Lost Odyssey Xbox 360 Review

(This review was done in collaboration with a buddy of mine. He has finished the game, while I am still halfway through disc 2. A number of people have been requesting this review, so we teamed up to combine our thoughts on this game. While I believe this to be a fair and honest review, I also believe that in good faith the above should be mentioned. A combined gaming time of over 60 hours between us should be plenty enough to accurately and fairly review Lost Odyssey. That is more than can be said of certain other larger review websites.)

What We Liked:

1. Great graphics and visual style. Cut scenes are especially nicely done. I love the cut scene that starts out focused on Seth’s breasts and lingers there for several seconds. Awesome.

2. Fantastic music by the same guy who did some scores for Final Fantasy games.

3. Well done story and fantastic dreams. While lots of games have done the whole “amnesia” thing, no one has done them in quite this way. The dreams are an excellent insight into the highs and lows of being a 1000 year old immortal.

4. Combat is turn-based and not overly difficult or complex.

5. I like the way Immortals learn new skills by equipping certain items and skill linking with humans. It reminded me of the old “Espers” in Final Fantasy 6.

6. The game is designed for you to be able to play through it without having to level grind. Of course grinding is still helpful and necessary if you’re trying to get your immortals to learn every skill available to them.

7. Lost Odyssey in my opinion is actually better than some of the recent Final Fantasy titles.

8. The game can be very touching and bittersweet. If you don’t find some of the dreams and storylines at least a little emotional, why are you even playing an RPG? Having said that, it still might even be a bit TOO much for some people.

What We Didn’t Like:

1. The bosses can be very hard to beat if you didn’t already know the proper strategy to use going into the fight.

2. Some stealth sequences take away from the overall enjoyment.

3. The story loses some of its edge once it reaches the “hunt down and kill the end boss stage”.

4. Some dialog and voice acting is crap, or more suitable for a bad anime. Also the frame rate drops noticeably during some cutscenes.

Yay: Currently the best traditional Japanese Style RPG available for current gen consoles. +1

Gay: The male characters tend to look effeminate. -1

Final BS Rating: +4 TOTALLY AWESOME