Review: Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey
Microsoft, Mistwalker
Available for Xbox 360

This week I got to dive into the in-depth world of Lost Odyssey, a role-playing game for the Xbox 360 that was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, who is famous for games like Final Fantasy and Blue Dragon. Lost Odyssey follows the story of an immortal named Kaim who is one of two survivors of a giant meteor spell that wipes out an entire battlefield and now he cannot remember anything about his past. Charged with determining the cause of the giant meteor strike, Kaim is sent to investigate a new magic station being built and is joined by several other immortal and mortal companions along the way.

Lost Odyssey’s storyline is very different than most videogames in the sense that most of the meat of the story is in the memories that Kaim remembers throughout the game and though you have the ability to read or skip each, I suggest you take the 10 minutes to read them as each memory is very well written. I was however disappointed by the fact that the game took almost 2 hours to get going into the actual game play and to be honest, it almost made me turn the game off.



The game play’s core is basic RPG turn-based fighting, but the developers have added in combat rings for additional battle affects, front defence strategies, item forging, and immortal/mortal skill linking to give the battle system a different twist for Final Fantasy fans. I personally was not impressed by how hard the bosses were in the beginning and the fact that escaping is a learned skill, rather than normal battle option really made it hard to fight through the first few levels.

Graphically and sound wise, this game is a complete success from the amazing soundtrack created by Final Fantasy maestro, Nobuo Uematsu to the fine detailed character designs and the epic battle scenes. Getting to play it in HD was just the icing on this game’s visually layered cake. Character voices were quite well done, expect for Jansen who sounded too much like a bad 1980s stand up comic to be in this game.



To be completely honestly, I am only suggesting this game as a buy to those extreme RPG fans out there, because Lost Odyssey is more demanding then a girlfriend who wants to talk about your relationship while the Super Bowl is on. Expect to spend lots of time with the game just listening and don’t be surprised when you die a lot because you didn’t plan your moves right. For rest of you normal gamers, pass on Lost Odyssey and wait for Grand Theft Auto IV to consume your life 3 weeks from now.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Forget it!