Lost Odyssey is a special breed of JRPGs. While it doesn't do anything
completely new with the gameplay, the story does a complete 180
compared to most out there. It tells the story of Kaim Argonar, an
Immortal who has lived for 1000 years(so far). While most people think
that living forever would be great, Lost Odyssey shows the brutality
and hope that life gives to everyone through the eyes of Kaim as he
wanders across the planet. Some of the Dream Sequences Kaim has are
very powerful, and will surprise you on how moved you will be to the
story. Mistwalker did story-telling that hasn't been seen in JRPGs in
awhile.
The gameplay doesn't do anything completely new, the acquiring of
abilities like Black Magic are changed for some of the characters.
While in most RPGs, the player levels up the characters and they learn
new abilities, right? Half-right. The Immortals cannot learn any skills
or spells, so they must rely on the mortals for abilities. After the SP
of the ability is fulfilled, the Immortal has learned that ability. The
setup is similar to the skill setup in Blue Dragon.
Another thing is the removal of armor. The characters still have
defense, but armor has been replaced by rings. Equipping rings do the
same thing as armor, but the Immortals can learn from some of the
effects the rings have(like immunity from paralysis). If you have a
ring attached to a character, in battle, when the character attacks, a
ring appears on the enemy. If you time it right, you can add the rings'
effect onto the enemy(like poisoning it or adding extra damage if you
have a ring that does extra damage to a certain types of enemies).
The music is amazing. Uematsu always amazes me with his music, and Lost
Odyssey's soundtrack is no different. Every song fits with the moods
throughout the game perfectly. Once hearing the theme of Uhra, I had to
get the soundtrack for myself.
Wile the game is amazing, it does have a few downsides. The first being
the loading times. The loading isn't long at all, but there are many of
them throughout the game. Walking into a tavern and walking out has
around a 2-5 second loading time. While minor, it is very annoying. The
second are the Dream Sequences that Kaim gets. There stories would be
better if they were vocal and not written, but that's not the main
problem. the problem is the color of the text to the background. if the
background is very dark, the text will be white, which is fine, but in
one of the dreams, the bottom of the screen was a bright glowish-red,
which signifies the event happening then. The text was white, which
made me having to squint at the television trying to make out the words
in that location.
Lost Odyssey is a great game, despite the downsides that should be picked up by any RPG fan who owns a 360. Now the question
is, do you want to dive into 1000 years of memories?
