First Impressions: Lost Odyssey
Rated: T for Teen
Time Played: about 4 hours out of an estimated 40+ hours to finish
Lost Odyssey is a Japanese RPG game that was released for the Xbox360. It’s published by Mistwalker, who brought us last year’s Blue Dragon. Here’s a few notes from this first part of the game.
The pacing is nice and easy. If you’re looking for frenetic battle action, you aren’t going to find it at the beginning of this game. A friend of mine described it as, “This is where cutscenes go to die.” Not quite, but like the beginning of most of these games there’s a lot of story to get going.
I like the combat system very much. At first it seems glacially slow, but be patient with it. As you learn skills and customize your characters you gain tactical options and things start to move. The rings add a bit of immediacy that keeps you from just taking the first attack option and mashing your way through the fights.
The story so far has me intrigued. You really aren’t sure who is the bad guy and who isn’t yet. In fact, I think we have at least three. Whoohoo for some depth. And the memories really add something. I’ve found three so far and I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.
The characters are an interesting take on the Diversity Training Poster that usually forms the roster for these games. Jansen is cringe-worthy, but also cool because we finally have a mage who isn’t a wimp or a halfnekkid girl. Hopefully once we get past the intial settling in of the characters he’ll grow up a bit or grow on me. Olympic-level skirt chaser isn’t my favorite character stereotype. Seth drives me a bit nuts, but I think she’s supposed to. Hopefully Kaim will loosen up a bit.
Having all five language options is great. Since the kids were watching I played it in English last night. Tonight I’m going to run in Japanese. That’s just a preference of mine; the English voices are not too horrific. I accidentally played it for a while in Italian because I missed the option I wanted in the menu and didn’t notice. It went pretty well. It might be an option for those who are annoyed by the English voices but are also annoyed by the Japanese. If you don’t like it, you can just switch right back.
It’s not flashy or “hardcore” so it will turn off some gamers who are looking for new and different. But you’re after a good story and some classic jRPG play, this one’s a winner.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I’m 28 hours in 🙂
I had the bad guy pegged in the first few cut-scenes. But seeing the story and the character’s past unfold is amazing.
Yes, Jansen does grow on you. My favorite thing for the characters is that the main protagonist is not an angsty teen.
P.S. If you did not like Blue Dragon (I didn’t!), it was a different development studio that did the actual coding for Lost Odyssey although Mistwalker Studios was the producer for both. The have a very different feel from each other.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Man, what a great story this game has. I will admit that I got a little weepy before the first disc even finished. Very strong emotional content, with life and death as the main themes. This game will definately weigh heavy on your heart, but that is the real appeal to any RPG right? Good storytelling and good visuals.