Lost Odyssey

Added February 25th, 2008 by Slunks

Generations have floated by, and answers have still not been found on what makes the perfect balance of innovation. If a game attempts too much, it derives fans of the genre. Contrarily, said title won’t appeal to the general audience if its cards are safely played by refusing to reach for anything refreshing. So where does Mistwalker’s latest role-playing game Lost Odyssey land? The answer may only be found within the rich story experience itself, but does the old-fashioned gameplay mechanics and minor technical issues prevent this bubble from bursting?

In Lost Odyssey you play as Kaim Argonar, an unexpressed one thousand-year-old immortal and longtime adventurous mercenary who has a captivating, yet unknown past. He’s introduced by shown fighting against the army of Gohtza, for the under whelming force that is Uhra. While showcasing a plentiful amount of blade skills, a meteor suddenly born from the heavens comes crashing down, killing both forces in its storm of lava. Both military forces are laid to waste and this spawns a newly found caution against dominance attempts from other rival neighboring countries. Kaim, being one of the sole survivors of this catastrophic mess is called into council for questioning. Suspicion of the meteor’s cause hints at the enormous architecture known as Grand Staff, and you’re sent to inspect why this magic-storing tower has been blamed.

You won’t be accompanied alone on this epic journey. Second immortal and former female pirate Seth, who also cannot recall her past, will accompany you. The wise cracking caster Jansen, a mortal sent by the creator of Grand Staff is sent with you as well. But what Lost Odyssey does best with these characters is show a great deal of serious and humorous sides that interact with one another. Jansen balances the humorless style of Kaim, while Seth is the glue to keep everything together. Of course, you’ll meet many other journey-goers along the way, each with a strong personality that is truly memorable throughout and well after the game is over. Kaim’s lost memories are intervened through vastly emotional short text stories that are partnered only by gentle piano melodies and detailed backgrounds. These tales tell about Kaim’s past relationships with the many people he’s met over his long-lived life and aim to make you realize the pain an immortal goes through witnessing numerous deaths of his close friends. Although a little too frequent in certain cities, these stories can prove to be heart wrenching and are in a detail of high quality.

Reading fables are obviously not the only form of gameplay. Aside from field and city roaming, you still have your traditional turn-based battle system that does a superb job of introducing the new ring creation system. You’ll have a library of rings to create from the ingredients you find throughout the lands that you can wear to increase various benefits against specific foes. With these rings equipped, you’ll see a small circle appear around the monster you are attacking. By holding in the right trigger, a bigger circle will quickly zoom in on the enemy. You can stop your circle by releasing the trigger, and if you’re lucky enough to overlap it perfectly on top of the enemy’s circle, you’ll receive maximum benefits from the ring. The timing is admittedly tricky to get down, as there’s no clear pinpoint visual on where to stop, so you won’t be seeing perfects across the board. One notable flaw with the ring system is that its benefits are rare to spell-specific characters since their physical power is very limited. The added defense bonus the back row of your formation receives is nifty. Your front acts as a shield to your lesser hearty back row, who take far less damage as long your front can hold their own. Unfortunately there isn’t much else new presented in the rules of gameplay, but what’s in-court plays well. It all may seem a little familiar, but as is the rules of the genre. Spells counter its opposite element, and their names are instantly recognizable to anyone remotely accustomed with role-playing terms.

The customization aspect has a wide variety of capabilities. Your party is mixed with both mortals and immortals, and learning different skills for one is actually an interesting task as it works separately. For mortals, the standard way of leveling up to gain new abilities is intact. Immortals, however, do not gain any skills from simply leveling up. Instead, they have the ability to link to a mortal’s skill, eventually learning it over the course of battles. You place learned skills into your limited number of skill slots (which may be expanded), so there’s no way to go extremely overboard with the abilities available; you’ll be forced to make some tough decisions. Skill linking isn’t the only way for an immortal to learn a skill. Accessories that you equip are bound with abilities that you learn, and much like skill linking, you eventually remember that skill over time. Mortals may also wear accessories, but they only will learn what they have equipped, and will never gain them permanently overtime. Accessories and rings provide fun and are a great way of keeping you busy on the customization side. However, the only other equipment you are able to equip is a single-statistical weapon. The only appreciation that weapons approve of is attack power. It’s a shame there’s no fun to be had with your steal and staves, since there is so much to do with your other equipment.

If you’re not busy gawking over the story, the visual and audio presentation will make certain you do. The frequent cinematics are extremely polished including the in-game cut scenes with soaring sights. The facial animation and voice acting on each individual character is something that was not an oversight. Lost Odyssey also includes five fully voiced languages that you can set the game for. Many talented and experienced voice actors provide true quality work for the English version, and it’s easily noticeable. The graphical aspect is wonderful with its beautiful cities that span from your dirty slums to high-classed, clean elf-like design masterpieces. However, the frame rate isn’t stable as its graphical design as it dips a bit during many cut-scenes and can unfortunately slightly lag up action that’s going on. What takes the cake for this category is the phenomenal music collaboration. Well-known and former Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu has returned to his roots and he’s positively top-notch for this entry. The orchestral score is amazingly blended with electric guitars in harmony and immensely helps transit the overall feel to higher proportions. The only technical issues found are minor ones. Load times are frequent and won’t be short in time, but they aren’t lengthy enough to break up the experience and are only a slight annoyance.

Lost Odyssey may not rewrite the rules of the genre, but it performs a wonderful job improvising with what’s on the table. A few customization and battle additions keep things from feeling too similar, and the story keeps in high tune. This leaves the question of innovation a confusing one: It takes some of the old and puts in some of the new. It sounds like a perfect mix, but the gameplay changes are rather minor ones and aren’t strong as they could have been. The true breaking ground is found through memorable characters that stick and interact with each other in perfect harmony. The main plot unveils to be run of the mill, but what it successfully does is make you feel. The emotion and feeling behind each character is what this game strictly fuels on, and it’s not afraid to show it. Lost Odyssey is the exact representation of a book: you’ll be reading from left to right, top to bottom; the same way you would to any other. But the content of that inside is amazing to say the least, and that alone greatly passes the justification of taking the patience to play-through this fifty-hour epic.