LogFAQs > #900661999

14. Lost Odyssey
Original Release: 2008
Year Played: 2008
Developer: Mistwalker
Platform: XB360
Favorite Character: Jansen

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I played some amazing JRPGs in 2008. Tales of Vesperia and Lost Odyssey both came out on the 360 of all consoles and I got to experience both games. I'd give the edge to Vesperia, but I still hold Lost Odyssey in high regard because it's (almost) everything I wanted from Sakaguchi's team. It's an excellent Final Fantasy without being a Final Fantasy, because let's face it, if he was still part of Square Enix/Squaresoft this would totally be the next FF. There are many nods: an ancient king resting in one of the main cities not named Odin, a water serpent not named Leviathan, and so on and so forth.

Lost Odyssey has an interesting premise, with have your party being immortal beings who cannot die, but have suffered enough tragedy throughout their lives. Kaim Argonar is one such character, and as a result for living for 1,000 years he's become a depressed, nearly silent hero. I don't blame him. He meets various characters along the way, including mortals, and they band together to find and defeat the one who's caused them to be this way. The villain is well written, too, and he has a lasting presence throughout the game. He reminds me of characters like Exdeath and Kefka, in the sense that they're constantly there and they succeed in some of the things they do (you even get to play as him briefly). By the end of the game, you'll want him dead. You have some interesting characters who join you, too. Jansen is an woman-chasing, alcoholic mage who constantly has one-liners and quips he likes to throw out randomly during story scenes. I think this is a result of the VA improvising his lines sometimes and I love it. He gets some ample development in the end as well, and became one of my favorite characters. Not everyone, unfortunately, gets the same amount of development. I didn't mind Cooke and Mack, because I felt that Sakaguchi gave them enough story and moments for them to grow on me. Sarah, on the other hand, gets very little development, as do the last two characters who join the party way too late in the game.

Perhaps the best thing about Lost Odyssey is how well steeped in lore it is. The locations are huge and the towns are beautiful. It's clear much time was spent on making these places. Numara's calming town theme never gets old as you wander its canal-lined streets, while Uhra feels like an industrial revolution metropolis. One of the towns turns into a Moonside-like nightmare realm due to a curse, and it's up to you to save it. The world has plenty of personality and it's definitely really pretty, but I wish it were a little bigger.

Pacing is an issue here, as Lost Odyssey is slooooow. You'll often spend hours in one location, not because they're long but because battles can sometimes get monotonous and there's plenty of scenes and content to digest in every one of these places. Battles feel kind of archaic. it's a turn based system where you choose your attacks from all your characters and watch each ally and enemy perform their move based on speed. There's no turn order grid, something that was popularized by FFX in 2002, and this game came out in 2008. This isn't exactly a big problem, but sometimes battles can get tedious after a while. Boss battles are fun, on the other hand, and many employ some sort of gimmick. I should mention that the first two bosses are quite challenging, but then nothing after that comes close. It's really unfortunate, because I truly wanted the game to remain as difficult as it was in the early parts of the game. There are also long load times. The world turns out to be quite small, with tons of unused land. It also seems like there's missing or cut content. Lastly, as I said before, the last two characters join in Disc 4, which is way too late in the game when there's only a small handful of areas left and things to do.