I really want to like Lost Odyssey but I just keep having troubles with it.  The story isn't terrible so far, the immortal thing is interesting, I like the rings, the dreams are interesting, and there's a decent amount of challenge to it.

So why am I making this thread?  Because the game is pissing me off.

I guess I'm use to games where I need to use some sort of strategy to win but apparently Lost Odyssey doesn't want you to.  Right now I just finished with this huge bird thing right before I get to Magic Staff and that thing had been kicking my ass.  I've tried having my characters all use magic, I've tried different ring combinations (why doesn't the Aim ring work on this thing!?), I've used barricade, I've used shield, I've tried different healing strategies, but this thing has just been kicking my ass.

Completely disheartened, I figured I just couldn't figure out the correct strategy to use here so I sadly turn to Gamefaqs.  I read the strategy and apparently your just support to brute force it.

You just let your characters die because two of them will get back up and the other is too hard to keep alive.  This thing doesn't have a lot of HP, just really nasty attacks (one that can kill your entire party if you're not healthy).

What the fuck!?

I do the brute force method, my people die and get back up, and what do you know, I win.  I hope the rest of this game doesn't use this strategy and actually makes you think instead of just blindly attacking. 

And since I'm complaining and that's one of the things I love to do, here's some more gripes.

The main character is an emo dick.

The story is beyond predictable, I can only hope there's an unexpected twist later.

I guess the immortal thing is alright as long as I don't think about it.  If two of my three characters are immortal, how the fuck do I get a game over?

The rings are neat but right now they seem like they're going to be so incredibly shallow.

While the dreams are interesting they are so. fucking. long.

There's only a challenge to it because I'm thinking.  Apparently this game wants me to turn my brain off.

I'll still going to finish the first disc at the very least but this game better get better.

Interestingly enough, my Girlfriend beat the griffin boss in about 1 minute, and absolutely mowed the sucker over without a single problem.

As the game goes on, it gets deeper, and bosses require real strategy utilizing a lot of different strategies.

Also, your immortals do get up after 2-3 turns. However, many monster parties are overpowered, and difficult to take down with brute force, and can easily kill your party quick, regardless of immortals.

Sounds like Final Fantasy X.

You knoe what I always hated. The Boss fights that you struggle with so hard and to find out that the story progresses when you die. Final Fantasy did this a lot. That pissed me off.

Yeah, apparently if you just blindly attack it and flush strategy down the toilet it's simple.

That gryphon was nasty and took some leveling to beat (I hate games which make you grind levels/skills really early in the game, grinding should be reserved for optional end game content FFX style). It wasn't so much the boss battles as the actual presentation of the game, whoever they hired to do animation especially during the cutscenes should have been fired and replaced.

It just reminded me through and through of playing an inferior version of Final Fantasy X in every way from the leveling system to the story to the animation. The resolution of the graphics was better (thanks to the 360 being > the PS2) but overall I think the 7s it got were pretty generous and based largely on the production values of the cut scenes. The only good part is the text stories you unlock, those are well written and in some cases genuinely touching. If only they could have gotten whoever wrote those to write the rest of the game.

Maybe it gets better in disk 2 or 3, I'm not sure, I didn't quite make it out of disk 1 before quitting in disgust to go play something better (persona 3 which was the best RPG I've played in years to this day. Waiting for P4 with bated breath).

I didn't WANT to hate it, contrary to what some would believe after seeing my stance on the 360, I love FF games and wanted to like it since it was made by some of the people who made the FF games I love. It just had too many huge flaws to really appreciate the good, there are so many games out there slogging through a 60 hour game that isn't great isn't as appealing as it was in the mid 90s when we had to cope with stuff like beyond the beyond as the apex of console RPGs. It was a hell of a lot better then Blue Dragon though, I'll give Lost Odyssey that much.

   Final Fantasy was never as blind as LO, there were always very good strategies for all the main bosses (not counting the special end game bosses that were outside the story you had to grind and power level for).  With a balanced team in FFX anything was very doable.  I actually found FFX too easy a lot of the time as far as story bosses went, it was all about knowing how to use the sphere grid well.

@twesterm
I couldn't agree more!!! Exactly my thoughts. It was one of this rare chances I had so I could get into JRPGs, but I guess I lost it. This is considered to be a descent RPG right? Then, I would not like to imagine what the mediocre JRPGs are like...
I think I'll give another shot when Tales of Vesperia hit Europe. But something tells me that this one will also fail.

The only bosses I ever really had problems with were the first few. After those your shields + barricades + magic they're weak against + physical attacks should be enough to do the job.

The game is best at the start of the third disc....

Oh yeah, and the first boss is basically the only hard one in the game

I really didn't like the game. I actually enjoyed the first 3 discs, but towards the end it also pissed me off to a great extent. You aren't alone in your dislike of the game, but I think it has more to do with tastes than anything. Twesterm, you and I are spoiled by modern JRPG conventions.

I do contend that if those dreams were voiced, the game might actually have the best story ever, lol. Ah, what might have been.

There is no arguing that the game is beautiful with a magnificent soundtrack.

A ton of people love this game. Most who play it, love it. I just fell in that small percentage of detractors. Can't tell you why. I don't think the game is bad, quite the contrary, it just didn't suit my tastes, like RTS games.

I never finished the game, lost almost all my interest by disc 4. The battle system was very basic and tedious, and the gameplay is as linear as it gets. There's really only one way to beat a boss no matter what, and the idea to prevent the player from grinding made it worse. The only thing that kept me going was the well written short stories (I'm serious, they are awesome), the main story was... "meh" and the cutscenes made me feel like the characters were being played by bad actors.