Despite being a gamer for some time, I’ve never really had much exposure to Japanese-style RPGs.
The most I’ve had was a handful of hours of Xenogears, Final Fantasy 8 and 9 on the PC using a PlayStation One emulator. When Lost Odyssey was released, I figured it was my chance to get some serious time in with the genre.
Granted, Lost Odyssey isn’t earth shattering innovation but it’s still fun to play. In the end, that’s what really matters.
The gist of the story is that you play as Kaim Argonar, a man without his memories yet pained by his immortal existence, who is tasked with finding the cause of a devastating meteor strike that may be linked to a secret government project or worse: a weapon employed by the Republic of Uhra’s enemies. It’s a difficult time. Magic has entered the world in the form of a ‘magical industrial revolution’ and the sweeping changes may help elevate mankind, or utterly destroy it.
Unbeknownst to Kaim, forces are at work within the Uhran government that employs him as pro-Republic and pro-Monarchist factions secretly jockey for power. To worsen matters, Uhra is at war with the neighbouring kingdom of Khent. Kaim and his intrepid band of mortals and immortals must battle enemies all around them; from the shadow forces in Uhra’s own government, to the beasts of the land, monstrously mutated by the magical energies sweeping the world.
The Bad
Lost Odyssey suffers from some of the things I find annoying with Japanese-style RPGs. One of my gripes is that you can’t fast forward or skip battle intro animations, or creature attack animations.
I realize that animated combat is one of the hallmarks of JRPGs and that the visual flourish is one of the attractive things about such games. But there comes a point during the game play where you want to just get on with the story, which is where the real meat is in JRPGs
Yes, the attack animations are cool and everything, but when you’re forced to watch them over and over, the lustre tends to wear off. This is especially true when you encounter some of the more common and plentiful enemies during exploration.
Having the option to play them at perhaps twice the speed would have been nice and having the ability to turn off the ones you’ve already seen would have been super.
I was also disappointed that Kaim’s past dream sequences aren’t illustrated to a greater extent given that Lost Odyssey is brimming with superb art direction. I don’t mind doing all the reading as that’s normal for most JRPGs, but for sequences which are supposed to deliver the game’s poignant and emotional punch, having only animated text and vague background art and sound is a let-down.
Reviewers have complained about overly long loading times but to be honest, although relatively frequent, I didn’t find them excruciatingly long. The loading times seem to last usually around 5 seconds and maybe a little longer in some instances. Still, load times abound.
The Good
The game has great characters with decent English voice acting. From the very start, none of them annoyed me. Jansen Friedh will probably make quite a few favourite character lists.
It goes without saying that the art direction and visual design is terrific— for such games it has to be. Lost Odyssey presents you with an imaginative and immersive world with from-the-ground-up design in everything from costuming to architecture. The fully realized world adds to the epic feel of the game.
The turn-based combat still keeps players engaged using the Ring System. The Ring System involves some quick reflexes and key timing on the player’s part. When attacking a foe the player holds down the right trigger as a ring appears over the foe. As the attack runs in to make an attack, a second shrinking ring appears. The player must release the trigger right at the moment the two rings overlap and are of the exact same size. How close the rings are in size determines the extent of the damage of the attack. Ring performance is rated Bad, Good or Perfect.
One of my favourite composers, Nobuo Uematsu if Final Fantasy fame, composed the music. I snagged the Lost Odyssey soundtrack but haven’t given a full listen to it just yet. I’m hoping they’ll release a full orchestral version soon, as they have done with the Final Fantasy game music.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, it seems like the developers made a list of essential characteristics that are found in JRPGs and simply included them rather than tweaking and improving some of the aspects. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you because I think Lost Odyssey has done what it set out to do: give the Xbox 360 a decent JRPG-style game, a gaming genre in which the 360 is sorely lacking in titles at the moment.
Lost Odyssey presents the player with a lush fantasy world, engaging characters and game play which JRPG fans are well acquainted with.
Innovative? Not really. Formulaic? It is. Enjoyable game play experience? Most definitely!
Tags: gaming, jansen friedh, jrpg, lost odyssey, nobuo uematsu, review, video games, xbox 360
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