Lost Odyssey First Impressions

Alright, so I’ve put a few hours into Lost Odyssey, and am prepared to give my initial reaction to the game.  First of all, I’ll say that it is absolutely an evolution, not a revolution in JRPG’s.  It has your standard plotline:  Immortal warrior with amnesia is manipulated by shadowy political forces, and while magic is helping to technologically advance society, it’s destroying the balance of nature and the planet itself. 

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the developers went about by trying to create a Final Fantasy-esque universe under a new intellectual property for the 360.  And while the game isn’t treading too much new ground, it doesn’t really matter.  The ground it does cover is traversed with supreme adeptness and excellence, bringing out the best of everything that you loved in your classic Squaresoft RPG but for a new updated console. 

The graphics are stunning and the story is told with a good balance of FMW and real time action.  They’ve also returned to the tried and true random battle turned based combat, and while I’m glad that the Final Fantasy series has moved on, in Lost Odyssey it’s like meeting an old friend after a long hiatus. 

One thing I’ve noticed right away is that the difficulty is noticeably harder from that of other RPGs.   I’ve heard that the enemies are scaled up to match your level, and so the old trick of grinding to beat a boss won’t work.   I recently made it past the first boss fight in the game, and at the first attempt it wiped out my entire party in two attacks.  The second time was a little more forgiving, but I had to use every Angel’s Plume (Lost Odyssey’s version of the classic Pheonix Down) and a ton of curative items, and in the end I only just made it, with one character KO’d and my other two in the yellow for HP. 

That battle was followed with the first really difficult random encounters.  I was racing to the next town and save point, if only to try and replenish my stock of items.  One other interesting thing I noticed was that if a character got KO’d, but I was able to survive for two turns, they’d be revived without me using an item.  I’m not sure if the game does this all the time, or only when you’re out of Angel’s Plumes (which I was at the time), but in the specific instance I’m referencing, it was the only way I could have possibly made it through the battle, and it wasn’t even a boss fight, it was your normal random peons that you encounter walking everywhere.

Despite the slight difficulty increase, I’m thoroughly enjoying the game so far.  One of the best ancillary features in the game is the ability to switch the audio from English to Japanese, but keep English subtitles, which I’m loving because I’ve recently taken up Japanese, and so I get to hear the original voice acting and at the same time immerse myself in the language. 

There are two big complaints about this game that I’ve been reading in reviews.  The first is a preference thing in my opinion–in the game your main character Kaim will periodically remember a memory from his past.  This will trigger a “dream sequence” which is basically a short story in text form.  Some of the ones I’ve found so far are pretty lengthy for video game text, but they’re written incredibly well, and I think they really add to the game. 

There are a lot of ignorant reviewers out there who are making the lame claim–“if I wanted to read, I would have bought a book”.  Personally, I was worried about this part of the game at first, but having now experienced it, I can see what they were going for, and I think the medium of written word is an important juxtaposition to the other action of the narrative.  I wouldn’t want that content delivered through FMW’s–some of us actually enjoy reading.  Ever think of that, guys?

The second complaint I’m seeing out there is that the load times for the random battles are exceedingly long.  Reviewers were reporting some waits of up to 30-60 seconds, which obviously would effect your view of any game, but I have to say that so far, all my load times for battles have been about par for the course from previous Final Fantasy or other RPGs–10 to 12 seconds.  I kept thinking as I was playing, “is this what they were complaining about?”.  Kotaku had a post that intimated that the review copies that were sent out had longer load times then the retail discs, and I would have to assume that is true based on my experience. 

The bottom line is Lost Odyssey is a solid title,  and if you like JRPG’s, especially the Final Fantasy series, you’re going to love this game.  It is a spiritual successor to the former series, and the fact that Nubuo Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi are involved mean that this game will fill a much needed niche on the 360 that up to now has been largely absent–that of the masterfully executed Japanese RPG. 

If you’ve played Lost Odyssey, or just want to comment on the review, drop a comment below and let us know what’s on your mind.

–WG