Lost Odyssey

[Rane Longfox]

It's what FF12 should have been, if they hadn't decided to go with the god-awful "live-action-turn-based-non-random-fights-fighting" clusterf*** they decided to. Seriously, this game is awesome.

The characters are nothing short of hilarious, the storyline is great, it's got everything a good old-fashioned RPG needs. Deceit, scheming, grand military parts, young plucky warrior (who actually turns out to be 1000 years old and immortal to boot, but with no memories), equally young (and, yes, also immortal) female character the initially scorns YPW, but grows to love him... you name it, it's in there. And, blissfully, it uses nice, calm, turn-based fighting, like FF used to, and still should. Add to that jaw-droppingly awesome graphics and a vast scope, it really is one of the best games I've played in a long time.

Added to which, it has four discs! On the 360! How more epic-length RPG can you get?

Anyone played this, or have any thoughts? Try to avoid spoilers, I'm still oin disc one

[Lenny]

I watched a friend playing it for an hour and a half this morning. And I have to say, I prefer FFXII.

To first address the four disc epicness - I'm 25 hours into FFXII, and up to a point which, I'm told, is about a third of the way through the game. My friend is also at the 25 hour mark in Lost Odyssey, and he's halfway through disc 3. Multiple discs an epic maketh not.

As for the game itself... I have to say, I didn't like much of what I saw, particularly if we're comparing to FFXII. I have a disliking to the Immortal part of it - to me it seems a bit pointless. Whereas in FF battles, if a character goes down they stay down, in LO, he'll get back up after three or four turns... well that just takes the fun out of it. As for the combat system itself, I'm one of these who really likes the FFXII system - it's a breath of fresh air. Going from that to Lost Odyssey just makes the LO system seem outdated.

I can't comment on the story, as he skipped the cutscenes... but a word on the cutscenes - apparently there are a lot. In-game engine, and CGI. He showed me varieties of both... but I can't tell the difference. Nope, not because it's gone the way of FFXIII, with gameplay graphics on par with CGI cutscene graphics, but the other way round - the CGI graphics looked like in-game graphics, which disappointed me somewhat. I'm a fan of the big, impressive FMVs in Final Fantasy games, and I was quite looking forward to seeing some from another Japanese dev, especially from the fella who originally started Final Fantasy, but I got nothing. The graphics were slightly disappointing, too. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad - definitely better than the gameplay graphics of the last-gen FFXII - but they looked like Oblivion graphics, and Oblivion has got standardish graphics. Oh, and the voice-acting wasn't bad. Better than some, definitely.

One thing I will give it is the architecture, particularly of some of the machines. The typical Japanese, completely over the top architecture that we've coe to love in RPGs.

Other than that, well, I went into the experience with high expectations as I'd heard a lot of good about the game, even thinking about finding some way to play it (I've got a PS3, you see, and they're not going to release it on PS3... maybe PC), and came away not fussed.

I'll stick to FFXII, methinks.

[Rane Longfox]

I guess it comes down to the fighting style. I really truly passionately hate the FF12 battle system, and it ruins the rest of the game as a consequence. "Outdated" is a big plus, when up-to-date involves the battle systems of FF12 and, it would seem, 13.

I think your friend is playing through very quickly, maybe. I'm doing the good old total immersion thing, where I try and do every little tiny thing that I can, and I've played about 10 hours - I'm about half way through the first disc. You can do it either way, I suppose - I know someone who completed FF10 in 30 hours, but it took me over 100.

I'm unsure as to how the imortal part "takes the fun out of it"...

[Lenny]

FFXIII is an unkown, really. Reports seem to have it set between full movement in the map environment as in FFXII, and action being paused with menu's and turns.

Mistwalker, the devs, say that the game should take between 40 to 50 hours to complete.

As for being immortal taking the fun out of it - if a character collapses in battle in a Final Fantasy, then you either whip out ye olde Phoenix Downs, or swap them for another. I find that it gives battles, particularly long, hard boss battles an extra dimension in that you really have to plan, maybe throwing in the characters with uber HP first to last, or the low-HP characters first to wear the boss down before the super-damage attacks, for which you throw in the guys with eighteen million HP. And if one of them collapses unexpectedly, well, the pressure is on - when you finally beat the boss, with 20 HP left for your final character, the others having collapses with not a Phoenix Down in sight, you get a real sense of satisfaction. Watching my friend do a few battles, with the immortals in his party and I just didn't get the same sense of pressure - Kaim collapsed, my friend said "Oh", and carried on playing without a second thought for the poor, KO'd character. Moments later, Kaim stood back up and carried on as if nothing happened.

You don't have to come up with tactics, or prepare for battles before you go into them. Who cares if a character collapses (and I'd expect the Immortal ones to be the main people in your party - from my short time watching it, I gathered that they were at the centre of the story), they'll get back up again in a tick.

It just jars with me, that fact. I want to work to defeat bosses. I want to feel that moment of, "Oh monkey...nose!!" when your key tank drops after a particularly vicious attack and you have to get one of the other characters to fling a Phoenix Down his way, then a second to force a potion down his throat to get him back up to speed. I want the relief that comes with knowing that you've only just survived annihilation by 20 HP on the third run through the boss battle because the previous two attempts the cheeky get unleashed a super 9999HP destroying attack on yo ass, knocking out your fighters for the nth consecutive time, just after you've used your last Phoenix Down, leaving you with a mage with not even enough MP to boil a kettle, and enough HP to last them five seconds in the real world, just dodging attacks for a few turns, dealying the inevitable. At that point I don't want my tank to leap up and pwn that boss... well, it would be nice, but it wouldn't be, if you get my drift. You'd lose the edge that boss battles have.

[Lucien21]

I'm currently playing Lost Odyssey and loving ever minute of it. I'm on Disc 2 and have been playing for about 15 hours (Just reached the Black Caves).

It is basically a FF clone so the system is very similar to old FF battle systems. There is a lot of tactics involved in the battles from the formations, to the ring system that allows you to assemble rings with different powers, to the immortals learning skills from the mortals (so you can choose them to learn whatever skills you need from white magic,black magic,spirit magic or composite magic or other skills like counter,combo or status immunities), the ring attack sytem, using items (Yes you can use phoenix plumes to revive downed characters even immortals) etc etc

It's very Final Fantasy which makes sense as it was made by the creator of Final Fantasy.

The graphics are brilliant (Certainly better than FF12, but that is a PS2 game so you would expect it to be better)

The storyline is very good, although the amnesia plot is getting old in gaming cliches, the plot is pushed along nicely.

The characters are traditional japanese RPG fair, although Jansen is hilarious (sounds a bit like James Woods as well).

Overall I think it is a very very good game.

I was never a huge fan of the new FF12 battle sytem. The lose of the random battles was good, but the real time type battles were a tad naff.

Overall I prefer it to FF12, but not as good as some of the older FF games.

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Rane Longfox

It's what FF12 should have been, if they hadn't decided to go with the god-awful "live-action-turn-based-non-random-fights-fighting" clusterf*** they decided to. Seriously, this game is awesome.

The characters are nothing short of hilarious, the storyline is great, it's got everything a good old-fashioned RPG needs. Deceit, scheming, grand military parts, young plucky warrior (who actually turns out to be 1000 years old and immortal to boot, but with no memories), equally young (and, yes, also immortal) female character the initially scorns YPW, but grows to love him... you name it, it's in there. And, blissfully, it uses nice, calm, turn-based fighting, like FF used to, and still should. Add to that jaw-droppingly awesome graphics and a vast scope, it really is one of the best games I've played in a long time.

Added to which, it has four discs! On the 360! How more epic-length RPG can you get?

Anyone played this, or have any thoughts? Try to avoid spoilers, I'm still oin disc one

*May contain some spoilers*

Granted, if you feel Lost Odyssey is superior to Final Fantasy XII than it certainly is, in your particular experience. However, while I'll respectfully allow you your opinion I will also respectfully oblige to remark on the inherent problems with LO and why it's a step back for this genre - something of which FFXII is not guilty.

First, the "great" storyline lacks any originality or depth. It's convoluted and shallow and the plot, while seemingly refreshing in its themes, is presented in such a way that robs it of any chance at actually being so. I don't want to spoil any plot twists for those still playing, so I'll simply say a large portion of the immortals' concepts and their overarching story was taken directly from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - in some cases the similarities are so apparent they're embarrassing. The dialog definitely doesn't help things much. Not to mention there are still some of those moments in the script where conversations make absolutely no sense in context with what's actually happening and that, when you've finished watching a scene, you're left wondering what was being said after the camera faded to black because you're filled with an overwhelming sense of disjointedness.

As for the characters, the only real depth there (for Kaim, at least) is found within the text-based dream sequences, and though I do find some of them enjoyable reads, I think the gimmick was an attempt by Mistwalker to shove more depth into the world and its characters without having to inject that depth into the main elements of the game. This is evidenced in the uncomfortable dichotomy between the character Kaim from the dream sequences and the often unspoken, needlessly gritty Kaim you actually experience throughout the game. Jansen is definitely great comedy relief, but to a fault; his character never grows beyond force-feeding the audience puns at sometimes awkward moments the entire 50 hours through and his interaction with some of the other characters are wonky and come off as unnatural. Some of the other relationships are simply unconventional to the point of being unbelievable and the way the game attempts to convince you of their viability feels contrived (Seth and Sed are examples of this - Sarah, Kaim, Mack and Cooke are others - even Ming and Seth's "friendship" is left to a simple conversation and seemingly forgotten for the entirety of the game).

And while the game spans four discs, as I mentioned above it clocks in at around 50 hours - which is average for most RPG's these days and is nowhere near being considered epic. Sub-quests and level grinding (in itself a silly concept where LO is concerned) will obviously increase the time you spend playing, but as the sub-quests are insufferably nonsensical and unrelated to the story you'll probably find yourself either skipping them or completing them simply for achievements or because your completionist mentality simply won't allow you to bypass them.

No, this is definitely not the game FFXII should have been. It contains several problems inherent to these types of titles and even the familiar end-of-battle theme song (which was simply a dissonant version of Final Fantasy's own) was a reminder that while familiarity is welcome, sameness is not - and if Mistwalker doesn't attempt to push forward and move beyond old conventions it will contradict its own mission statement and become the company it decided to leave. Mistwalker chose the path they did because they felt that the franchises they helped create were becoming stagnant - but both Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are no more evidence of innovation and evolution than this string-cheese I'm eating is evidence of my classiness.

I've enjoyed LO, I really have, but in comparison to Final Fantasy XII, it does very little to move this genre beyond the same tiring, problematic conventions which are inherent to it. At the very least Square-Enix made some steps forward by mixing up the formula and trying to do things differently than it had in previous iterations - and despite my having issues with some of those changes, they were welcomed simply because they were an attempt at change.

[Rane Longfox]

You say "tired, problematic conventions" I say "well-tested, enjoyable, confortable aspects"

I skipped through most of your post though, because I want to avoid spoilers... how major are they?


Lenny - hmm, you think you don't need tactics? That you just run in, bash around, be immortal and generally kick-ass? Nope. Of course you need tactics. They're just adjusted somewhat. And because a few of the characters resurrect after a few turns, the enemies are a bit harder in general, and it's not like they jump straight back up again - they normally only have a small amount of health left when they get up again , so end up going down again PDQ if you're against a strong enemy. You don't get any more easy fights in LO than say, FF10 (the last one I completed, and still my favourite). Of course you still need to prepare for battles - equip the right stuff, work out who to put in front or back of the formation etc - no different to FF.

[Commonmind]

They were pretty minor actually; nothing detrimental to the experience, simply a few observations on character development.

And these are tired and problematic conventions, no matter how well-tested and perceivably enjoyable they are. Sakaguchi himself said much the same thing on several occasions and it was part of the conscious decision he made when putting together Mistwalker - to transcend those conventions and present new concepts and ideas to the player. What I'm saying is, despite appearances, Lost Odyssey is very much lacking in the area of innovation and comparisons being made between it and FFXII, an arguably more innovative title that tried (though I feel failed, in some ways) to do something differently.

Basically what I'm saying is Mistwalker left the donut shop to make fine pastries and all I've had so far is the same donuts he's always fed me. I want an éclair.

[Lucien21]

LO is certainly an old school JRPG, but I don't think it suffers due to that fact. It's still fun.

I personally think FF12 was overrated and that 7,8 and 9 are better games.

[Rane Longfox]

Commonmind - being inventive in a genre like this is only a good thing when it works. That last part is where FF12 fell short

[Commonmind]

And the only way for them to find out if it works is to put it in the hands of consumers. So do you suggest they stop trying to innovate and keep delivering games which adhere to these extremely dated mechanics?

And I'll leave my personal opinion of FFXII out of the discussion; I was merely stating that comparing this game to it, a game which did nothing to move the genre forward, was a poor comparison. Like I said, at least FFXII gave it a shot. Again, I liked LO, I just don't think it should be touted as something it is not. It's a very traditional (not a return to form, but a "safe") RPG with a very pretty face.