Lost Odyssey

"From the creator of Final Fantasy and the developers of Shadow Hearts comes an RPG about what it means to be human"

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man who had once saved Squaresoft from going completely bankrupt with his Final Fantasy series, had reached a dilemma. After his big-budget box-office bomb Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, (of which there's thankfully only one homage in Lost Odyssey,) he seemed to have lost his way. Becoming less and less involved in each Final Fantasy title since Final Fantasy 9, (he reportedly had some input on Final Fantasy 10, almost no input on Final Fantasy 11, and no involvement whatsoever with Final Fantasy 12,) it became clear that he was developing other plans, and the decision to bring composer Nobou Uematsu with him to form his own development studio, named Mistwalker, (which oversees other developers as they bring Sakaguchi's stories and ideas to life,) was risky enough; to be exclusive to the Xbox 360 was even more shocking.

Despite the talent involved, my interest in Lost Odyssey was fairly low until word leaked out on the internet that the development studio making the game, Feel Plus, is actually made up largely of former Nautilus members. Yup, the now-defunct studio behind the cult-classic Shadow Hearts RPG series. From that point on my interest in Lost Odyssey skyrocketed and I eagerly followed it up to its release.

Does it deliver? Lost Odyssey is a compelling adventure featuring an extremely well-written and presented story, excellent graphics, great audio, and one of the best turn-based battle systems around. While it still doesn't reach the quality of fantastic games such as Final Fantasy 9 or 10, Lost Odyssey's a truly great game that manages to do something entirely different while at the same time keeping things traditional. It's the perfect answer to the burn many of us RPG fans felt from the awful Final Fantasy 12, and it's a welcome sign that the Japanese RPG still has life left in it.

Graphics and Audio: For the first time in one of my reviews I'm going to combine these two categories because in Lost Odyssey they play an equal part in exactly what makes the world so likable. The art direction, for one thing, is stunning. The locations in this game seem to radiate with life and magic energy. Environments contain the same visual flair of the Shadow Hearts series, including sometimes muted colors yet with sharp lights contrasting through the gloom. Places like the Sea of Baus are covered in a mist that's very atmospheric, mountain paths look dense and full of life, and towns are brimming with activity. Everything, from the lighting to the weather effects (such as rain) is expertly pulled off.

The sound effects really drew me into the world; birds chirp, tides roll in and out, magic energy machines rumble, magic floats through the air....all of these sound effects that you hear as you walk through the environments in Lost Odyssey bring each location to life. Probably the best example of this I've ever heard in an RPG. This is all complemented by Nobou Uematsu's often great music. These unique-looking areas have inspired him to do new things with his soundtrack, and his music for places like the Sea of Baus and Uhra sounds very exotic and different than anything I ever heard from him. It actually seems to resemble something from Yoshitaka Hirota; there are strong hints of darkness lurking beneath it. (The final boss track's awesome in a completely different way.) The game's main theme's both epic and memorable, and even the standard "relaxing" songs that play in towns are all great to listen to. Occasionally you'll hear something that sounds familiar if you're a Final Fantasy fan (Numara has hints of Balamb Garden) but overall this musical score distinguishes itself as something very different. Where the music really steals the show, however, are during the "Memories" sequences, where the often subdued piano music completely brings life to the text that's being shown onscreen.

Moving back to graphics, the character models are yet another risk Lost Odyssey took. Designed by a manga artist rather than a person who typically does work in video games, they look vastly different than most RPG characters. Sarah, for example, features large glasses and moles on her face, Kaim has a strand of hair that's constantly hanging down, Jansen looks very strange at times...for once in a Japanese RPG, they were not afraid to make the characters...ugly. Granted, they're not actually "ugly" but they're a complete 180 from, for example, the "right out of a Gap ad" look of the Final Fantasy 12 characters. The character designs in Lost Odyssey are refreshing and their facial expressions during cutscenes are really incredible. A combination of the stunning visuals, some amazing direction, and the facial expressions make the in-game cutscenes and the FMV's so thrilling to watch. Really amazing stuff. Also helping is a great English voiceover dub: the lips were synched to English, giving the voice actors freedom to ad-lib if necessary. The guy who voices Jansen, in particular, takes advantage of this opportunity to add in some really funny lines and this voice actor actually elevated this game to another level, simply by being so natural and funny. Other performances are solid across the board. Tara Strong does it again as Seth, creating yet another distinct voice for the character that sounds different from other voices she's done before. Even the little kids aren't particularly annoying, although anyone who watched Rugrats growing up will recognize the voice of Cook almost immediately. The excellent voice acting further contributes to why the cutscenes are so amazing and interesting.

Unfortunately, Lost Odyssey's visuals and audio aren't without several hitches. Although the intro FMV features a seamless transition from story to battle, the rest of the game's nothing like that: there are load times before and after almost EVERYTHING. It becomes excessive quickly and while they're not particularly long, they're disruptive and that's just as bad. As if to help make them more bearable, the developers threw in a screen that pops up if the game's hit a particularly long load time, (it shows a random character and their stats) but this ends up making the game feel somewhat cheap rather than really making things more bearable. There are also small amounts of slowdown, occuring both during gameplay (exploration, battle) as well as during cutscenes. It's not a game-ruiner by any stretch of the imagination (this isn't the PS2 port of Grandia II) but it, along with the load times, makes the game feel at times unfinished. The voice acting of some NPC's is also occasionally a bit iffy, but this isn't a big deal since there are very few of them: most of the dialogue's done by main characters. Although Nobou Uematsu's outdone himself as far as music goes, that's not without its flaws either. Almost every location in the game has its own distinct music, which is great, however, many events re-use the same music from earlier events in the game, especially an annoying chase music that plays way too often. Another moment of weakness in the music is a pop song that sounds incredibly forced and totally out of place. I wish Uematsu would go back to doing something unique and different with his vocal songs like in the FF series years ago (Final Fantasy 10 being the perfect example.) On a visual note, while the art direction's often stunning, there are a couple environments in the game that seemed a bit generic. Not a huge issue but it's something worth pointing out. There's also occasional pop-up when piloting your ship on the overworld, and the game did lock up on me once, which was very annoying, although like usual, it's hard to say whether it was the game or system at fault there.

Graphics/Audio overall: These merge together to create a world that I really wished I could visit. When just standing on the dock in Saman and looking out to sea, when walking through the Numara Atoll, when looking at the incredible art direction in the city of Uhra or walking through the bustling monorail station to hear TV's displaying the news.....it all creates such a convincing and likable world that single-handedly outdoes what they created in Final Fantasy 12, scope aside. It's a big world; not as big as an MMORPG-wannabe, but it's big. The music's incredible, the art direction's stunning, the character designs look and animate very well, the facial expressions are very next-gen for the most part.....some issues involving load times and framerate are unfortunate and date the experience, which is too bad, because otherwise Lost Odyssey's completely next gen and it looks and sounds better than any RPG I've played in years. Uematsu might want to consider bringing another composer aboard next time to help him with the event music, though, as Lost Odyssey's tends to repeat a bit too much.

Gameplay: Although Sakaguchi reportedly gave his approval for Final Fantasy 12 once it was first revealed, Lost Odyssey seems like as much of a departure from it as humanly possible. The game's structured a lot more like Final Fantasy 10, where you wander through fairly expansive (But linear) environments with help of a radar in the corner of the screen. Once you walk a few feet you trigger a random battle, and after a load time, you're free to engage the enemy in turn-based combat. Although the battle system may at first appear to be as traditional as it can get, there's much more to it than that. First and foremost is the party size; for a good portion of the game you will have a 5-person party, which is something that I'd never personally done in an RPG. Second of all, the ring system. There are many rings spread out across Lost Odyssey, and equipping one of them to your character gives you that ring's effect, if you can pull it off. As your character runs at the enemy to attack, two circles will appear onscreen, and one will rapidly shrink into the other one. If you hold and then click the R-trigger at the right time, you will gain a "Perfect" and as the ring's attribute will work in full effect. Get close and you'll get "Good," miss and you'll get "Bad" and little to no assistance from the ring. Equipping the Bruiser Ring, for example, will increase your damage to the enemy depending on how you complete the trigger-hitting during the attack. Other rings, such as element-based ones, will work the same way, adding, for example, more "fire" to your attack, and if the enemies are weak against fire, this will do much heavier damage.

Rings are designed to be adjustable during battle, in fact, the game encourages it. You can equip different rings and equipment in the heat of battle without even costing yourself a turn. Very handy, since the types of enemies you face in any given area vary greatly and you may need to take advantage of elemental attacks to beat them. At the same time, the R-trigger system during the attacks serves the same purpose as the Judgement Ring from the Shadow Hearts series, which is to add another level of interactivity to the proceedings and to keep battles exciting. As with the Shadow Hearts series, you really can feel the force of the hits in battle, and both enemies and your characters get knocked around. Your party members don't simply stand there like statues and await their turns, though, they'll do things like check their armor, maybe hop up and down a couple times in preparation for their attacks, etc. It's a nice little bit of attention to detail.

Magic plays a huge role in Lost Odyssey; unlike most other RPG's where Black Magic's something mainly to be ignored, ignoring Black Magic in Lost Odyssey will leave you totally screwed, and the game stresses this almost from the beginning, losing no time in throwing bosses at you that are impossible without the use of magic. Your magic user, though, for a good portion of the game, is mortal. Yes, in Lost Odyssey, a good portion of the cast is made up of immortals, and when they're killed in combat they return to life after a few turns. Mortals, on the other hand, can be killed, and magic users especially are given weak defenses. So the game incorporates yet another interesting feature, the Wall system. The front row characters are designed to take damage, and they act as shields to the back row, reducing damage to back row characters. As the front row takes damage, though, the wall weakens, and the back row's more open to attack. It works the same way for enemies. At the start of battle, if you attack back-row enemies immediately, you'll do extremely little damage, but get some front row enemies out of the way first and then you'll be good to go.

In order to encourage you to keep mortals in combat, the game's skill system's designed so that mortals learn skills normally as they level up, but immortals can only learn skills by Linking to mortals, and if you want to keep learning skills for your immortals, you have to keep your mortals in combat and leveling up. Leveling up's handled in a different way than most RPG's as well. You gain fairly large stat increases with a level-up, however, once you reach a certain level in an area, the game will suddenly dramatically lessen the amount of EXP given to you from battles in that area, so you'll always know when there's no longer a point to fighting battles. It's an interesting leveling up system that works well and the only weakness I can think of is that it can make some of the bigger dungeons annoying, as you know you've reached your level cap for the area, yet the game continues to hammer you with random battles.

Still, it's a great battle system that leaves plenty of room for strategy. Like Final Fantasy 10 there's a meter at the bottom of the screen that says what order the enemies are going in, but unlike Final Fantasy 10, everyone selects their moves at once, so you don't always have the ability to plan your strategy accordingly, and you can't take into account possible surprises before selecting everyone's turn. It can be a challenge at times. Granted, the game's not brutally hard but it will give most RPG fans a workout, and those fairly inexperienced with the genre will probably need to check Gamefaqs pretty frequently for boss tips. Save points aren't always frequent either, and sometimes will not be placed right before bosses. Luckily, the game features a checkpoint system, which will allow your characters to restart near the boss in the event of a Game Over.

The bad news is that this idea, while well-intentioned, always leads to big issues in games like this. Because of the checkpoint system, the developers don't always feel the need to throw save points your way, which means that you might occasionally spend 2 hours playing between save points. While there's no fear of dying and losing progress, say you have to go somewhere during a gameplay session, you're pretty much screwed because you haven't hit a save point in a couple hours and there's a tough boss you have to beat before you can get to it.

Luckily, though, dungeons aren't often too painful, usually being big enough but not so big that they become sprawling mazes like those in Final Fantasy 12. And in general, the world of Lost Odyssey is brimming with items to be collected, no matter where you're exploring, so things are never tedious on that end. Random battles can be a bit annoying when in dungeons but overall battles are fast-paced and fun. What leaves a bit of a negative mark on the game is its unbalanced sense of difficulty. There's a fine line between being "strategically challenging" and "cheap" and at times Lost Odyssey crosses that line. It's fun to have bosses that require thought and planning to beat. It's not fun, however, when the final boss has a full-party petrify move that seems to have a HUGE success rate, and yet the only way to become immune to petrification is from a piece of equipment hidden behind a waterfall in some village.....not fair, developers. Similarly, the first two bosses in the game will completely kick your ass, (USE BLACK MAGIC!!!) which is a bit too bad, because I think issues like these are roadblocks that will prevent less experienced RPG fans from finishing the game. It made me wonder if at times they hadn't bothered to test the bosses to see how difficult they were, but then I remembered that Sakaguchi himself, while demoing the game to an audience, was infamously killed by the game's first boss...you'd have thought that would have been a clue to the developers to tone down that boss's difficulty a bit but no luck there. After the early bosses, Lost Odyssey settles into a good groove of being challenging but not overly-difficult, and it stays there for a good portion of the game, with cheap moments shining through occasionally and some bosses with WAY too powerful attacks.

The combat system also falls victim to negative traits prevalent in the genre that I wish had been resolved with the move to next gen: The enemies seem to have almost a guaranteed success rate with all their status attacks on our party, yet whenever we try to use status effects on battles or bosses it seems to never work. Similarly, the Flee command's almost entirely useless by the time you reach disc 4, as you'll flee from battle successfully SO few times (sometimes they disable the use of the command entirely for little reason other than to be frustrating) that it's not even worth trying. Luckily a character you unlock late in the game has an ability where he can flawlessly flee from battle. Some enemies also have a "call allies" move, which, I'm now convinced, should be banned from all future RPG's, seriously. Sometimes item sellers in towns and save points are hidden from you, which isn't fair. Save points also don't restore your HP or MP, which is too bad, yet turning off and turning on the game does, oddly enough. On a good note, status effects end the second a battle ends.

Phew.....there was a lot to talk about combat-related. Overall, it's a great battle system that provides a suitable challenge. It falls victim to some genre conventions and at times bosses and enemies may put up *too* good a fight, but it's an extremely fun battle system that may not be as fun or revolutionary as the Shadow Hearts system, but it's close and proves yet again that Feel Plus/Nautilus know fun turn-based battle systems like nobody else.

Moving on from that topic, exploring environments is always fun due to the game's excellent atmosphere, which I mentioned early in the review. Towns and cities are often big and very fun to explore, and the game overall features a large amount of sidequests, including everything from treasure hunts to underground fight clubs and casinos. (Unfortunately, like Shadow Hearts, once you reach the edge of a town, there's no warning that you're about to leave and you'll wander outside town accidentally. Doesn't sound like a huge deal but in Lost Odyssey you're hit with a heavy load time when you re-enter the town, so that can get a bit tedious.) While there are places in the game (particularly on disc 2) where I think there should have been more cutscenes, the game still features plenty of them. It's not as story-intensive as FF's 9 or 10 but easily much more story-driven than the likes of FF12.

Yet another unique feature to Lost Odyssey is the memory system; when wandering around towns or other areas, Kaim might see something that will trigger a memory. (He's lived for 1,000 years, and he's witnessed many sad things over the course of his life.) I always looked forward to these when reaching new towns, and I'll go into more detail on those later. You can view the dreams you've unlocked from the game's main menu or when you sleep at an inn. When you leave town you're put on a map that's right out of Shadow Hearts; you select the location you want to go. The next plot-related location will be marked for you. Fans of overworlds (I'm not one of them) don't need to worry, though, on disc 2 a new type of exploration's unlocked, and you can actually cruise the game's world on a ship. People who found the likes of Final Fantasy 10 to be too linear should enjoy the fact that Lost Odyssey has something resembling an overworld, although in my opinion it effectively ground the game to a complete halt whenever I was dumped on there with no idea where to go.

The developers also keep things fresh with a series of mini-games that were thrown in, like times when you'll be required to use stealth or paths you must carefully navigate without being blown off by the wind, or something. It works, I guess. There are a couple mini-games, though, that are thrown into the game at literally the WORST possible time, you'll know them when you see them. They mix the new with the traditional. I remember a big gripe I had with FF12 was the simple lack of a time when, for example, you were able to talk to all your party members in an airship. Lost Odyssey has a moment like that almost 30 minutes into the game! It never loses sight of its classic RPG roots yet at the same time brings it to the next generation.

Gameplay overall: Lost Odyssey's an example of a turn-based RPG that's just constantly fun to play. Everything from the exploration of the very atmospheric world to the battle system was handled with perfection and as a result the game never gets old. Playing through it ended up taking me over 50 hours (most RPG fans should get through it from 40-55 hours) and yet unlike other 50-hour games, Lost Odyssey never felt overly lengthy or tedious, or like it was being stretched. The plot holds itself well across those 50 hours and the characters and fairly frequent events always keep things interesting. Unfortunately in an effort to provide a challenge, the developers have succeeded in making the game much less accessible and at times it definitely crosses from "challenging" to "tedium." But these moments are not the majority of the game and while I'm not going to pretend that there aren't flaws here, the game's so fun to play that they really just don't matter much. On one final complaint on gameplay, I'll mention that the New Game Plus doesn't keep track of previously unlocked memories, which is a huge bummer and missed opportunity. But still, playing the game once was good enough.

Storyline: Lost Odyssey's an example of a game that on the surface doesn't seem to do much new with the story. This isn't Final Fantasy, loaded with your clockwork twists and turns, large casts of characters, mythical and/or spiritual elements and a strong romance....instead, Lost Odyssey settles on a much more grounded-in-reality type of story easily featuring one of the most cunning villains I think I've ever encountered in an RPG. This villain knows exactly what he's doing and never seems to lose control. It's not in league with Final Fantasy, though, and the biggest reason is the character development. We do get to know these characters very well, as they're the center of the story, but there are many times where the game's clearly missing their interaction. We have characters who haven't come in contact with each other for hundreds of years, yet once they finally meet they seem to almost have nothing to say to each other. A husband and wife, in particular, seem to have been completely ignored by Sakaguchi, who shows almost no interest at all in giving them any chemistry. I'm not sure even why they were married, to be honest. Similarly, one character's background as a pirate remains sadly under-developed, and there's way too much focus put on the little kids for my liking. But setting all that aside, the plot's actually very good and the characters are all so likable that even though they weren't developed to their potential, it's a blast to watch them. Cutscenes are almost always memorable, both due to the characters (helped a lot by the aforementioned perfect English dubbing) and the great script, but also due to some of the best cutscene direction I've ever seen. Both the FMV's and the in-game cutscenes are very well-directed; they can be so intense and epic, yet also leave room for nice moments between the characters that are also very well-written and presented.

The game opens with a stunning FMV battle sequence that pushes the Teen-rating to its breaking point. During this epic battle a meteor suddenly crashes in the battle field, wiping out almost everyone except Kaim, an immortal. He awakens from the blast to find everybody around him dead and the battlefield a wasteland, yet, of course, he doesn't have a scratch on him. Instantly after these battle scenes (which give you the first taste of the game's combat) you're given control to wander the wasteland set to Uematsu's evocative music, (the scene giving off maybe the game's biggest hint of Final Fantasy 10) to eventually meet up with the capital of Uhra's patrolmen, who are examining the devastation. There was apparently another survivor (another immortal named Seth) and together they're escorted to the grand city of Uhra (in yet another memorable and epic scene) to speak to the council about what they saw of the meteor attack. They're then sent on a journey with a mortal magic user named Jansen to inspect a magic tower that may or may not have had anything to do with the meteor. That's all I'll say about the plot, except to say that it unfolds with great skill and political intrigue, especially as you see the cunning villain in action. It's a great story and although it's kept simple (your main party's large, but there are a fairly small amount of other characters. There's 1 villain and the leaders of other nations, and that's pretty much it) it's effective, mainly due to the incredible presentation. There are also many unique ideas at its core, such as the fact that the main characters have been alive for 1,000 years and it provides a very interesting spin on what may otherwise have been a standard RPG story.

It's not always reliable, though, which is the only thing that really prevents Lost Odyssey from standing with the best of the best. What for me stopped this game from complete RPG excellence was 80% of disc 2. Disc 2 features points where the plot seems to, at times, come to a screeching halt for some pointless dungeons and a reveal of a new character who, as I said earlier, adds almost nothing to the story. Despite a good start, the disc settles for pointless dungeon after pointless dungeon. It seems like nothing but filler, and in a game that otherwise feels cutting-edge and "present day," it's irritating to then be thrown into a mansion and solving a ridiculously lame puzzle out of an old Resident Evil game, or something; things like this completely date the experience.

This is where more character interaction scenes would have helped greatly. This section of the game also features a large amount of text-based conversations (no voice acting, even) which should be outlawed from RPG's in the age of HD consoles. (Come on, RPG developers, when was Final Fantasy 10? 2001? With all-cinematic cutscenes?) Once you reach disc 3, though, Lost Odyssey takes off like a rocket and never looks back. After hours of "meh" storyline on disc 2, some of the most amazing things I've ever seen in an RPG happen literally one after another, continually hitting the gamer with memorable scenes, great moments with the characters, and countless examples of why this villain was easily one of the best I've ever seen in an RPG. It's a great story, although it's not flawless, leaving plenty of unexplored ideas and characters and some moments of melodrama.

What are flawless, though, are the memory sequences, which were written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu. Sakaguchi's main scenario for Lost Odyssey was a good one, but what really makes the game so memorable are these sequences, which feature nothing but text, images, sound effects, and music. As Kaim encounters these memories, we, the gamers, are treated to stories at times extremely heartbreaking. War is a general theme throughout (as it is throughout the main storyline) and we're treated to some of the true evils of the human race. At the same time, however, there are stories that show the goodness in people and honestly, they made me proud to be a human being. The general theme running throughout Lost Odyssey is life and death, and what it means to live and die, and making the most of your life no matter how desperate the situation. The way the music perfectly brings about the right emotions, the way the text scrolls across the screen, the images, the atmospheric sound effects...it's all perfect and easily Lost Odyssey's triumph. I even admit to being misty-eyed during several of them, something that rarely happens to me by any form of entertainment. Watching kids cry may not have much of an impact on me (main storyline) but the story of the old shoemaker in that village did. Very powerful stuff.

Storyline overall: Lost Odyssey features both a captivating and very well told main scenario as well as extremely well-written dream sequences that every RPG fan should experience. It's a bit unfortunate that they didn't try to tie more of those dreams into the game's main plot (and that the main characters don't seem to get to know each other much) but the characters are all extremely likable, the cutscenes are incredible, the dialogue's nearly perfect, and the voice acting's great....it's a very well-told story that faces some rocky pacing issues on disc 2 but by the end overcomes them.

Overall: Lost Odyssey is an incredible game. It's not without its large list of flaws, yet, somehow, after I finished the credits, I realized what I had experienced and how memorable it was. Somewhere at around the middle of disc 3 the game just suddenly grabs hold of you and doesn't let go. This was one huge adventure, and one that's loaded with substance (not the aimless wandering that made up most of FF12) and one that will stay with me for a long time. It's by no means in league with my favorite traditional RPG's, Final Fantasy 9 and Final Fantasy 10, but it's a great game. Yes, it's hampered by some major pacing issues, too many text-based conversations, technical flaws, and some cheap fights. But we have here an RPG that actually made me think, it actually made me feel the emotions that I was supposed to feel, the world's among the most atmospheric and best-looking ever put in an RPG, and the game's just fun to play. It's also got some of the most intense scenes I've seen in an RPG in a long time. Feel Plus (formerly Nautilus) has completely outdone their work on the Shadow Hearts series (I can't imagine what these guys could do with a Shadow Hearts 4 with this type of budget and scope,) and Sakaguchi has once again proven himself as an RPG developer...granted, this product isn't perfect, or even close, but the overall experience, and the impression left on me by the game, isn't going to go away any time soon. If Mistwalker and Feel Plus develop their next RPG and take everything they've learned from this RPG and expand on it, we could really have an RPG up to "the best of" Final Fantasy quality. The future's looking very bright for Japanese RPG's on the Xbox 360...as crazy as that sounds.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/08, Updated 11/09/09

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