8.0

Tagged for later

I'm gonna actually throw in a score, this time.  Just let me check and see what I gave it on my profile.  Be right back......

*I'm back*

Looks like I gave it a 9.4 back when I finished it.  I'll stick with that.  And why?  Well, nowadays, you get a lot of RPG franchises that try too hard to reinvent the wheel.  They toss in their innovative new battle systems, inventory systems, or what have you.  With Lost Odyssey, you have an RPG that took everything we loved about the old Final Fantasy games and just did it really well.  It had the prerequisite good story, cool characters, epic set pieces, but in the end, it did everything I wanted a JRPG to do.  It took me on an epic voyage and consumed my life for the 50 or so hours it took me to reach the end credits.

Add to that my love for Jansen (that guy is just too cool), Ming's boobs, Kaim's history, Seth's big moment, and a few other things I won't spoil, and deduct a few points for those kids (Mack and.....somebody I can't remember), and you have my score.  I loved this game and out of the hundreds of games I've played this gen, the time I spent wiht Lost Odyssey is somewhere near the top of the list.  Great game.

I'm on disc 4, and is not my favorite RPG this gen, i would give it 9.0/10.

Pros:

- The atmosphere of this game was well made; really, there's alot of sounds besides the music in this game that we can hear. Like, our steps, the wind, echoes, that crystalized sound when we find an item, our character steps, NPC steps, dogs barking, seagulls, loud of a crowd in cities, trains, doors opening, water falling from a fontain, dripings in a cave, waves and so on. They have put a LOT in this. Compare it to what we saw in other games to see what lacks in most of them in comparison.

- And then, there's also the music, that fits so well in this game (this was composed by Uematsu, so that's why). The music is not just there to put one catchy tune in our head, is there to make us feel the mood in that part of the game. Uematsu did a great job here. Imo, this is one of his best works.

- Detailed graphics for such a big game. Beautifull scenarios and backgrounds with alot of details in them. The characters and NPCs are also pretty well made. NPCs in some big jrpgs usually repeat themselves (or even repeat our character models -see Infinite Undiscovery and TLR for example), here, we don't see much this problem. Also, we can talk to anyone, and they actually have something to say, unlike some big franchise that came after 4 years or so in development and sold bajillions (really, that game could really be the Lost Odyssey punching baf, because it fails in what LO succed most of the time). The characters can show emotions, and even shed tears. In alot of jRPGs we can't see tears been shed, even the f*cking Final Fantasy XIII, and in Mass Effect, the tears looked like oil drops. Here, they look like tears.

This game runs smoothly. At least if you have it instaled.

- Lots of places to go, including, huge cities.

- The characters and the voice acting. I don't know what are your standars, but to me the story is good. Not the bests of the bests, to be honest, only Nier have the best of the best storyline this gen (yeah, i'm dead serious), but to me it felt unique and well crafted. The immortals plot was the best thing of course. And there's also the Dreams, that act like side stories that give us some character backdrop, some of them are a joy to read, if you have stomach to go trough all those words. for some i had, for otheres, i just skiped for another time i admit. :p I think i missed some, unfortunely.

And my other grip with some of you is the voice acting. Really, this is not "cons" material. "Boring"? It is some of the best voice acting work i've ever heard in a JRPG! And it's even dubbed to a variety of other languages, and we have the option to choose them instead of english, for example, Japanese (wich unfortunly, screw up a litthe the lip sync), German, Italian and French. God lord, give the guys some credit. They have put alot of work in this, unlike Tri Ace and others, who seems to use teenagers to dub everything and just to english.

- Random battle do not appear that often, they are still there and seems like we don't like them, but they don't break the game as they are not too often. And there is zero grinding as far as i know. Other than the special boss battles, i mean.

- I liked the ring system and the linked abilities that could be passed from the immortals to the mortals (or was the other way around? lol). We could get a lot of strategy from the characters at some point.

- No moe, no lolis, no spiked emo guys, no emo villains. Ah, J/K, i couldnt care less.

Cons:

- 4 disc game. This is a hella of a dics to use. And the standard box for the US and EU had only room for 3 discs at max, the fourth disc was sold inside the box, but inside a paper sleeve. A really crappy job they did here. I have brought the Asia version to made up this problem, but i think it only works with Asia/PAL systems. Dunno, i'm not psychic.

- Loading times, even with the game instaled, they are long. Some pop up textures also, but it is a big game, so...

- This game have some awkward scenes, all of them involve Jansen.

- Some times the game drags too much. As we have to wandering around, chasing for some kids, collecting items from the scenario, talking to NPCs, pushing boxes back and forth... gah. And the slow movement character didn't help much, i mean, the guy can run really fast, but his regular movement is kind of clunky and slow.

- Some bosses were a pain to figure how to beat, but this game is easy. This not goes well with the stratagy we can get in battle.

- Its linear and we have alot of points with no return, that can be explained by the story, but i think this is more like an excuse. But hell, better than most this gen, again.

And it's enough. Put it down as a 9.0 to me.

Lost Odyssey to me is easily the best JRPG this gen.  It does so much right, with doing very little wrong.  But that doesn't mean its a perfect game.

Pro's

- The opening scene!

- A powerfully emotional game

- Pretty great graphics all around

- Large cities, with plenty of stuff to do

- Actually feels like a full fledged JRPG in the classic sense

- The cast of characters is phenominal

- If you actually take the time to read the 1,000 years of dreams it offers such depth to Kaim and really adds something not seen in most games.

Con's

- Doesn't evolve the genre all that much at all.  It plays like an HD classic style JRPG.  If you're looking for something radically different this isn't it.

-  Random battles can get a little bit annoying.

Overall easily the best RPG to come out of Japan in the past 5 years or more.  An amazing

9.7

8.5

(according to your grading system! I kinda grade my game a bit differently so please ignore my rating in my stats)

I'm not really good at reviewing game play mechanic and since this is a JRPG, I'll just provide my brief opinion on character and plot, two things I feel that make or break a JRPG:

The traditional RPG that would have received an standing ovation if it was done last GEN. It has all the formula to be a classic but some minor detail and the evolution of gaming stops it from achieving the iconic status it probably deserves.

The introduction is slightly confusing but as you go through a couple of hours of gameplay, the plot begins to unfold and you find yourself gradually warming to the cast of characters (well, some of them at least). This is particularly apparent with the protagonist, who grows from a silent sombre "Squall" clone into an individual that was both endearing and embracing.

The lead female is also another positive, being not the romantic subplot that can boggle a story down but an actual asset to the plot and integral to story progression. The romantic interest when it does come, appears in the form of an actual wife which is something you rarely see in a JRPG. This game has 2 obligatory children rather than just 1 and yes they are just about as annoying as they appear in every single other JRPG. I could have done without them (really I could!), and seeing 10 year old casually killing off professional soldiers then celebrating with great cheers still creeps me out to no end.

Like most JRPG, the story itself is a grand epic saga, it also contains some signature weakness in the form of poor continuity connection and cliché plot devise that we frequently see in JRPG. Many transition scene are baffling to the extreme and make little sense; merely pushing the story from one scene to the next in the weakest and most disjointed way possible, leading to a less compelling plot and incoherent structure.

Fans of JRPG will more than likely accept this as a standard for the genre but it could detract from the immersion immensely for any newcomer.

The ending in contrast, is fairly strong, full of emotion and satisfyingly conclusive. In a JRPG this appears almost quintessential and LO does not disappoint.

I find the primary villain to be a bit of a disappointment, while the man is certainly up to nasty business, both his design and characterisation is that of the smarmy, boot licking variety that fits a henchmen more than the master mind, an antagonist with stronger character and social moral would have increase the players enjoyment of the plot immensely.

By far the best part of the story howeveris the side quest and subplots, which feel like they have more character than the main plotline and due to their brevity, are not only coherent but incredibly compelling pieces of writing. The 1000 years of dream are some of the most superb writing in video game and deserve to become part of a novella compilation.

Score: 9.8

Lost Odyssey is the best JRPG for me this Generation

* very good Story

* the "1,000 years of dreams" Sidestorys are great

* awesome Chars

* beautiful Soundtrack

* good graphics for a JRPG

* Large cities, with plenty of stuff to do and NPCs you can talk with

* the random battles and turned-based battle systems of LO is a nice memory upon the good old days of gaming

- relatively long load times at the battlescreen

7.5

Pro's
The stuff not written by sakaguchi is great
The Music is good, though not near Uematsu's best. But probably in the top 10 soundtracks this gen for me.
Seth Balmore
It's pretty for the most part, with nice art design.

Con's
Poor Battle System. It was developed by feel plus[Basically/some of same people that developled Shadow Hearts] (So I felt it was like a bad version of the judgement ring) I was quite dissapointed
It makes you read the best part of the game. And these are fairly long segments of reading. They're written extremely well though.
Cooke and Mack are annoying like Hope from ffxiii.
Amnesia (though this isn't much of a negative games need to quit using it as a plot device).
Random Battles

It's a good JRPG.

5 points.

the gameplay is okay, but the story is so simple : ( and 28 hours are not much.

Maybe I'm tempting fate but--this is one of the few games in this series of thhreads that seems to be treated fairly.  usually, you have a game of obvious quality and some douchebag will come in, call it the worst game ever, and rank it very lowly.  From the highest score to the lowest score, Im glad LO is being respected.