Lost Odyssey Review

By Dave McCarthy Published 12 February, 2008

Get Lost. In a good way.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Given the involvement of hotshot RPG superstars like Final Fantasy creators Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, it should come as no surprise that Lost Odyssey is utterly, utterly traditional. There's no fannying around with real-time combat here, like there was in Final Fantasy XII, just reams and reams of random battles, exploration and cut-scenes. Over the course of its 40-odd hours, it progresses at a glacial pace, taking a good few hours after you fire it up just to reach the barest semblance of a plot (which, just so you know, involves an immortal called Kaim trying to discover why he's been alive for so long).

In this, it is identical to every single other Japanese RPG to have ever existed. Indeed, there is little here to address the many failings of the form. Characters enter battle with earnest catchphrases like 'only the strong survive', and leave it only after punching the air to celebrate success. Battles are random - very random: playing through one stretch of the game twice triggered about seven encounters the second time after precisely none the first time. You'll spend at least half of the game searching through bins and rifling through strangers' drawers while they watch you without caring. The hero is - and I've forgotten how many times we've seen this before - an amnesiac. And the story, which is spread across four discs, frequently veers into saccharine sentimentality.

'Lost Odyssey' Screenshot 1

Lost Odyssey contains everything a good JRPG should, including a pointy-nosed stompy monster.

There are the inevitable stealth bits, treasure hunts, and item auctions, assembled into what could only be called bite-size chunks if you have a planet-sized mouth. Don't even think about sitting down to play Lost Odyssey if you haven't got an entire hour to play it: most save-points are between 20 and 40 minutes away from each other, and many of them are nearly an hour apart. Then there are moments of utter absurdity, like the bit where a queen flashes her chest at some armoured guards to secure safe passage to a foreign king, or the bit where you're forced to play through a series of funeral-based mini-games. Technically, it's all over the place, with neat tricks like depth-of-field effects offset by minor glitches like a smattering of eye-hurting frame-rate stutters. Even for what is a resolutely traditional Japanese RPG, cut-scenes are noticeably long, and there are lots of them.

Yet, for every head-scratchingly bonkers bit, there is an equally astonishing eye-catchingly awesome bit, like a sky full of flying ice shards, dealing all sorts of cold-based destruction, or the bits where various gargantua stomp around laying waste to cities. And the cut-scenes may be long, but in general the story they tell is a decent one, and they're jazzed up by the extensive use of 24-style image-in-image and split-screen editing techniques. The dialogue is respectable, and it's backed up by voice-acting that's generally good, with Kaim's immortal ennui encapsulated in a monosyllabic Keanu-Reeves-in-Point-Break monotone.

'Lost Odyssey' Screenshot 2

It also includes plenty of cut-scenes, spiced up by a bit of image-in-image action.

You can even forgive the problematically spaced save-points, because you'll be spending mountains of time playing Lost Odyssey anyway; in spite of all of its ups and downs and traditional failings, it's very difficult to turn the game off. Just when you think your patience is wearing thin it'll reel you in with another teasing narrative thread, or ensnare you with another new skill or item, or it'll throw a new game mechanic for you to play with.

Given the involvement of Mistwalker's hotshot superstars, it should come as no surprise to find that it's superbly polished. Its production values are universally high. The main musical theme, for example, treads the same doleful ground as Michael Galasso's soundtrack to In the Mood for Love. The character design and environments are superb. And over the course of the game, Kaim uncovers various 'dreams', or short stories, that are written by award-winning Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and translated by Jay Rubin, a Harvard professor who is better known for his translations of Haruki Murakami.

Like any Japanese RPG, the true appeal of Lost Odyssey can be boiled down to its story, and its game mechanics. Lost Odyssey's mechanics are unreconstructed and utterly old-school, but they're polished to within an inch of their decades-long life, benefiting from modern-day tweaks. It's astonishing how effective the sprint button is, for example, taking much of the pain out of all the exploration and backtracking. And there are all sorts of neat touches, from a cube-based music mini-game to a trashcan-dwelling, gift-giving creature called a Pipot, who pops up every now and again. Most of the polish, however, is to be found in Lost Odyssey's combat system. It is, essentially, the usual blend of turn-based attacks using elemental magic or upgradeable weapons, but there are a few new features that improve it dramatically.

The first, and perhaps least important, is the guard system, in which the front rank of characters create a barrier that protects those located behind them. Not that unusual in an RPG, but here it's formalised, with the barrier in question given a name and some hit-points, to make its impact on your strategy more obvious. More important is the second feature, the skill system, because it goes some distance to alleviating the sort of fatigue traditionally engendered by random encounters. One of the best things about Lost Odyssey is the rapid pace of character progression, with almost every random encounter yielding some new achievement - mainly because of the way the skill system works. Characters learn skills either from other characters or from equipping items, and generally it only takes one or two encounters for at least one of your characters to learn something new. What's more, the sheer variety of skills to learn, and the limited number that can be equipped at any one time, lends the combat system an ever deeper, more rewarding complexity.

'Lost Odyssey' Screenshot 3

You'll need to wander round town talking to people, before rifling through their belongings to acquire money and items.

That complexity is further enhanced by the final feature: the ring system, which adds a rhythm-action element to the otherwise standard turn-based battles. Throughout the game you can create and equip magic rings to your weapons, giving them various extra powers, but to trigger them you need to press a button at just the right time during your character's attack. As with the skill system, it can inspire a fair amount of micro-management if you want to tailor your equipment and skills to specific enemies. That might not be to everybody's taste, but it's actually pretty satisfying to delve into the further reaches of the system and, in any case, you're rarely compelled to. Indeed, if micro-management item synthesis and skill-swapping isn't your thing you can get by perfectly adequately by just upgrading every now and then.

Those are the mechanics. As for the story, during its better moments it scales emotional and narrative heights that many other games simply cannot match. The plot is so essential to the appeal of the game that it's impossible to go into too much detail without ruining the experience, but it's fair to say it contains the usual mix of geopolitics, warring states, political intrigue, and magic technology. It opens up in a pretty linear fashion until there comes a point at which it dramatically splinters, taking off in various different directions. It's unconvincing in some places, and finds itself home to many familiar failings - brattish kids, over-emotionality, and too many twee bits (especially at the end of the second disc, which consists of a good ten minutes of people crying about someone you have little reason to care about) - but it also contains moments of unparalleled magnificence.

'Lost Odyssey' Screenshot 4

And the women have massive, barely-concealed, breasts.

Many of those moments are contained within the Shigematsu short stories. These dreams add so much more depth and emotional resonance to the main storyline even if, like me, you're so stone-hearted that you fail to cry while reading any of them. It would be interesting, in fact, to know which came first: the stories or the story. Did Shigematsu's stories inspire the main narrative thrust? Or was he asked to write them to fill in the gaps? Either way, they add another dimension to the storytelling, so while an amnesiac hero might have done before, the emotional richness of the story is fairly unparalleled by any other JRPG. Certainly, no other game has managed to capture such a breathtakingly elegiac tone, or created such a compelling account of the immortal longing for mortality.

And that, really, is the reason that Lost Odyssey manages to overcome its many flaws. If you just fundamentally don't like the genre, then there's a chance that Lost Odyssey will fail to convert you. If you're too attached to the sorts of innovation introduced by the likes of Final Fantasy XII, there's a chance that it's just too old-fashioned for your cutting-edge tastes. But if you've got the patience to sit through its slow build-up, and if you're open-minded enough to allow it to transport you, then it will take you to places that other JRPGs haven't even dreamed of visiting.

8 / 10

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About Dave McCarthy

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Comments (113) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • menage #1 4 years ago

    Nice. Didn't see that coming.

  • Inquisitor #2 4 years ago

    Might pick this up, though I have an innate fear of JRPGs after final fantasy 7, the genre probably just isn't for me to be honest.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 13:42

  • Emortal #3 4 years ago

    Spot on :)

  • quantumsheep #4 4 years ago

    /waits

  • kissthestick #5 4 years ago

    Good score, i'll def get this after my ps2 backlog is done :)

  • Darren #6 4 years ago

    Somehow I just knew that EG would give the game an 8... dunno why... LOL

    Anyway I'm intrigued by this game because it's an RPG and I love to play games with deep characters and a damn good story. Only thing putting me off this slightly after the wondrous charms of Final Fantasy XII, Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata is those random battles, it seems such an outdated and clumsy way of doing combat in RPGs these days, not to mention mildy-to-extremely annoying. How bad are they?

  • Nylkran #7 4 years ago

    Very, very good, if this doesnt come out for the PC. I might have to eventually get all 3 consoles. Anyone has a 360 second hand they want to sell cheap? :p
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 13:53

  • Xephon1970 #8 4 years ago

    I'm still not convinced and I love my JRPGs. A mixed review, but a good score.

    Four discs and forty hours gameplay? And I'm sure I read somewhere, there are around twenty hours of FMV. There's not enough hours in the day.

  • GamesConnoisseur #9 4 years ago

    an 8, that is better than I anticipated, still planning to get this. Just need to make time to finish the Eternal Sonata first (also got 8 from EG). X360 owners is a bit spolied for choices for JPRG what with Blue Dragon (7.7 from Gamers compared to measly 5 via EG) and The Enchanted Arm. Strange that X360 JRPGs are not that appreciated in Japan!

  • Guv #10 4 years ago

    I want to like this... but I'm afraid I nowadays hate random encounters with passion.

    Oh well... perhaps when it's cheap.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #11 4 years ago

    Looking forward to this one i dont buy many games for 360 but this one is a definate get for me. Glad it got a good review.

  • Lukus #12 4 years ago

    This sounds excellent from the review. I haven't played a JRPG since FFVII and VIII, the latter of which I gave up on before completion, but this sounds very appealing. I even looked up 'elegie'.

  • JediMasterMalik #13 4 years ago

    This is really the kind of game that would make me pick up a 360 earlier rather than later, it looks great. I do wish they'd been a bit more ambitious as far as change goes.

  • Lorka #14 4 years ago

    Meh, 'traditional' turns me off.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #15 4 years ago

    Fecking Hell it comes on 4 Disks, theres a reason for Blu ray right there. Must be chocked full of long sutscenes tho if its only 40 hours long.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #16 4 years ago

    I started playing this last night and at the moment it feels like Blue Dragon with new clothes on. And random battles. And less children.

    Will persist, but not over the moon. Still, seeing an 8 is promising.

  • M83J01P97 #17 4 years ago

    I've heard a great deal of this game feels more like an interactive movie and that there really isn't the vast re playability that a lot of JRPGs have. I for one prefer my RPGs and JRPGs to be games that you can play through at least more than once and find new things to do, but this one still seems kind of interesting... I do fear the days of good old turn based combat are over though, but thats just me.

  • woodnotes #18 4 years ago

    Woah, was expecting a 6/10. Good stuff.

    /preorders

  • FabricatedLunatic #19 4 years ago

    I want to like this... but I'm afraid I nowadays hate random encounters with passion.

    I hate them too. But the encounter rate in Lost Odyssey is reasonable compared with some other games in the genre. The battles, however, take longer than they should, what with the camera panning around the battlefield, the characters' posing, and the ever-so-slightly too long battle animations. But at least it's pretty.

  • ParanoidZombie #20 4 years ago

    I suppose you can extend the game's 40 hours by a great margin if you do all the side quests... I managed to squeeze 83 hours of gameplay out of blue dragoon, and this one didn't have that many sidequests - defeating king poo required a lot of levelling, though-.

  • kincaide #21 4 years ago

    Blerk is going to *EXPLODE* when he reads this

  • alimokrane #22 4 years ago

    I am currently at Disc 4 and it's BRILLIANT ... very likeable characters,a very nice story and bloody hell one of the Best JRPGs AI EVER ... most battles put up a different challenge. Bosses so far are really varied! definatelty a hard JRPG and I love that!

  • Grayvern #23 4 years ago

    Lets not forget that Final Fantasy XII had way more monsters to compensate for the lack of random battle padding of most final fantasies, the load times were also too long between areas, which makes the beginning of it torturous.

    Shin Megami Tensei Lucifers call proved to me that I didnt hate random battles I hated the mindless nature of them in most games.l Lucifers call had weaknesses that actually mattered to occupy the mind, which meant I enjoyed it (also really quick battle animations)
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 14:30

  • Hughes. #24 4 years ago

    Another 4-discer from Mistwalker?

    Remeber folks, no game will ever need BRD capacity this generation!!

  • Raziel #25 4 years ago

    Still waiting for my delivery from Play-Asia. Just over 2 weeks now, could be stuck at customs :(

  • woodnotes #26 4 years ago

    Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are the only games to do multi-disc, and to be fair there's a lot of time (10 hours+) spent on each disc before changing. And the Final Fantasys of the PSX generation were on 4 discs too.

  • Pulsar_t #27 4 years ago

    For years I've tried to get into (J)RPG's, but only FFX has managed to convince me to keep going, and having chosen the grid sphere (didn't know what I was doing lol) I reached the end boss 20 hours short on levelling-up. I prefer lesser-RPG-more-adventure titles like Shenmue and Yakuza which don't have intricate battle systems.

    Can't wait for Sonic RPG though :p

  • Psychotext #28 4 years ago

    This + The US Advert = Pre-Ordered!

  • Forebodin #29 4 years ago

    Lost Odyssey is a great game, do buy. And that was a well-written review, though I must say the well-tailored Queen doesn't flash her breasts as implied, she just removes a necklace of sorts to reveal the glowing symbol of her chas- royalty.

    Hughes, LO doesn't need Blu-ray - it would just be a convenience to those inconvenienced by having to arise once every 10-15 hours.
    More to the point, as far as I know the extra discs are for the cutscenes, so you shouldn't have to swap discs when retreading old ground. : )

  • miiiguel #30 4 years ago

    "Remeber folks, no game will ever need BRD capacity this generation!! "
    Among the 300 360 titles, there's 2 with multi-disc..., and still whining. Anyway, kinda sad how can someone not apreciate a game if it's exclusive to the "oh my god, the evil console".


    Blue-Dragon milti-disc aproach is great, one never needs to put a previous disc inside, even if a location is revisited. Great.

    Pre-ordered, long, long time ago. I'll live every bit of its code.
    Edited by 3 at 12/02/08 @ 14:56

  • xAx #31 4 years ago

    ahh my nemesis pointy-nosed stompy monster, we meet again.

  • GordonCaladan #32 4 years ago

    "Lost Odyssey's mechanics are unreconstructed and utterly old-school"

    Pushing the boundaries!

    "The plot [...] contains the usual mix of geopolitics, warring states, political intrigue, and magic technology."

    So if that were the cover text on a book, you would buy it?

    Am I doomed to replay Vagrant Story for all eternity or will ever a JPRG try something original again?

  • JediMasterMalik #33 4 years ago

    I think you'll find FFXII was mentioned in the review just for people like you.

  • ChrisS #34 4 years ago

    It's the kind of game that's a 9 if you fall for it and a 7 if the story just doesn't quite grab you. Either way, the combat mechanics are superb, and it looks glorious.

  • GordonCaladan #35 4 years ago

    I think you'll find Vagrant Story more innovative than FFXII.

  • FabricatedLunatic #36 4 years ago

    Am I doomed to replay Vagrant Story for all eternity or will ever a JPRG try something original again?

    I get the impression that you've already made up your mind about the genre, but you might want to try Persona 3, released 28th February on PS2. My poorly-written reader review is out there somewhere :-)

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #37 4 years ago

    @GordonCaladan:

    Agreed. Vagrant Story is truly excellent. Although I'm not sure if it would stand the test of time today... I might have to dig out my old copy and see...

    Final Fantasy XII was an incredible disappointment. It makes me so sad to admit it considering how much I enjoy the FF series. I think there's only two of them I haven't finished...

  • space_ace #38 4 years ago

    In the Mood for Love

    ha, should a die hard fan of the film buy this rpg then? in a "went to hk to dine in the film's restaurant" kind of fan :)

  • MasterNameless #39 4 years ago

    I don't know why people keep going on about the 4 disc thing... oh yeah, Blu-Ray would be SO much better for the occassional game that requires it.

    After the first 20 hours of gameplay... I had to change a disc. Shock, horror! It was SO MUCH hassle, I almost gave up on the whole wonderful game! I mean, a 10 second disc change after all them hours of gameplay was simply too much!

    /sarcasm off

  • miiiguel #40 4 years ago

    Fanboysm is so funny, let 360 have two more of these titles and all the suden for PS-ultras, jRPGs will be the worst thing ever.
    Hurray FPS'es!

  • space_ace #41 4 years ago

    squarejawhero- "goldfinch restaurant" - central, causeway bay, just behind times square - you can look up the exact address online

  • Les #42 4 years ago

    "as far as I know the extra discs are for the cutscenes"

    It is kind of ironic that so far the games with most prerendered cut scenes have appeared on the console of the pre-rendered cutscenes haters... ;)

    Looks like a nice game though. Shame the guy hates Ken so there's no chance of it ever appearing on PS3...

  • Les #43 4 years ago

    "I don't know why people keep going on about the 4 disc thing... oh yeah, Blu-Ray would be SO much better for the occasional game that requires it."

    It's debatable whether just the occasional game could profit from the extra storage space (e.g. original soundtracks with all games) but anyway, I think the whole disc swapping is not so much about effort as it is about immersion. I for one hated having to stare at a black "swap disc screen" in the middle of the movie with the special extended editions of the Lord of the Rings for example. It's a minor inconvenience but it's still an inconvenience.

  • Cataferal #44 4 years ago

    Great review! I just might consider buying it if i see it for less than £25.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 15:44

  • miiiguel #45 4 years ago

    Disc-swaping, in the only game that has a multi-disc format on the 360 - Blue Dragon - was not made blindly, one changes the discs in the end of a chapter, after 20-25 hours of gameplay.

    Disc-swaping "in the midle of " would be weird, and I've never seen that.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 15:44

  • GordonCaladan #46 4 years ago

    @FabricatedLunatic
    No, I haven't made up my mind, and my comment was really made out of frustration at the heavyweight JRPGs. I loved Persona 2 - can't believe that's even older than Vagrant Story - and will give Persona 3 a chance. I'm even partial to a the PS2 Megatens but don't tell anyone!

    @redneon
    I actually think it does stand up incredibly well. I've been playing it again recently, and despite my having turned into a next gen whore, it's still genuinely fun, feels remarkably fresh and I'm still drawn in by the story.

  • MasterNameless #47 4 years ago

    @Les

    I see your point, but they have placed the disc changes at the end of very long story arcs/cutscenes, so when it got to each different disc change(I am on disc 4 atm), it was never very jarring. It asks if you want to save the game before the disc change, and 2 times out of 3, I saved the game and called it a night and just put the next disc in instead the next day.

    And yes, it is pretty much all filled with pre-rendered cuntscenes, which is fine by me, they do look a lot better than using the game engine, and I do love all that story.

    Another point to add, you can actually pause the cutscenes too, same as in-game. Which is a big thing for me, as I often like to go make coffee and smoke a cigarette whilst watching them! Yes, they can go on for that long!

  • FabricatedLunatic #48 4 years ago

    No, I haven't made up my mind, and my comment was really made out of frustration at the heavyweight JRPGs

    Ah, in that case I apologise. Persona 3 is a great game :-)

  • darc #49 4 years ago

    "polished to within an inch of their decades-long life"

    But in all those years they couldn't manage to get a "Save" button on the menu? Pass.

  • Shanucore #50 4 years ago

    Random encounters for the lose. But otherwise, this sounds mighty tempting. The short stories particularly appeal.

  • woodnotes #51 4 years ago

    "It's debatable whether just the occasional game could profit from the extra storage space (e.g. original soundtracks with all games) but anyway, I think the whole disc swapping is not so much about effort as it is about immersion. I for one hated having to stare at a black "swap disc screen" in the middle of the movie with the special extended editions of the Lord of the Rings for example. It's a minor inconvenience but it's still an inconvenience."

    Fair enough, you should buy the Blu-Ray version of Lost Odyssey for your PS3 instead.

  • itamae #52 4 years ago

    "In this, it is identical to every single other Japanese RPG to have ever existed."
    "Like any Japanese RPG, the true appeal of Lost Odyssey can be boiled down to its story, and its game mechanics."

    People who need to play more JRPGs:
    Dave McCarthy


    Nice review apart from that though, I guess I would buy the game if I had a 360.

  • lambtron #53 4 years ago

    Given the kind of game and how long you are likely to be playing before changing a disc I fail to see how anyone can honestly say doing so is going to "break the immersion".

    How is that more the case than any other real world task such as, you know, sleeping, going to the toilet or eating?

    Hmm?

  • MasterNameless #54 4 years ago

    @lambtron +1

    lol. Bloody good point! But what game that ever gets reviewed to people not immediately trying to pick faults with? To many negative nancies around... Yeah, I said negative-nancy. Chuckles to self...

    p.s. Optimist dies in bath half full of water.



  • Dizzy #55 4 years ago

    Yea waking up in the morning really breaks the immersion. I can't wait until Sony puts our lives on a 4th dimensional Bluray disk!

  • bicky316 #56 4 years ago

    What are the achievements like? I think I played Blue Dragon for over 40 hours and only got about 100 gamerpoints for my effort, a bit harsh I thought! :/

  • miiiguel #57 4 years ago

    For a good jRPG imersive experience one just need:

    PS3 with da amazing Blue-Ray
    Portable toilet (a bucket will do)
    2 ounces of crack cocaine
    4 ounces of MDMA
    Food pills (proportional inverse to the amount of the items above)
    and, that's the hard part, the game itself
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 17:24

  • JediMasterMalik #58 4 years ago

    It's Blu-ray, idiot.

  • miiiguel #59 4 years ago

    I translated it to portuguese, sorry, JediMasterEngineer.
    Edited by 2 at 12/02/08 @ 17:30

  • MasterNameless #60 4 years ago

    @bicky316

    I am 50 hours in, on disc 4, and have 550ish gamerpoints so far. I still have lots of the treasures and cubic music sheets to find yet though, I can imagine you'll get a fair amount for them... maybe 100 points for each.

    Otherwise, I got 125 points for completing each disc, and smaller amounts for getting perfect combos and 500 perfect hits with the ring combat system. There were more but can't remember off the top of my head.

  • Scimarad #61 4 years ago

    Not reading the review because I don't want to risk spoilers but that's a very respectable score.

  • JediMasterMalik #62 4 years ago

    There are no major spoilers.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 17:46

  • miiiguel #63 4 years ago

    bicky316, I did 950 in 120 hours, but I agree Blue Dragon Achievements are pretty stupid, because there are plenty that if you miss, you wont get them, like ever.
    E.g.: there's a store that spawns in Baroy Town after doing its quest where they sell some rare items which are only available there, if you leave town and come back later the shop will be closed. Many alike around, mainly regarding the "All Items" Achievement. The one to level every character to 99 is also very time consuming and... boring. It's the only one I miss, I'll try to Achieve by playing the DLC, soon.

  • Markusdragon #64 4 years ago

    For anyone that's played/currently playing; does something uberdramatic and cliffhangerish happen at the end of each disc like with the PS Final Fantasies, or does it tell you to change disc at a inconvenient moment that doesn't seem to be any major part of progression?

    Because I long for the extremely hyped, psyched up feeling of achievement you got when you got to the end of a disc and something awesomely dramatic happened. Haven't felt that since we switched to DVDs.

  • miiiguel #65 4 years ago

    In Blue Dragon it happened after some big main quest thing, and after a party with everybody happy, and dancing (no shit!), like it almost seemed the game ended.

  • Smog #66 4 years ago

    Well it's the same score as Mass Effect so it must be ace!

  • InsoFox #67 4 years ago

    Anyone who remembers playing Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga without a hard drive won't be worried by the disc swapping.
    Edited by 1 at 12/02/08 @ 18:34

  • Branoic #68 4 years ago

    "And the women have massive, barely concealed, breasts". SOLD!

  • Capa26 #69 4 years ago

    @ InsoFox

    Wasn't there about 15 disks or something? Epic. Did anyone care? Nooo.

    Can't wait for this. A quality review, was getting fed up of people slagging it off for doing the same as most JRPGs only better. Isn't that a good thing?

  • orenishii #70 4 years ago

    @ les

    Dear god man you're complaining about swapping disc after 10 hours of play!!! I remember my speccy and having to wait 10 hours for the bloody game to load up!!!

    P.S I hated it when the tape would run to the end and stop but no game would load!!!!! I don't know... people don't know they're born these days!!!

  • InsoFox #71 4 years ago

    @ Capa26

    11 disks, but close enough.

    There was a lovely sequence in the game where Largo would come into the bar and argue with the bartender, then spit his drink on the wall. You'd see him spitting, the spit would fly through the air, then you'd see a close up of the spit, then it would switch back to the wide shot, then the spit would land on the wall. In the Amiga version it went something like:

    Largo starts to spit. Insert disc 4. Clicketyclickety.
    Largo spits, spit flies across room. Screen goes blank. Insert disc 11. Clickclicklclick Insert disc 8.
    Spit flies across in close up. Screen goes blank. Insert disc 5. Clickgrindclick.
    Wide shot and spit finally lands on wall.

    But we still put up with it.

  • Thiral #72 4 years ago

    At first I got dissapointed it "only" got an 8 out of 10 because of my expectations. But then I read the conclusion, and it more or less tells me this game is a 10 out of 10 for the likes of me. I hated FF XII, the gambitsystem makes you sit there like you were watching some movie, nothing else. It had repetitive combats which didn't reward you in any way, specially the bosses. But hell, the biggest lack of FF XII was the story IMO. I've never understood the joy people got the for "innovative" surroundings in FF XII, Lost Odyssey seems to take it back to where I (at least) wanted it. From reading the review this will be the next game in the serie for me. Ya sure, I'm the oldstyle RPG player, if you want to sit and watch the new kind of RPG, be my guest. If FF XIII turns out to be much of the same as the XII I wont buy it as the first game in Final Fantasy ever.

  • Gaol #73 4 years ago

    The one game that really makes me wish I had a 360 is probably this one; an Uematsu soundtrack and traditional JRPG gameplay is unbeatable.

    Its interesting that its all quiet on the JRPG front except ones funded with the help of Microsoft - too many developers creating shovelware for the Wii and DS over there.

    I'll need to pass - not enough alone to sell me a 360. I do hope it does well and proves theres still a demand for this kind of content.

  • Hughes. #74 4 years ago

    I appreciate the comments section is where the hard of thinking like to congregate, but I'm not sure how what I said is being construed as meaning swapping discs is a problem. I don't consider it a problem in the many games I own that require it, (although it forces some very awkward decisions and compromises on developers in terms of maintaining an open world tht can be backtracked through).

    My - really not at all difficult to understand - jibe is aimed at those shit-for-brains individuals who spent over 18 months saying no game in this generation would ever need to exceed the space offered by a DVD9. It amuses me mildly that on 2 occasions, the starkest proof that these were the words of cretins have actually been provided on the console the imbecilic FUD-flingers were trying to recommend over the "BETA-Ray" equipped PS3.

    Those expecting Squenix to announce FFXIII will be part of a multi-format future must have already purchased the wheelbarrow they'll need to take to the shops to collect it.

  • The_Sheep #75 4 years ago

    Omg. i hope that the picture on the home page, its not a major spoiler!! but it looks like the main guy older!! damn you eu!!!

  • TexMurphy01 #76 4 years ago

    Yes, best not to spoil. Like was done to Mass Effect in the top 50 games of 2007.

  • Leeks! #77 4 years ago

    "Certainly, no other game has managed to capture such a breathtakingly elegiac tone, or created such a compelling account of the immortal longing for mortality."

    Planescape Torment? No?

  • Lionheart #78 4 years ago

    "Yer-liek, diss game is liek on 2 much discz innit, bluray is liek so good , shame we aint got no RPG's to play and all PS3 ports are liek shit innit"

    HAHA that cracked me up!!!

    I cant wait to get this game now! 8/10 WOOP WOOP!!!!!!

    Can anyone tell me, is the combat fun / well done / complex?

  • beastmaster #79 4 years ago

    Forgot this was coming out. Still playing Mass Effect but the combat on that can suck. Could be another one for the collection (of games bought and not yet played).

  • Gastrian #80 4 years ago

    For those who imported it are you able to have chinese language with english subtitles?

    I'm kind of guessing the UK release doesn't and its a deciding factor on whether I import it or by it local.

  • miiiguel #81 4 years ago

    "Mass Effect but the combat on that can suck"
    Play it on Hardcore, it changes everything. Biotics start to have a decisive role.

  • Daikon #82 4 years ago

    no fannying around with real-time combat here, like there was in Final Fantasy XII

    Sold.

  • septimus #83 4 years ago

    Tempting, though I'm not sure I can go back to a traditional jrpg (unless it's the ffvii remake) after the strides made in the real time style RPGs.

  • NonniR #84 4 years ago

    Been waiting for this game for quite a while. Will definitely buy it when I have the chance since my time is being eaten up by Pokémon Diamond and Puzzle Quest (which both are fantastic games (despite what you may say about Pokémon in general .Þ)).

    And an 8 ? I frankly didn't see that one coming to be perfectly honest. I expected 6-7 from you guys. Owell, glad it scored higher then I expected.

  • NegativeZero #85 4 years ago

    How is the difficulty though? I love me a good JRPG but I just don't have a lot of spare time nowadays to play them, so if it's stupidly difficult like some of the older FF games or the like, where level-grinding is pretty much essential, then that would be a deal-breaker for me...

  • warbo #86 4 years ago

    Les: "It is kind of ironic that so far the games with most prerendered cut scenes have appeared on the console of the pre-rendered cutscenes haters... ;) "

    Very few games have pre-rendered cut-scenes on Xbox 360, but plenty of PS3 games have them. It's the only thing that extra space on BluRay is great for at present. FFXIII will be packed with hours HD FMV and most or all of the cinematics in Heavenly Sword, LAIR, Ratchet & Clank and Uncharted are offline rendered.

  • tomkuryakin #87 4 years ago

    I'm not quite sure why random battles are such a big issue for people. Yes, they are annoying but FFXII was full of unavoidable battles and respawning enemies: the battles weren't random but they might as well have been.

    FFXII is the first FF game that I have started and not finished (I even made the effort to finish FFX-2, which I didn't really like at all), even after putting 70 hours into it. I loved it to begin with but it just became too much of a dungeon crawl with tiny bits of story every now and then to keep you going. I loved Vagrant Story too but I only got halfway through that before getting bored.

    To me, the story in an RPG is the most important thing, the thing that keeps you playing right to the end even when you're sick of fighting another Lesser Spotted Vampire Dingbat (or whatever) and seems that Lost Odyssey has a great story. With this and Eternal Sonata, for the first time I'm seriously considering getting a 360.

  • hiddenranbir #88 4 years ago

    Utterly utterly traditional. Move on Given Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu. Please.

    Is 8 the lazy score?

  • FabricatedLunatic #89 4 years ago

    I'm not quite sure why random battles are such a big issue for people. Yes, they are annoying but FFXII was full of unavoidable battles and respawning enemies: the battles weren't random but they might as well have been.

    Yes, but the transition between game world and battle in FFXII is seamless. More than anything else it's that jarring transition over which I have no control that annoys me. And can't you just run away from enemies in FFXII? I can't remember.

  • Dave_Taurus #90 4 years ago

    @Leeks!: No.

  • FabricatedLunatic #91 4 years ago

    Heh. Well, I didn't hate FFXII that much but it was a big disappointment.

  • creepylizard #92 4 years ago

    random battles do have a use though. if they weren't there then everyone would be too lazy to fight and when you came up agains't a difficult boss you\d be hopelessly out of your depth. Every genre has ridiculous conventions they stick by....

  • FabricatedLunatic #93 4 years ago

    I say if the player is too stupid and/or lazy to battle then they deserve to get their arse kicked. Shouldn't we be discouraging hand-holding? Besides, if the combat is good enough there's no reason why they'd would want to skip it all.

    But, as I said earlier, Lost Odyssey has a reasonable encounter rate and good, if a little on the slow side, combat.

  • Les #94 4 years ago

    "Very few games have pre-rendered cut-scenes on Xbox 360, but plenty of PS3 games have them. It's the only thing that extra space on BluRay is great for at present."

    Yeah, never mind bigger levels, more textures, original soundtrack, etc... Extra storage space will be put to use, definitely not 100% of the time, but it's an additional 'tool' for developers to work with which can't be a bad thing IMO.

  • Mercatoria #95 4 years ago

    My copy arrived yesterday and I've played it for four hours and am really enjoying it.

  • Les #96 4 years ago

    “@ les

    Dear god man you're complaining about swapping disc after 10 hours of play!!! I remember my speccy and having to wait 10 hours for the bloody game to load up!!! “

    Wow, a complete overreaction on a comment on Eurogamer for a change… All I meant to say is that, given the option, I prefer no disc swaps to disc swaps. Like anybody around here I’d think. Like I said, it’s a minor inconvenience and it wouldn’t prevent me from buying a game that otherwise appears to suit my tastes. That doesn’t mean it’s not an inconvenience however.

    @ lambtron

    The difference with those activities versus the disc change screen is that you have some control over when to perform them and therefore they’re a less radical interruption (and sometimes no interruption at all if you can stall them long enough) of a play/movie watching session. But those screens definitely didn’t stop me from enjoying FF VII, VIII and IX or playing through 15 disc Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga…

    I wished people wouldn’t be so touchy about disc swaps. Why can’t we just agree that they’re a little annoying but not the end of the world? I see it as a small pleasure of Blu-Ray but the real benefit should be realized through doing something useful with all that space (e.g. uncompressed audio).

  • koji_m #97 4 years ago

    nice review, good to see a lot of attention is spend on the story which is by far the main factor in this game

    bloody game had me crying during the "don't forget me now' dream/story

  • barrylyndon #98 4 years ago

    probably the best review yet. Glad to see he's not slating the game to look cool or just being a jaded fool like other reviewers have been. I think the score is the right one.

  • orenishii #99 4 years ago

    Dear god man you're complaining about swapping disc after 10 hours of play!!! I remember my speccy and having to wait 10 hours for the bloody game to load up!!! “

    Wow, a complete overreaction on a comment on Eurogamer for a change… All I meant to say is that, given the option, I prefer no disc swaps to disc swaps. Like anybody around here I’d think. Like I said, it’s a minor inconvenience and it wouldn’t prevent me from buying a game that otherwise appears to suit my tastes. That doesn’t mean it’s not an inconvenience however.



    Les, you have heard of the term "tongue in cheek"? Right..... No?

  • Decap #100 4 years ago

    "That doesn’t mean it’s not an inconvenience however."

    That just seems so idiotic, petty and childish thing to whine about nowdays. "Omg u telling me I have to GET UP FROM MY COUCH AFTER 10 HOURS OF PLAY?!"

    Taking a crap is also an inconvenience but I dont hear ppl bitching about it. (and switching the game disc takes less time)

    As far as the game comes, will definitely pick this up one day. Have to play old rpg:s through first.

  • captain-future #101 4 years ago

    Then there are moments of utter absurdity, like the bit where a queen flashes her chest at some armoured guards to secure safe passage to a foreign king (...)

    She showed her boobs (?) and you find this absurd?

    I'd call it B-movie-esque classy.

  • zedzee #102 4 years ago

    I understand that this game comes on FIVE DVDs!

    I think Microsoft backed the WRONG storage format...Good luck with all that disc swapping!

  • 7creature #103 4 years ago

    What about swapping among discs when you are revisiting older areas (is it even possible?) or loading old saves? That was one issue I certainly didn't like about FF VII or FF VIII. Or any other multi-disc game.

    /waiting for possible PC release with Japanese audio
    Edited by 1 at 20/02/08 @ 08:56

  • wuztrino #104 4 years ago

    @ 7creature.

    You don't have to swap back to disc 1 if you want to visit an old area or anything like that, once you've completed disc 1 you don't have to use it again until maybe you want to start this awesome game again. I've leant my friend disc 1 as i'm now on disc 2, so at least he'll get to play it a week before it comes out and probably not have to buy it.

  • Lionheart #105 4 years ago

    Played 2 and a half hours last night and i am hooked...

    cant wait to get home and carry on : )

    Might even cancel on my gf tonight haha now that sad!

    Top game..... So far!!

  • Antwandemarco #106 4 years ago

    Yep game is awesome. The only gripe i have with it is the god forsaken children! I swear on of them is voiced by one of the maggots that voiced rugrats. Suprisingly enough the comedic dude doesn't grate on me too much(not to say i like him). I agree with those here that didn't like FF12, I thought it was dull as dogshit.

  • Darth_Flibble #107 4 years ago

    Really enjoy the game, so much better than Blue Dragon (wanted to kill all the characters in B.D painfully)

  • Bangaioh #108 4 years ago

    I'm second disc, 24hrs... does it get any better? Because I'm a bit bored with the storyline and the repetition...

  • zErOb_cOOl #109 4 years ago

    Am I the only person who doesn't get the attraction of games like this? Dull stat management fighting. Piss poor puzzles. Great.

  • Shalashaska #110 4 years ago

    Great game if you a JRPG fan, more like FF8 in my opinion. graphics are great and the frame rate problem isnt too bad, for a game that has like 50+ 5 min CGI cut scenes, its not all that bad. It flows nicely, you dont find yourself searching for battles so you can raise your level to beat a boss, I found i could progress naturaly without going out of my way to level up which takes the monotany out of this type of game, JRPG's are marmite games and personally I love this one!

  • jetli #111 4 years ago

    Just tried playing this ladyboy emo pile of shit and and can't for the life of me see what anyone would see in it. It seems the only thing it has going for it is the fact that it's an 'OMGXBOGZEGGZCLUSIVEZ!1!', but for those of us who aren't dullard fanturds desperate to get one over on PS3 owners, there's simply no getting away from the fact a polished turd is still just a piece of shit at the end of the day.

    Good to see sales and overall critical opinion reflected what crap this is. Bring on Fallout 3!

  • Kryon #112 4 years ago

    ^ Get back to playing Cooking Mama then you utter nob jockey.

  • NonniR #113 4 years ago

    I ... think I'm insane. Too me, FF VII is the best game I have ever played. I'm one of those FFVII fanboys you see, and as such I had already accepted that no rpg could ever come close to him (and I've played alot of rpgs).

    I think I was wrong with that assumption. I honestly feel that Lost Odyssey is the best Rpg to have been released since FFVII. Granted, just my personal opinion but that's all that matters.
    Although I admit that the overall villain in LO isn't anywhere near Sephiroth in terms of .. everything .. you still start to hate the villain by the end of the game.