@crystalchild, congrats on your plat. btw i was checking out : two worlds 2 and amazon listed the game to be released in early jan of 2011. so it seems the game got delayed a few months. 

yeah, but only for UK and US. We 'other Europeans' are getting it next week. stupid story, but its true. :/

@crystalchild, wow thats very weird indeed. 

@robo ,Birth /children am i to late ? I"m sorry  my apologies it slipped my mind .

Started playing Lost Odyssey not long ago. Just reached Disc 3. The game... isn't as great as I'd hoped. It's not bad at all, but it really makes me appreciate the absence of old-school mechanics in recent console JRPG's. Random encounters really wear on my nerves in this game, especially seeing as battles last a good while too. Or at least in comparison to other games like Chrono Trigger or the old Breath of Fire games, where I can be done with a battle in a matter of seconds depending on what I run in to.

In fact, everything seems really slow in this game, despite the fact that you run hilariously fast while holding down the X button. Picking up items and searching through pots and furniture is slow. Loading speed is slow. Battle animations are slow. Hell even the battle startup seems ridiculously long as well. Although maybe I'm being a bit unfair, since I'm also playing Skies of Arcadia Legends - which I seriously should not be doing, playing two console turn-based JRPG's at the same time is not nice - and that seems to be annoying me for largely the same reasons. I don't remember retro turn-based games moving at such a slow pace though, but I suppose that's largely because they lacked the ability to have extended animations, cut-scenes, dialogue and the like.

I guess I'm just out of touch with console turn-based games. Still though, random encounters are definitely the main culprit for me, I really do appreciate having enemies on-screen and scripted encounters after playing Lost Odyssey for 38 hours. I hope the Tales of Graces translation team can finish the patch soon so I can play my copy of the game in a language I understand, I loved Vesperia and I'm going to be craving the Tales system after I finish with these games, I really enjoy them more than other console JRPG's. They're just a lot more fun to play. My friend gave me his copy of Final Fantasy XIII because he hates it so much, but if it is as slow paced as Lost Odyssey though then I may just hold back from playing it for a while.

I digress, though. Sorry for droning on and being a bit of a grey cloud in what seems to be an sunny thread, I am actually enjoying Lost Odyssey really, it's held my interest so far to Disc 3 so I will be finishing the game. The achievements don't seem to awkward too, so I'll probably get all the G this game has to offer.

so what captivates you is it the story the flash backs? ,i remember when the kids came into it i thought oh no but they turned out to be pretty well realised , some of the points you make are well founded , i believe they have a lot to do with it  being made fairly early on in the HD cycle and you can see by the shiny plastic look of some of the character models( just look at Gongora ) compared to later games using the unreal engine as one example  so it should be cut some slack because of that and MS wanting it's own FF hence the random encounters and turn based action  my opinion for what it's worth is get rid of random encounters but don't mention turn based action has if the two to go hand in hand,FF13 is almost the opposite in you have fast action no random encounters but a linear path and very little variety

If I had to put what I like most about Lost Odyssey into one of the games features I'll have to say the Skill Link mechanic for the immortal characters. I love how it adds a whole new level of growth and customization to the immortal characters and encourages use of accessories I could otherwise just completely forget about. The thousand years of dreams I think is pretty cool, though it can get annoying after a while, but I can always just skip stories and read them later if I wan't so it's all good. The story and music are decent. I thought the graphics were pretty good for a relatively old X360 game. It's definitely a solid game though, it doesn't have any real problems plaguing it, just moves a little too slow imo.

@mjk45, the kids were born yesterday afternoon. at the hospital right now, so i wont be on long too much today. they are all very healthy. :) 

have u downloaded : phantasy star universe from games on demand yet ?

Congratulations Robo

@lestatdark, thanks.  :)

have u downloaded any game from games on demand yet ? 

i am going to download phantasy star universe soon, my physical copy is scratched up.