It has to be said, I am not the most patient of people, so finding out I would be reviewing a turn based RPG was already looking like somewhat of a challenge. Upon opening the case and discovering a total of four discs inside, I resigned myself to the fact that free time over the next four or five days was a thing of the past.
The four discs belong to Lost Odyssey, the latest offering from the creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi. Exclusive to the Xbox 360, the second title from Sakaguchi’s development house Mistwalker Studios, Lost Odyssey’s turn based game play is seen by many as a thing of the past. So with RPG’s such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Mass Effect adopting a more action based fighting mechanism, is there still room for this more traditional method of gaming?
The game’s spotlight is on Kaim Arganor, a 1,000 year old immortal mercenary with no memory of his past. Kaim begins to regain snippets of his past as the game progresses, much of this through dreams which appear in the form of the written word. A small word of warning, make sure you’ve got your reading glasses at the ready. There is a lot of text here, so if you’re not a fan of the odd in game read fest, maybe you’d better think again before delving into this Japanese role player. Of course, you don’t have to read the sequences, but mostly they’re attention grabbing and well written.
The intro sees you as the sole survivor of a battle where the full stop to the fight is added as a massive fiery meteor crashes to the earth. Both sides of the battle are completely wiped out and Kaim being the only survivor from the battlefield is summoned to the City of Uhra’s Council to explain his survival. After teaming up with one of the few other immortals who exist and his first mortal buddy, Kaim is sent off on a mission to get to the bottom of what’s occurring in a world where everything is powered by a curious magic energy which suddenly appeared in relatively recent times.
At first, Kaim appears as the strong silent type. Appearing deep and brooding, in a quiet way, aids the impression of a troubled man. As anyone who has lived for 1000 years would probably tell you, he’s seen a lot of heartache during his life and although he can’t exactly remember it, the thought of his memory returning scares the hell out of him. It is clear almost from the get go that Kaim is afraid of his memories returning. While we’re talking about the characters, it’s worth a mention that all the main characters are pretty interesting. The first two who buddy up with you being Seth, a fellow immortal lady pirate and Jansen, a mortal character who provides some light comic relief with his moaning and ladies man demeanor. The voice acting really is good enough to not pick holes in and you find yourself warming to the characters in your party pretty quickly.
The combat system is made slightly more interesting by the use of rings. During the gameplay, you will gain the use of different rings by combining parts which you find or buy. The ring building system allows you to invent many rings with different powers when equipped. When a ring is equipped using the attack command will bring up a large circle on the screen .By holding down the right trigger button and releasing when it has shrunk to the size of the smaller circle around your target you can achieve better results from your attack. If you’re spot on with your timing, you’ll get a perfect rating. Me? I was lucky to get a good. When you get the chance to upgrade some of your rings to Ultra status, the circle changes and it does seem to make getting the timing right slightly easier.
Aside from that little tweak, the turn based combat system follows the same formula of years gone by. There’s the generic attack, use item, use spell, defend type fodder on your list of options. The enemy monsters have the usual weaknesses, governed by elements of fire, earth, wind and water. There are various accessories which you can equip on a character so the element of an opponent becomes visible, this can be really helpful in changing a long drawn out battle to a quicker victory. Using the skill link system helps power up your immortal characters that have to learn their skills and magic from mortals during battle.
For me, I found it irritating that I walked what seemed like two steps and hit yet another fight, the loading time and intros of which seemed to be overly long, but in reality, the battles aren’t that frequent and if this is really your sort of thing, then you wouldn’t mind that anyway. It’s worth a note that some of the fights really are hard. This isn’t going to be a walk in the park, so be prepared to fight the same fight and watch the same cut scenes (well, you can skip these after one watch, so it’s not all bad) a few times before you gain victory.
Now, one thing that really irritates me in games? Invisible walls. I hate them. I just don’t understand why they don’t put something there to indicate that you can’t go in that direction in the first place. Perhaps, oh I don’t know, a real wall? If it’s water, then OK I’ll let that slide, but when I physically can’t walk on a patch of lawn it winds me up. There’s plenty of winding me up to be had with this game then. When you can explore, it’s wonderful though. There are some beautiful places and scenes in Lost Odyssey, and when you’re not about to step into yet another battle it’s nice to be able to take it all in.
Graphically, I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag. There are parts of the game when you have a little think to yourself “That looks fantastic”! Some of the cut scenes and the way the characters moved had me captivated. Other bits, take some of the lip synching, or close ups for example, seem a bit on the lazy side to these eyes. Overall though, if you can look past some of these issues, Lost Odyssey is a very pretty game.
Lost Odyssey is not the sort of game you stick in your 360 and have a quick blast with. If you are the sort of person who is looking for that in your gaming time, then move on from here. If you are the sort of person who wants to while away countless hours checking every pot you pass for goodies or reading countless dream sequences while grasping your tissues, then this is for you.
