Lost Odyssey
Review
Is Lost Odyssey the RPG the 360 needs?
by Vyle
reviewed on X360
Battle system (cont.)
This is a problem that many other games have been able to rectify, and the criminally small text really is an unforgivable oversight.
Aside from that issue, battles are quite fun affairs by RPG standards, proving far tougher at low levels than contemporaries. The second boss, for instance, proves a challenge, requiring barrier skills to be used, as well as exploiting elemental weaknesses – something usually saved for later enemies.
Even basic enemies will provide a challenge to an ill-prepared team. Save points don't automatically heal the party either – this isn't a criticism, in fact it's something that this reviewer finds refreshing, bringing some much needed challenge to the usual battles.
As the game progresses, the strategy required to defeat bosses and enemies increases, making you use your brain rather than using an overly-leveled party as a crutch. This is a game that doesn't demand that you level your party to the max to proceed – it's a game that wants you to learn its battle system and then use it wisely. Some may complain that the battles aren't balanced, but learning elemental weaknesses and exploiting them is the key to getting by, and anybody who fights a smart battle will get by without too much hassle.
Pretty eye-candy
Graphically, Lost Odyssey is very pretty. The characters are all well designed as are the different environments, but this brings back the issue of the fixed camera and small scope for exploration – the locales are too pretty to just act as static backdrops.
Sadly, the graphical strain can sometimes result in a brief frame drop, even during cut-scenes, especially when they employ various face reaction camera box-outs, but nothing major.
The music is suitable for its purpose, but sadly never reaches the dizzy heights of Nobuo Uematsu's work on Final Fantasy 7. Some of the background music has a short play time and loops enough to make one reach for the mute button quite quickly – in RPGs you will hear the same music a lot, so this can be a problem, but again, only a minor one.
Overall impressions
At the end of the day, Lost Odyssey is a game with little ambition – it sets out to be a generic RPG and it succeeds in its aims. It's hard to hold this against it, as it never pretended that it would be more, or that it would redefine the genre. The fun and slightly more cerebral battle mechanics should be commended, but it does at times feel as if these are a tantalising glimpse of a game that wanted to do more, but got cold feet at the thought of rocking the genre boat.
Many will happily forgive its many flaws as being just the 'RPG way' and while that could work on the decent use of turn-based battles, there are many conventions that should, on a console like the 360, be rectified. The restrictive areas, and strange canned animations for entering lifts and contrived block pushing puzzles are relics of the PS1 era. In this day and age, some things should be more sophisticated.
Of course, to many, all niggles will be overlooked as nitpicking, while others will point to the £40 price tag and demand more.
Whichever camp you're in, Lost Odyssey is by no means a bad game, as it doesn't really do anything wrong. It is, however, restricted by its lack of ambition, and happily glides along being one of the only stereotypical JRPGs on the 360. For some, that'll be enough, but compared to the likes of Mass Effect, it becomes glaringly obvious how much of a difference there is between doing nothing wrong, and everything right.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
