I had a thought today that I would like to ask of the 70+ members of VGC that own Lost Odyssey for Xbox 360:

Incase you did not know, Lost Odyssey uses the Unreal Engine 3, from Epic games - an all-in-one middleware engine. It encompasses alot of various aspects of game development, and makes it "easier" by some accounts, to make a game. Of course, there are various snags along the way for non-native UE3 Developers (ie, developers outside of Epic studios) - framerate drops, snags, and wierd occurances tend to happen, even with good Q&A.

However, graphical snags aren't my point of focus. For those heavily involved in playing X360 games, there are, quite frankly, alot of games that use UE3 - moreso than probably any other console right now (and probably the same amount for PC games). A notable trend seemed to develop out of most of these games: "they all look the same" - Gears, Army of Two, BioShock, Frontlines, Halo Wars, Stranglehold, Rainbow Six, and others all have very similar art styles.

 Then Mass Effect comes along, heavily using UE3, and (atleast to me), in some areas, looks pretty diverse from the UE3 library of colors - the Citadel, most notably is colorful in many areas, with vibrant trees, and the like, straying away from what UE3 is about.

Then comes in Lost Odyssey: not only a game that has nothing to do with shooting, but a Japanese RPG. My question is (for those that have played the game alot): Does Lost Odyssey break the "trend" of grey-filtered UE3 games? Atleast from what I've seen, LO is vastly different, taking use of many great colors, and straying away from what UE3 typically does.

If so, it gives me hope for the other JRPGs that are using UE3. Last Remnant is Square Enix's first game with UE3, and from what I read last year, Square was very happy with aquiring it as a developer tool. Also, another JRPG for the X360, Magna Carta 2, has licensed UE3 as well...If LO broke the curse of dull-looking games, I think this a good thing for developers wanting good middleware, but maybe more inventive than we think.

I found Lost Odyssey to be very colourful and vibrant. It is nothing remotely like UE3 and Gears of War. Mass Effect, whilst more similar to those titles than Lost Odyssey, also stands on it's own as a completely different kind of game with different art direction and a different colour pallet.

I think it looks great, a bit too dark for my tastes but great none the less. You can clearly see that it causes the game to get murdered with very bad load times. (Speaking of the UT3 Engine)

Although a minor setback when you see how nice it looks. Not to mention the game itself is very good. I think Final Fantasy XIII's color looks much more vibrant. From the videos I have seen anyways. Could very well indeed be due to the engine?

I also picked up Blue Dragon and even though I was on the 4th disc for LO, I started playing Blue Dragon, 42 hours in and not thinking at all about LO. I think it is just the fact that the much brighter and vibrant color in Blue Dragon. Who knows.

Best way for me to explain it without going off on a wild and random tirade, it reminded me alot of Final Fantasy XII's color pallet. As much as I was enjoying that game, I couldn't get myself to ever finish it either.

Vibrant compared to other Unreal Engine games, but not compared to other RPG's...
Lost Odyssey was a fairly dark game in my opinion; however, it was aimed for a mature audience so they probably didn't want it to be too bright, vibrant, and colorful.

But yes, it has some unique graphical characteristics over many other unreal engine games I've played.

I just hope The Last Remnant doesn't have all the technical issues that Lost Odyssey has that you mentioned---the snags, framerate drops, and stutters. Not a big deal, but can get bothersome at times.  (I do love Lost Odyssey though---great game despite the technical problems)

It does give me some hope for the unreal engine though--I haven't been a big fan of it in the past.

I didn't know LO ran on the Unreal Engine, and I never would have thought so had you not pointed it out just now. I think that serves as a good indicator that this game differentiates itself from (many) other UE3 based games. Come to think of it, the only area I feel shows that this is a UE3 game, is in the Ipsilon Mountains (above the tree line).

(Still, I feel BioShock deserves to be mentioned as a game that stands out from the UE3 crowd as well).

Why would Square-Enix use the Unreal Engine when they said that their White Engine (or whatever they changed the name to) could run on the Ps3/360/Wii?

LO does seem to be a bit more colorful and vibrant compared to the FPS type games that I've played that also use UE3. The overall plot and story are more mature though, so it is still more subdued compared to other rpgs.

Not really a fair comparison, but my gf has been playing Tales of Destiny (Director's Cut) on my PS2 and the colors/palette/everything in that game is so much more vibrant and everything compared to LO. I know they are completely different, but it does make the scheme used in LO stand apart compared to typical rpgs. Both BD and ES are the same in this regard, compared to LO.

I need to finish LO, still on the 4th disc. :-o

It is definately more colourful and vibrant than many of the games that use this engine, however as other's have stated it's quite a mature game so it isn`t the most colourful or vibrant game going around. smbu2000's comments that it is subdued compared to other rpg's is spot on.

Yes, other JRPGs are vastly more vibrant (I assume, atleast, I havent played LO yet) due, primarily, to art stylings and such. My main focus was "can LO do it?" reffering to actual....diversity in color pallets vs. what Gears, and other dark UE3 games have.

As for the question about why Square is using UE3 instead of the White Engine:

The White Engine, as far as I know, isn't done yet - no game has actually launched on the White Engine, despite Square working on this proprietary engine for years, at some insane cost.

So since it's not out yet, Square needed a next-gen engine for a quickie JRPG. Rather than trudge through hand-making a one-off engine for yet another game (when Crystal Tools/White Engine is coming soon), they bought, and love, UE3.

I think LO made UE3 look as good as possible (framerate issues aren't really issues concerning RPGs). But next to it still looking like Bioshock (and tons of other 360-Unreal-powerd games - it's not just the colour, it's the filters!) - there is a huge problem with the UE3 as middleware for RPG's.  And that's this:

By now I would've expected the 'levels' to be gone and the possibility to walk from one side of the world (or at least a plain or a desert) to the other without the loading screen to appear. Level 5 did that already on the PS2 with Dragon Quest VIII. In that regard I AM worried about The Last Remnant: no real vistas, while those ar a big part of the appeal of RPGs.

Still, although LO is not much more than an upgraded Final Fantasy X - the latter was a great game already