Captain Impulse
05-03-2008, 09:14 PM
It's been a long time since I've played a JRPG, or any game for that matter, that I have enjoyed as much as Lost Odyssey. While I'm probably in the minority here with my opinion, the JRPG genre has been mostly stale and unexciting of late. I figured I was just getting worn out by the whole package - linear gameplay, cookie-cutter characters, saving the world, etc. Couple that with a drought of interesting ideas/plots in TV shows and movies - I was really starting to feel like there were no good ideas left out there. But Lost Odyssey has renewed my faith not only in the JRPG genre, but in storytelling in general.
I'll be frank - I play JRPGs for the story and compelling characters, not necessarily for the way the game plays. Lost Odyssey is a total throwback to the ways of JRPGs past - random battles, turn-based combat, micro-managing gear and skills. This is no FFX-2 or FFXII, folks - it's old school, hard-core, and yet, completely amazing. A year or two ago I remember posting here on AoD how I was so totally sick of turn-based RPGs, so it's funny how one game completely altered my perspective.
For those who don't know much about it, the story revolves around Kaim - a silent, brooding man whose personality, at first, strikes similarities to Cloud or Squall. Kaim is an immortal who has lived for a thousand years, but for some reason, he seems to have lost pretty much all his memories other than those from the last few years. Now I know what you're thinking - "Great, amnesia again!". Don't be too quick to write it off on this alone - on the surface, you might be afraid the rest of the game will fall to typical JRPG cliches. Nothing could be further from the truth - dig below the surface, and you'll find that Lost Odyssey will continue to surprise you, sink its claws into you, and it won't let go until you've played through all 70+ hours of it.
There are a lot of things Lost Odyssey got right, but where it truly shines is in its colorful range of characters. Kaim, who starts off about as interesting as a plank of wood, opens up tremendously near the end of the first disc (did I forget to mention it's a 4-disc game?), and will grow on you before you know it. Not to spoil anything, but later in the game when Kaim is not in your party for a while, you will miss him. Also, you come to sympathize with his plight - this man has lived a thousand years, and as he slowly regains his memories, you find out just how much tragedy this man has had to live with. Some moments are truly heartbreaking - you will probably find yourself tearing up a few times over the course of the game.
Other characters include Seth, a female pirate who is also an immortal (yes, Seth is a girl - don't let the name fool you), Ming, the Queen of the kingdom of Numara (another immortal), and, of course, the greatest character of all, Jansen. Ahh Jansen, the drinking, partying, womanizing mage and is, by far, one of the greatest RPG characters ever. Read reviews from any site about Lost Odyssey, and you'll find universal acclaim for this guy. Jansen is like the Matrix - you have to see him for yourself to truly understand. There are other characters that can join your party (a total of 9), but they are best left unmentioned because I don't want to spoil anything.
I don't want to get into the plot at all, because saying much of anything could spoil some truly epic moments as well The gist is that Kaim is a mercenary, working for the Kingdom of Uhra while also trying to remember who he is and why he cannot die. Throughout the course of the game, Kaim not only learns more about himself through interacting with the other characters (including the other Immortals such as Seth and Ming), but through certain "dreams" of events in his past life.
These "dreams" are usually triggered when Kaim encounters a NPC or experiences an event that is similar to something that happened in his past. When these "dreams" occur, game play is "interrupted" (for lack of a better word) and you are treated to a short-story about some event that happened in Kaim's past. Presented like a chapter from a novel, these stories are amazing. They were written by award winning Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and are really, really good. The first story I encountered, called "Hanna's Departure", had me in tears - not an easy feat. I believe there are a total of 34 stories, although you can "unlock" at least two additional ones via DLC or if you can get a hold of the pre-order bonus code (you can get them off Ebay pretty cheap). Some people might not like the fact that they have to, you know, READ a short story in the middle of their game, but if you're not going to get sucked into the story of Lost Odyssey, you shouldn't be playing it.
About game play and combat - Lost Odyssey plays like RPGs from the past. Exploring various maps, encountering random battles, eventually getting a ship to do some free-roaming exploration, etc. The setup is familiar without being monotonous. The random battles have a fairly low occurrence rate in comparison to other JRPGs, which is nice since you're not always interrupted when trying to accomplish a goal. Some reviews have complained about load times for the battles being rather long, but I'm sorry, I don't know what they're talking about - load times seemed the same as in any other JRPG I can recall in recent memory.
Melee combat uses a Ring system, which has two meanings. First, in addition to weapons and accessories that increase stats and grant abilities such as status immunities and bonus skills, characters can equip Rings that further modify how they deal melee damage. Some add elemental or status effects to your attacks, some merely increase damage, etc. Also, when making a melee attack, a timing ring appears on the screen in which you must hold down the right-trigger button and release at the correct time to maximize your effect. Anything less than a Perfect or Good, and your ring's special abilities do not activate. Something very helpful is that you can change out equipment such as weapons, accessories and rings in-combat, to help you find the most effective means of protecting yourself and damaging your enemies.
Another neat feature is the Formation system. In combat, both enemies and allies can have a Front Rank and Back Rank. Combatants in the front rank are dealt damage as normal, but those in the back rank are protected by those in front. When they are attacked, damage to back rank characters is reduced, depending on the health status of the characters in front of them. For example, if your Front Rank characters are at full health, they will reduce damage to the back rank characters better than if they were heavily wounded. Enemies often use this formation feature too, so you have to think about your plan of attack sometimes. It does little good to bash on the healer in the back rank if his front rank guards are reducing his damage tremendously.
Battles are satisfying in that they are challenging. I have actually died on non-boss battles because I was not properly prepared, or not paying enough attention. Some boss battles took me 3 or more times to beat, and often require some careful strategy. Most spells are useful in some way, although like most JRPGs, there are a few you probably will never use. Playing defensively in LO is recommended - even random battles sometimes have monsters who can drop a party member in 2-3 hits.
They way LO handles characters and skills is interesting, too. Immortal characters can not learn skills on their own - they must learn them from mortal characters in the party. Also, immortals can only have so many skills "equipped" at once. Conversely, mortals only learn skills as they level up, but always have access to all their known skills. This makes it so you have total customization of your immortal's skills, while still having some solid mortals to reinforce your lineup. Up to 5 party members can be actively in combat at once. Eventually, you will find items called Slot Seeds that will allow you to give your immortals more skill slots to equip skills, which adds even more flexibility.
As you can probably tell, I can't say enough good things about Lost Odyssey. It's been the best surprise of 2008 for me, and one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I can easily say that is ranks up there in my top 3 favorite RPGs of all time, currently duking it out with Xenogears for my top spot. Why hasn't it dethroned it yet? Well, to be honest, I haven't beat Lost Odyssey yet. I just got to disc 4 and I'm nearly 50 hours into the game, and there is still a lot of ground to cover. I'm taking it slowly because I don't want the game to end, so I'm doing all sorts of side missions and things to stretch it out.
Lost Odyssey is a gorgeous game, from graphics to music (Nobuo Uematsu really outdid himself this time) and of course, the truly epic, tragic and simultaneously heart-warming story. Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of the Final Fantasy series) has proved that he's still got it, when he is given total creative control (LO was developed by Mistwalker, a company founded by Sakaguchi after he left SquareEnix). If you're a fan of JRPGs, or just a fan of a damned good story, you owe it to yourself to play this game. You won't be disappointed.
I'm curious to hear other's opinions on this game. Please feel free to ask me questions or just discuss the game below. I'd love to hear what people have to say.
I'll be frank - I play JRPGs for the story and compelling characters, not necessarily for the way the game plays. Lost Odyssey is a total throwback to the ways of JRPGs past - random battles, turn-based combat, micro-managing gear and skills. This is no FFX-2 or FFXII, folks - it's old school, hard-core, and yet, completely amazing. A year or two ago I remember posting here on AoD how I was so totally sick of turn-based RPGs, so it's funny how one game completely altered my perspective.
For those who don't know much about it, the story revolves around Kaim - a silent, brooding man whose personality, at first, strikes similarities to Cloud or Squall. Kaim is an immortal who has lived for a thousand years, but for some reason, he seems to have lost pretty much all his memories other than those from the last few years. Now I know what you're thinking - "Great, amnesia again!". Don't be too quick to write it off on this alone - on the surface, you might be afraid the rest of the game will fall to typical JRPG cliches. Nothing could be further from the truth - dig below the surface, and you'll find that Lost Odyssey will continue to surprise you, sink its claws into you, and it won't let go until you've played through all 70+ hours of it.
There are a lot of things Lost Odyssey got right, but where it truly shines is in its colorful range of characters. Kaim, who starts off about as interesting as a plank of wood, opens up tremendously near the end of the first disc (did I forget to mention it's a 4-disc game?), and will grow on you before you know it. Not to spoil anything, but later in the game when Kaim is not in your party for a while, you will miss him. Also, you come to sympathize with his plight - this man has lived a thousand years, and as he slowly regains his memories, you find out just how much tragedy this man has had to live with. Some moments are truly heartbreaking - you will probably find yourself tearing up a few times over the course of the game.
Other characters include Seth, a female pirate who is also an immortal (yes, Seth is a girl - don't let the name fool you), Ming, the Queen of the kingdom of Numara (another immortal), and, of course, the greatest character of all, Jansen. Ahh Jansen, the drinking, partying, womanizing mage and is, by far, one of the greatest RPG characters ever. Read reviews from any site about Lost Odyssey, and you'll find universal acclaim for this guy. Jansen is like the Matrix - you have to see him for yourself to truly understand. There are other characters that can join your party (a total of 9), but they are best left unmentioned because I don't want to spoil anything.
I don't want to get into the plot at all, because saying much of anything could spoil some truly epic moments as well The gist is that Kaim is a mercenary, working for the Kingdom of Uhra while also trying to remember who he is and why he cannot die. Throughout the course of the game, Kaim not only learns more about himself through interacting with the other characters (including the other Immortals such as Seth and Ming), but through certain "dreams" of events in his past life.
These "dreams" are usually triggered when Kaim encounters a NPC or experiences an event that is similar to something that happened in his past. When these "dreams" occur, game play is "interrupted" (for lack of a better word) and you are treated to a short-story about some event that happened in Kaim's past. Presented like a chapter from a novel, these stories are amazing. They were written by award winning Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and are really, really good. The first story I encountered, called "Hanna's Departure", had me in tears - not an easy feat. I believe there are a total of 34 stories, although you can "unlock" at least two additional ones via DLC or if you can get a hold of the pre-order bonus code (you can get them off Ebay pretty cheap). Some people might not like the fact that they have to, you know, READ a short story in the middle of their game, but if you're not going to get sucked into the story of Lost Odyssey, you shouldn't be playing it.
About game play and combat - Lost Odyssey plays like RPGs from the past. Exploring various maps, encountering random battles, eventually getting a ship to do some free-roaming exploration, etc. The setup is familiar without being monotonous. The random battles have a fairly low occurrence rate in comparison to other JRPGs, which is nice since you're not always interrupted when trying to accomplish a goal. Some reviews have complained about load times for the battles being rather long, but I'm sorry, I don't know what they're talking about - load times seemed the same as in any other JRPG I can recall in recent memory.
Melee combat uses a Ring system, which has two meanings. First, in addition to weapons and accessories that increase stats and grant abilities such as status immunities and bonus skills, characters can equip Rings that further modify how they deal melee damage. Some add elemental or status effects to your attacks, some merely increase damage, etc. Also, when making a melee attack, a timing ring appears on the screen in which you must hold down the right-trigger button and release at the correct time to maximize your effect. Anything less than a Perfect or Good, and your ring's special abilities do not activate. Something very helpful is that you can change out equipment such as weapons, accessories and rings in-combat, to help you find the most effective means of protecting yourself and damaging your enemies.
Another neat feature is the Formation system. In combat, both enemies and allies can have a Front Rank and Back Rank. Combatants in the front rank are dealt damage as normal, but those in the back rank are protected by those in front. When they are attacked, damage to back rank characters is reduced, depending on the health status of the characters in front of them. For example, if your Front Rank characters are at full health, they will reduce damage to the back rank characters better than if they were heavily wounded. Enemies often use this formation feature too, so you have to think about your plan of attack sometimes. It does little good to bash on the healer in the back rank if his front rank guards are reducing his damage tremendously.
Battles are satisfying in that they are challenging. I have actually died on non-boss battles because I was not properly prepared, or not paying enough attention. Some boss battles took me 3 or more times to beat, and often require some careful strategy. Most spells are useful in some way, although like most JRPGs, there are a few you probably will never use. Playing defensively in LO is recommended - even random battles sometimes have monsters who can drop a party member in 2-3 hits.
They way LO handles characters and skills is interesting, too. Immortal characters can not learn skills on their own - they must learn them from mortal characters in the party. Also, immortals can only have so many skills "equipped" at once. Conversely, mortals only learn skills as they level up, but always have access to all their known skills. This makes it so you have total customization of your immortal's skills, while still having some solid mortals to reinforce your lineup. Up to 5 party members can be actively in combat at once. Eventually, you will find items called Slot Seeds that will allow you to give your immortals more skill slots to equip skills, which adds even more flexibility.
As you can probably tell, I can't say enough good things about Lost Odyssey. It's been the best surprise of 2008 for me, and one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I can easily say that is ranks up there in my top 3 favorite RPGs of all time, currently duking it out with Xenogears for my top spot. Why hasn't it dethroned it yet? Well, to be honest, I haven't beat Lost Odyssey yet. I just got to disc 4 and I'm nearly 50 hours into the game, and there is still a lot of ground to cover. I'm taking it slowly because I don't want the game to end, so I'm doing all sorts of side missions and things to stretch it out.
Lost Odyssey is a gorgeous game, from graphics to music (Nobuo Uematsu really outdid himself this time) and of course, the truly epic, tragic and simultaneously heart-warming story. Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of the Final Fantasy series) has proved that he's still got it, when he is given total creative control (LO was developed by Mistwalker, a company founded by Sakaguchi after he left SquareEnix). If you're a fan of JRPGs, or just a fan of a damned good story, you owe it to yourself to play this game. You won't be disappointed.
I'm curious to hear other's opinions on this game. Please feel free to ask me questions or just discuss the game below. I'd love to hear what people have to say.