Myviewing

User Score
9.7

Presentation - 10
Gameplay - 10
Value - 9.5

Since the formation of Mistwalker Studios, there has been a question of whether or not Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, would create an RPG worthy of his name.  While not a total disaster like some might want you to think, Blue Dragon wasn’t exactly the title to do that with its pretty generic story and not much to add to the RPG genre in general.  If you think this is the direction Mistwalker is taking though, it’s time for you to do a double take, because Lost Odyssey is the type of game that you would want out of the high and mighty lead programmer.  If it’s a more mature atmosphere, or better focus on great productions values you’re looking for in a Sakaguchi game, Lost Odyssey is here to provide for any JRPG fan.  Not only that, but if you really want to experience one of the best sources of storytelling this gen, Lost Odyssey is more than willing to provide you one you won’t forget.

Lost Odyssey’s story is based on a fictional world where an event called the “Magic Industrial Revolution” has taken place.  This revolution has allowed the use of a force known as magic-energy to improve the everyday lives of people of all nations while also altering the state of war.  The main character goes by the name of Kaim Argonar, an immortal man who has lived in this world for 1000 years but cannot remember any of his memories.  Now he is on a journey to rediscover those memories to find out who is causing the world to plunge into chaos from the weapons created from magic energy. Along the way, he’ll even meet with other immortals such as Seth and Ming, and learn just what their purpose for existing is, and band with mortal men and women to help them discover the mysteries of the world they live in now.

On the surface, Lost Odyssey might not seem like the most original story you’ll ever witness, and while it does end up resulting in the usual “save the world” scenario, there are two things that set Lost Odyssey apart from the typical RPG.  The first reason is because Lost Odyssey relies greatly on emotion that is evoked because of the interactions between the characters Kaim meets through the game depending on the situations that happen while also telling its story.  There are deaths, losses, stunning realizations, and you will know what it means to outlive a great deal of the world, there’s not much to reveal without giving a great deal of spoilers to the story though.  The second reason lies in the memories themselves, instead of making a shocking revelation about his past towards the end of the game, Kaim has many of them, 28 to be exact while Ming has one and Seth has two.  These revelations are reflected in an important part of the game called, “A Thousand Years of Dreams”.  Some of the Dreams and the cut scenes from the way the story is told will most likely have tugged at your heartstrings by the time you’ve finished the first disc.  If videogames are ever to be considered an art form someday, then Lost Odyssey should very well be worthy of at least a header in the history books. Even if Lost Odyssey isn’t the best story ever told, it definitely is the best-told story that you’ll find on the Xbox 360.

When you start playing the game, the first amazing thing that you’ll find are the beautiful landscapes only possible on a next-gen console.  The game opens with Kaim in a battlefield against an army of Gohtzan Knights and makes a seamless transition into the battle system that you’ll use through the game.  Being a next-gen game, you’d expect a game to show just how far graphics have come in the last ten or more years.  The efforts of a great deal of programming really shows how far graphics have come and lay an opening for more advanced detail in the future. 

The environments are extremely well detailed, every environment from the typical mountain to the frozen landscapes all the way into the final part of the game are just brilliantly designed and programmed.  The environments make you feel like your experiencing a brought to life world unlike many others seen before.  The character models are also quite detailed, particularly in the cut scenes when you can actually see their faces making expressions.  The character models though tend to have some technical issues that keep them from being as convincing as the environments.  The animations for the characters aren’t exactly the most fluid in the world, and when they talk their lips aren’t always in synch with their speech.  Gaming still has a long way to go before 100% convincingly realistic character models are possible, but these models themselves are still detailed enough to give you the impression you’re seeing real people.

Artistically, Lost Odyssey should be a contender for awards.  The cities that you traverse and the people you meet are made in a very eye-appealing way that it can be hard to have many complaints about the designs.  The immortals are all done in a way that they convincingly look like they have lived 1000 years without aging.  Kaim has the face of an indifferent man with years of wisdom, and the other immortals convey their feelings very convincingly.  Be it in terms of art direction or technical aspects, Lost Odyssey does not fail to appeal, and it makes the game all the more enjoyable.

In terms of sound, long-time Final Fantasy music composer Nobuo Uematsu returns to work on the soundtrack for the game.  Simply put, the music is demonstration of some of his best work yet with incredibly memorable tunes you’ll want to download sometime soon.  The music adds to the emotion of a scene whether you’re in a dream or watching a cut scene.  There are also epic music pieces such as the main theme song and the song that plays during the battle with the final boss, and they just fit in amazingly well with the scenes and there are really no situations where the music could have been switched around to better fit the scene.  For the sound effects, there’s nothing really that memorable, just the typical sound effects that are made for the occasion.  They do fit though, and there aren’t any situations in the game where it seems out of place except for the voice acting due to the imperfect character models with the mouths.  Speaking of the voice acting, there really isn’t that much to complain about, in fact a lot of the voice actors themselves really deserve a nod in approval at the very least.  Keith Ferguson, who does Kaim, does an amazing job at conveying the neutral tone of a wise man who knows more than those who aren’t of his kind.  The second best voice actor in the game is Michael McGaharn’s rendition of Jansen, since Jansen is the “funny person” of the game, Michael’s acting does a great deal to make him one of the most entertaining characters in the game.  None of the voice actors really feel out of place, though some not enjoy the voice acting for characters such as Tolten (Chad Brannon) for sounding too wimpy or Cooke (Kath Soucie aka Lil) for sounding too uncontrollably childish.  If you’re not a fan of the English voice acting though, there is an option to change the voice acting settings in the main menu be it Japanese, French, or German.

So finally, how does Lost Odyssey play you might ask?  Well Lost Odyssey plays out like a traditional turn-based JRPG with random encounters and giving commands to your characters to do different things such as magic, just attacking, defending, or using an item.  To break up some of the monotony though, there is an Aim Ring system that appears when you equip a ring on your characters.  It works similarly to Legend of Dragoon’s battle system except you can only perform the attack on an enemy once without combos.  The Aim Ring appears when you attack, and then you hold the R trigger and release it at the right time to use your character’s ring to its full effect.  The Aim System judges your release of the R Trigger by Perfect, Good, or Bad.  Perfect happens when you overlap the larger ring over the small ring and release the R Trigger at that time, and then the effect of your character’s ring is added to his or her attack.  Good means it may or may not happen while of course Bad means the effect won’t be used at all.  These rings your characters can be equipped with include the ability to induce a status effect on the enemy, so they can be an important part of the battle system if you remember to use them.

Just like Final Fantasy IX, you have the ability to give the formation for your party of five characters and put them in back or up front.  When you put characters up front, this increases your Guard Condition, which is a barrier that lets characters in back be protected from receiving as much damage as the characters up front.  This can be helpful if you’re trying to find a way to protect your physically weaker characters from being instantly killed by enemies, but when the front row takes damage, the GC goes down, and when the GC is completely gone, the back row begins to take the same amount of damage as a front row character would. 

Another staple met in this RPG is the use of skills, mortals are capable of learning skills like the typical person, but an immortal can’t learn them.  They can, however, link with another character to learn the skill over time, but they must both be in the formation for the battles for the immortal to learn that skill over time.  An example of this is if you wanted Kaim to learn Lv. 8 Black Magic, you can perform a Skill Link with him and Jansen so that when they go through battles together, Kaim will eventually learn the ability to use Lv. 8 Black Magic, and it can be added to his list of skills.  Another catch to this however, is the fact that an immortal can only learn a certain number of skills, but this number can be increased by finding a Slot Seed that can be found on your journey.

All in all, Lost Odyssey’s battle system is nothing revolutionary, but it is well polished enough to give an understanding of how the game is meant to be played.  Even so, the game itself isn’t exactly the most battle-based game that you’ll ever get your hands on.  Most of the game consists of guiding your party through the environments and following the story, but not to the point of where the game ends up having more story than it does gameplay.

One of the key things that makes Lost Odyssey such a unique experience is the fact that part of the game lies in discovering more about Kaim’s past.  As said before, Kaim doesn’t have a stunning revelation towards the end of the game, he has 28 in the form of dream sequences that you find by traversing the world and reminding Kaim of an event that occurred from his past.  The dream sequences are all written, but they are incredibly well written and they make you feel like you are seeing a story from Kaim’s perspective.  These sequences are so well written in fact, it’s pretty easy to visualize everything that’s happening, and the many experiences that Kaim has are enough to make him one of the deepest characters in video game history with something to say to just about anyone.  Some of these sequences can be hard to find though, but there’s nothing that a trip to the walkthroughs won’t help with.  If you don’t want to read the dream sequences though, you do have the option to just skip them and move on, but it really subtracts from the unique experience you’ll have with the game.

Overall, Lost Odyssey is an incredible game for the 360 if you haven’t already picked it up.  The game itself is about the average length of a typical JRPG taking about 45 hours to beat, not including the side quests.  You’ll also get 500 achievement points for beating the entire game, it’s just really time consuming.  Considering the price it’s going for now at $30 new, Lost Odyssey is something that I would easily recommend to any RPG fan considering buying an Xbox360, or to anyone who owns the console in the first place.  It has a spectacular story, excellent music, a great battle system, great value, the game itself could have even been a Final Fantasy game if a few changes were made.  Kaim’s Lost Odyssey is ultimately a true gem among games just waiting to be found, I say buy it on sight.