Lost Odyssey – First Impressions
I’ve never really been a fan of turn-based RPGs. I’m not sure why but I’ve always simply held them low on my “fun factor” list. That has changed recently after playing Lost Odyssey. The game is so beautiful that it makes you forget that you’re playing a turn-based RPG. The battle sequences are just so beautiful that I was looking forward to each one. Contrary to what some would have you believe, the load times are no where near 12-30 seconds. In fact, they’re nothing that hinders the gameplay at all. I think at most I had a 6 second load going from scene to scene.
The opening sequence of the game when you see Kaim (main character) and he’s going up against thousands of enemies was a moment of inspiration. When it got to the battle sequence, I was inspired and ready to deliver the punishment. I can’t believe I’m saying it but I enjoyed the hell out of the battles. Another thing that stood out to me was how easy it was to get into the action of the game. It only took a few tutorials and before I knew it, I was fully into the Lost Odyssey world. Formations, skills, ring assembly, skill sets, spells….I knew how to do it all.
I do want to point out a couple of things that troubled me. There is no real map of the areas you visit and that includes having no icons or legend to identify key points of each area. It gets confusing at times when you’re in an area looking for the weapons guy or the rest area. You have to open each door and file it in your memory instead of simply having a legend. I also found it odd that during battle, the enemy’s health isn’t displayed. Is this the way these RPGs work? Do they not give you any idea of how much HP remains on an enemy so you know how close you are to defeating them?
Despite these two things, my first impressions of Lost Odyssey are incredibly good. I love this game and I can’t believe I’m saying that about a turn-based game. It’s beautiful, the voice acting is surprisingly good, the characters are interesting and the battles are engaging. There are four (4) discs to this game so I expect many hours of fun. Stay tuned for more and hopefully a full review.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I’m loving this game too..never played a TB JRPG before but LO is fantastic..my only complaints are that save points are sometimes too far spread out and I really hate how battles just “pop-up” at the worst times..other than that this title is a rare gem that deserves alot more credit than it seems to be getting…
February 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
save points haven’t been that bad so far for me..and that’s how JRPGs do it man..battles just pop up lol
February 19th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Im really thinkin about picking it up somehow, but I have so many other games I haven’t finished, lol, things like rock band just keep me from playing the other games, lol.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
i think ill rent but like you said turn based are poopy to me
February 19th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Enemy HP’s are displayed once you learn the specific skills … there are skills to display enemy types, status and even the items they are carrying.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:37 am
I agree about the map thing I do get lost a lot but I’m so powerful the random battles don’t bother me
The bar at the top right shows the total amount of Hp for the front line so you can kinda use that to guess tings. It would have been nice to know how much Hp each enemy has but I just use my top tings all the time to make sure tings die. XD
February 20th, 2008 at 6:26 am
@Rez, you are the man! thanks. i do have the skill to see the elements they’re using. which do i have to learn to see HP and from which human?
February 21st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
There are two useful skills about the enemys. One of them Jansen is gonna learn (so you don’t have to use it on Seth or Kaim). It the Factual Analysis, basically what element the enemy is made of/uses.
The HP skill is Status Analysis. That one you’re gonna have to set to either Kaim or Seth. I’d recommend you put a Defense skill (the best one you have) on Seth because the enemies tend to attack her more often (and her defense is a bit low so she loses a lot of HP).
The game really is astounding. There is a scene in Numara (about 6-8 hour into the game) that almost made me cry. I’m dead serious. I’m freaking 22 year old dude and I almost cried. The scene was just so intense…
February 21st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
And also, my Xbox crapped out with a beautiful RRoD, RIGHT AFTER, the beautiful cinematic I was talking about in my previous post…
I called customer rep (its the second time my Xbox dies) and basically he kinda promised me a brand new Xbox 360… I tend not to believe them. They’re probably gonna send me a crapp-tastically-refurbished Xbox like they did the first time.
The DVD tray was making horrendous noise and the CPU/GPU heatsink was making an even more horrendous mecanical grind noise during gameplay… so I’m not all that sad to be getting ANY other Xbox than the one they had returned to me the first time.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
wow…thx for the tip Ozeki and what a crap time to have a RRoD
hope you get back up and running soon to continue the quest.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
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