

   Review by KD for Lost Odyssey
   Rating:
   I won’t go into the detailed review of the game as others have done a much better job. However, I would like to discuss the nature of game reviewers, difficulties in games, and Lost Odyssey.

   I remember when Ninja Gaiden came out for the Xbox and half the reviewers hated it for its difficulty. Unfortunately, as the nature of reviewers are, they like to speed through a game as fast as possible so they can finish their review and move on to the next. Most games today require not much more than button mashing to beat. In the same vein, certain RPGs, such as Final Fantasy only require the simple attack, attack, heal, heal strategy to beat. These reviewers EXPECT this kind of game play. But when they don’t see that, rather than use strategy, they reverted to grinding levels. Which is why they got angry at the game, giving it 7.5 – 8.5 ratings.

   What people need to know is that this game DISCOURAGES grinding, hence the 1 exp per battle once you hit your optimal level. Boss fights require tactics and strategy, which is refreshing for an RPG. One of the biggest problem with Mass Effect was that the game was too easy once your character levels up. The biggest problem with Bioshock is that there is virtually no fear of dying. The payoff and satisfaction most gamers get is when they overcome an obstacle that appears difficult and impossible at first. This is the same satisfaction you get when you beat Ninja Gaiden.

   Reviewers are a jaded bunch. They no longer play games for the fun of it but rather to meet a deadline to post a review. Do yourself a favor and play this game for yourself and see why it’s one of the best RPG released for the Xbox 360 or any system.