Lost Odyssey

"A Thousand Years of Dreams"

I am a huge fan of Mistwalker studio and their previous game, Blue Dragon, so I was obviously psyched for Lost Odyssey. I believe Mistwalker definitely has the potential to give RPG king Square Enix a run for their money, but it's obvious that Mistwalker's games are heavily influenced by Square Enix's games. I mean, Blue Dragon had the same character designer as the Dragon Quest games, that being the man behind Dragon Ball Z, Akira Toriyama. Lost Odyssey is a lot like Square's Final Fantasy series (especially Final Fantasy X), but there are some key differences that make Lost Odyssey stand out in the crowd.

Battles are turn-based and random, but there is something thrown into Lost Odyssey to make the turn-based battles less boring. If you have a ring equipped, which you probably will very early on in the game, you are given the ability to make your attacks more powerful. To do this, you have to hold the right trigger and release it just at the right time to do maximum damage on your opponent. This makes the battles much more interactive and more entertaining than just sitting there watching the characters do everything.

Rings can be found in the environment, after battles with enemies, or you can assemble them if you have the right parts. Some rings will allow you to add wind damage to your attacks or other rings will simply make your attacks stronger. In addition, there are accessories you can equip to the characters that add other effects, like healing a character if they are defending themselves.

What's odd about Lost Odyssey is that there are really two different types of people in the game. There are immortals and mortals with big differences between the two. If you are an immortal you cannot learn skills or spells on your own, but you can be automatically revived after death if your party lives long enough. If you are mortal, you can learn skills and spells by yourself, but if you die then that's it unless someone in your party revives you with an Angel Plume (what, no Phoenix Downs?).

Just because someone is an immortal, it doesn't mean that they can't eventually learn spells and skills with the help of someone else. There is a system in place where you can have your immortals learn spells or skills from mortals, but you have to gain special experience called SP in order to learn these. I really liked all of these systems in Lost Odyssey because the game is a lot less confusing than other RPGs out there but still manages to uphold decent gameplay elements.

Keeping with their previous game Blue Dragon, there is an emphasis on “formation” in Lost Odyssey that isn't very common in other RPGs. Lost Odyssey pays more attention to formation (it really wasn't that important in Blue Dragon) in the fact that characters in the back don't get hurt as much because characters in the front are protecting the characters in the back. The game shows how much the characters in the front are protecting the characters in the back with a bar in the upper-right that I think was just a waste of screen.

Lost Odyssey is also way more interactive than other RPGs. There is a ton of stuff in the environment to interact with, including pots, posters, trees, etc. You can find a ton of items in the environment, making wasting money at shops less of an annoyance. There are some minor puzzles that are somewhat Resident Evil-style which can provide an amusing distraction for a little while.

A map in the corner helps you navigate through areas easier and find helpful items easier as well. When you leave a major area you are given the choice to fast-travel to any other major area you've already been to, making traveling back and forth loads easier.

Earlier I said the game copies Final Fantasy X and it does, especially with the way you battle enemies. You see, like in Final Fantasy X, most of the enemies have certain elements attributed to them (which Final Fantasy took from Pokemon…just saying) that you can use spells or accessories opposite of their element to do some massive damage. The way you travel through environments feels a lot like Final Fantasy X too, with limited moving space and the character moving a lot like Tidus did.

I have never experienced a more deeply involving story than that in Lost Odyssey. I have played a ton of RPGs in my lifetime and I have never been more blown away or emotionally involved in any other game. The main storyline is crafty, has all the right moments, and not to mention it never becomes boring. The characters are loveable and there's comic relief at just the right times to make the story progress more smoothly. The basic just of the story is that you are Kaim, an immortal who can't remember anything about his past. You team with other immortals and mortals along the way as you live through the “magical industrial revolution.” On top of all of that, there are dreams that Kaim, the main protagonist, unlocks that have very emotionally-heavy stories to them that are brilliantly written. Frankly, Lost Odyssey proves that video games can be considered as art.

Best game I have ever seen on the Xbox 360? Yeah, it is. It seems like that with every game I play on the Xbox, it seems to be an improvement graphically over a previous game, but I think it'll be a long while before Lost Odyssey is dethroned. The character models are jaw-dropping as is the environment. The enemies aren't very imaginative, but they are still beautifully created. Cut-scenes rival that of Final Fantasy-caliber, but there are some minor frame rate issues present that are a little too noticeable. Also, the magic attacks aren't nearly as impressive as they were in Blue Dragon, which is kind of disappointing since the battles end up not being as exciting. For some reason, the text is kind of small when you're in the menu so you'll have to strain your eyes to see what certain items or spells do, which can get kind of aggravating.

A game that excels in nearly every other department will have to fail in the audio department, right? Wrong. Lost Odyssey has a beautiful score that will immerse you deeper into the game. During the dreams that you unlock there are sound effects in place that are perfect and really add to the emotional element of the story. You know how most games constantly loop their background music over and over to the point that you just want to break your TV in half? Well, most of the time, when a song plays all the way through on Lost Odyssey, another one starts, so you'll very rarely get annoyed at the music. However, Lost Odyssey does fail on one part of the audio department and that is sometimes the background music just cuts out all together for some ungodly reason. I don't know what the hell happened, but this is very, very annoying.

Spanning four discs, which is one more disc than Blue Dragon if you're counting; Lost Odyssey is not a short adventure. With all of the dreams to read as well as level-grinding to do to prepare for bosses, Lost Odyssey is a very, very lengthy adventure. There weren't very many side-quests for some reason, but the main story is so long that you will hardly even notice. As for replayability? Yeah, right. You should know by now that RPGs very rarely give you a compelling reason to play through again, but there are some achievements to unlock that may bring the more hardcore gamers back to the controller.

With its first two games released on the Xbox 360, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Mistwalker continues to impress me. Lost Odyssey proves that there are other RPG developers out there that can really give Square a run for its money, but there are some minor problems with the game that will definitely turn some gamers off (like the blistering difficulty level for example). With some improvements over Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey is an amazing game and I'm even more excited for Mistwalker's next video game offering. If you're a fan of RPGs and you own a 360, you should definitely check out Lost Odyssey, but if you are more into games like Halo, you may want to think twice.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/08

Game Release: Lost Odyssey (US, 02/12/08)