game-worn

A Well Put Together Role-Play: Lost Odyssey
After over One (1) year of not having this game, I loved playing it so much, I bought it again; so much I made sure I got it new; mostly on account I never had the opportunity to finish it. If you are looking for a great way to spend some free time, love tantalizing your mind with a good story line, several different characters that you just wish for one second could all be invited into one fight to keep your mortals learning new skills to link them to your immortals and kick some serious tale, and hundreds of different ways to queue up a winning strategy, plus being in total control freak, then this game is for you. The game is absolutely in-dept, and the cut scenes come at just the right time for a short rest. It's definitely worth the money, especially for the price I paid. Pick one up today, watch the official movie at [...]

A Must Play!
"In days of old, when knights were bold, and journeyed from their castle.."

Okay, so it's an almost but not quite by the books Japanese RPG. I say that because you'll find all the staples of your typical Japanese RPG. Hero out to save the world? Check. Turn based battles? Check. Random battle sequences? Check. The good news? It adds a lot of refinements to the system, allowing for a great balance of nostalgic JRPG with a breath of fresh air.

The fresh air mostly comes from the heavy refinement of the battle and skill system. While it's not revolutionary (you'll still select battle commands, with usual attack, defend, item, magic, etc.), it definitely adds enough improvement in enough areas to keep you always improving and intrigued, and improvising strategies against the pretty clever enemy. To start, you have two different types of characters: Immortals and Humans. In any given battle, you can have a combination of up to five. You can put the five characters in to a formation. The formation allows you to have a Guard wall, which can drastically reduce the damage received by the party members in the back. The more characters you have up front, the stronger the wall, but the more damage the front takes, the weaker your wall becomes and more easily damaged your back row will be. Balancing the formation becomes key in protecting the weaker members of your party (health wise) so they can provide support and magics.

One of the main differences between the two is that Immortals will actually revive themselves after so many turns, no matter how many times they die, while a mortal must be revived by an item or magic. Another is how the learn their skills- A mortal learns skills by leveling up, while an Immortal learns skills by earning SP points from battles, that allow them to learn skills and magics from either equipment or from "linking" to skills known by mortals, which encourages using all of your characters on a regular basis.

Last but not least with the battle system, there are "rings". These provide different boosts (including extra damage, elemental damage, damage against certain enemy types, stealing items, absorbing health, etc) when the activated during the battle. When a character performs a regular attack, a circle appears on the screen, with another circle rapidly decreasing in size until they overlap. The idea is to try and pull the trigger when they exactly overlap to pull off either a "good" or "perfect" attack, increasing the effectiveness of the ring.

In regards to the story, the story itself is pretty good, with the typical plot twists and personal challenges and saving the world you'll find in most well regarded JRPG's. This game goes an extra mile in two ways, one with character development, and the other with presentation.

The characters are developed by using in game actions, cutscenes and dreams. And I must stress this, there are a LOT of all of them (especially dreams, although these can be skipped- however I recommend reading the dreams that appear in key events of the plot). This is very much a story centric game, with incredible detail and effort put in to the characters design, stories, backgrounds, and motivations. And the payload is incredible. By the end of the story, you will know come to really understand each and every character, and what lead them to where they are now, and why they are even involved at all. Every single one has a reason, and the player is pulled in to caring about every character. There are very few games that pay such attention to detail to breathing life and sustainability to their characters.

So after having spent so much time praising the game, there is one drawback, that while is annoyance, just barely stops the game from getting a perfect score. While the game is absolutely gorgeous (and I mean gorgeous, from the environments, to the enemies, to the cutscenes), the game suffers from constant struggles with the framerate. Once in a while is okay, but unfortunately it occurs just a little too frequently. Much of this can be alleviated by installing each disc to the 360's hard drive, but that shouldn't be needed on a console that sells arcade (units without hard drives) versions of the console. While none of them are showstoppers, they can have the ability to jar yourself back to reality after having been being pulled so deep in to the game.

All in all, the game is beautiful, fun, refined, and easily one of the best RPG's (and probably THE best JRPG) on the system, and is a must pickup for any fan of the genre. Despite the graphical slowdowns occuring just a tad bit too often, the occasional annoyance can be overlooked in favor the epic. This is a must play!

Great Game, but Use a Guild!
I have had this game for a while, but only recently got around to playing it. Wish I had done so sooner. The story is amazing, though if you are prone to tearing up, I would recommend keeping tissues near you as you play. The characters are entertaining, and they have varying personalities.

However, I highly recommend using some kind of walkthrough, either a player-written one or the official Prima book. While you CAN get through without it, using something helps you find all the little things that you might otherwise miss.

One warning though... This is a JRPG, which means lots of random encounters and no save-anywhere. (Save points are frequent, but it can be tiresome getting to them.)

A Filler, but Possibly not Worth the Time
DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS
For a video game that seems to hark on time and how important it is, I found myself utterly astounded that I dedicated so much time to the game itself. Now, don't get me wrong, I found the game to be, at the very least, entertaining. However, there are several things that I found about this creation that is in serious need of a face lift.

Kaim Argonar, our angst-ridden protagonist is about as likable as an emo kid bewailing his musical escapades with a dull razor. Thankfully, however, there is reason to believe that Kaim has a meaningful explanation to be the way he is. He's 'immortal' and has seen the full scope of far too many lives, the pains of war, and how capitalism drives societies to their ends. Not too far off from our world, which is a plus. Kaim, however, becomes rather likable after a while, simply by his dedication to continue to fight for something that will inevitably pass on in his lifetime.

The other immortals, however, seem strangely above this condition and continue to be rather chipper throughout the story. Seth, being a prime example. Even though she has her quirks towards Kaim-emoness, she is rather likable and just does what she needs to and calls it a day. The most expression we get from her is in regards to her son, Sed, who resembles a 70 year old man in comparison to the 20 year old looking Seth. The end, however, is hardly capable of swallowing. Seth becomes a sacrificial hero which doesn't seem to sit well in my hands. I just never built up enough for her to care since Kaim, despite his bewailing, is the main pusher and puller of the story.

The White Boa...needs to be at the bottom of the ocean. It's as useless as the Nautilus' ability to fly. True, it can smash through ice and, therefore, progress some of the story and complete some of the missions, but it is the slowest thing around. I used it as little as possible. Whoever said this would be a great idea ought to have a talk with me. Just equip the jack-of-all-trades Nautilus with a blow dryer on the front and all will be well.

The story itself isn't bad. We'll talk more about that later. However, it seemed rather slapdash. It certainly had the potential for greatness but fell short and hit a few steps on the way down. I think the best part of the story that I enjoyed was Cooke and Mack's mother, Kaim and Sarah's daughter, who seems to piece the entire story together with her infinite love and compassion. It is, unfortunately, not the focus of the story. A sound mind will realize that Gongora is the antithesis to Lirum's passionate zest for life, as short as it might have been, but the story also tries to slide towards the world domination category with Gongora. Compassion seems to be the side thought to a much greater evil, when it should have been emphasized more in both regards. Of course, who wants a sappy story about a dead woman?

As hinted out before, the character development is strangely lacking. Sure, I laughed at some of Jansen's jokes and got a twinge in my eye from Cooke and Mack or some of the 'memory' stories that are unlocked throughout the game, but I certainly was not particularly moved by life-or-death scenarios. Sarah and Sed were probably the least interesting even though I felt like they could have been if they had a little bit more stage time.

While on the subject of characters. The way they level up is bothersome. It is strangely effective in new areas where your leveling up becomes a kind of steroid power without ever having much difficulty behind battling anything you encounter. Because of this, each area will level you up to a certain number where it feels comfortable that you can continue and then it becomes a terribly slow ordeal that refuses to give you even so much as a point, if that. No wonder Kaim is whining. Regardless, it is somewhat effective, but then you never have that exciting pleasure of whether you think you are strong enough to battle the next boss. Bosses, therefore, become rather easy, even if some were positively infuriating. The most difficult battle in the entire game is the last battle of the Backyard, a kind of battle arena. All others should be a cake walk if you find yourselves slow on the leveling up category.

Okay, okay, so not everything is bad. A lot is good! The music, for one, is fantastic. Why? Because it's composed by the notorious Nobuo Uematsu. I would spend a good deal of time 'leveling up' just so I could listen to some of his music. Unfortunately, the leveling up part was hardly enjoyable from other RPGs.

Being clearly sarcastic myself, Jansen really kept the story rolling for me. He started the story going, flitted along sarcastically along the way, and wound up helping a great deal in the end. The writers should be complimented with some of his comments, even if the other characters lacked much vocabulary. Speaking of writers, the little memory stories were sometimes corny and other times strangely linked up with the reality us humans live in. It certainly helps for us to care about what is being said. I recommend reading them, even if they aren't required.

Despite the leveling up fiasco that occurs in each area, the fight sequence is stable and often times fun. There is also a variety of interesting critters to fight, even if some are painfully repeated in other areas. I did not find myself frustrated with any of the game play, and the ability to hit perfects being in your control is a wonderful concept.

Not to be long winded, but I chewed up the game enough to begin with. The story, as mentioned, was almost there. The potential was great but somehow slacked off and became negligible. Regardless, there is a deal to like, such as Lirum, mentioned earlier. She is truly, regardless of never actually feeling like she was important, presents the antithesis to Gongora who cannot love even though he feels he is giving into the virus of emotions. Nobody ever explained that one. There are also Lirum's kids, who, despite being irritating at first, are just as beneficial to the party as Kaim is. I expected them to be more like Tolten, in other words, useless, but they came through in the end.

There are also a decent amount of side missions that can be completed for loads of goodies, and they aren't particularly maddening. I don't think I could have dealt with another maddening boss, such as the last fight in the Backyard. The dedication to the game just isn't there, so I was happy with mediocre difficulty being faced in the dark places of the planet.

So, all in all, it's not bad. Sure, there are problems, but it wasn't as miserable as I expected it to be. I feel like if the producers just spent a bit more time fiddling they would have had a fantastic game. Unfortunately, they didn't. So I won't be returning to Kaim's world anytime soon. I wouldn't swear it completely off, but I certainly don't recommend spending as much time on it as I did. 80 hours.

Precious
In a world of evolving genres, it is nice that Lost Odyssey is possible. Thanks to Mistwalker and Microsoft, we are lucky enough to have this title available: a high-budget turned-based RPG. It has fantastic short stories, music, and characters, with an engaging, old-school battle system. Highly recommended. I wish for a sequel...so much.