Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360)

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Customer reviews

review by: Blackguard Bob date: 2008-06-26 rating:
Best game ever for Xbox but...
Lost Odessey is a unique game. Once played never forgotten. The story line is wonderful and the ending is the best I've ever seen in any video game over the last 30 years.

The graphics are better than that of Oblivion and the facial expressions top that of Mass Effect. The character animations are first class.

Some action scenarios are breathtakingly exciting in which you have to fight for your life against seemingly impossible odds while the clock is ticking.

I laughed and cried (yes L.O. is a tearjerker) my way through 4 DVDs and was moved to anger also.

However...

This game is seriously flawed in essential basics IMHO.

For example: There is a limited save game facility employed here which is ludicrous. You can play for three hours in a very dangerous and difficult scenario without being able to save your game. Even nOObs know better to save your games frequently.

Fighting sequences are far too frequent and monotonous and only serve to break your concentration. Before engaging the enemy, you have the option to equip a ring for each member of your party, change an accessory for them and then let battle commence. For the rings to take effect you have to hit a perfect strike for each melee in the party. This is almost impossible to do. Hitting a perfect strike is more to do with lucky timing rather than a skilful tactic.

There are also zillions of rings and it is a pain having to scroll through all of them to find the right one for the monsters before you. There are just too many rings in this game!

L.O. is also non-intuitive and not immersive. There is no option to influence the course of actions. This game plays in a straight line via hundreds of lengthy cut scenes. It is like watching a movie versus actully taking control of a character and causing him to make decisions with far reaching consequences. The lead character is called Kaim but at no time did I feel that I was this player. I just watched what he did and had to accept it. You can get him to fight of course, but one fight is the same as all of them. It is repetitious nonsense and extremely time consuming.

I logged 190 hrs and 1 sec playing L.O. (plus some DLC). This is because I am a completionist and like to do the lot. However, because I missed one item early doors I could not gain five (linked) achievements.

In this respect, L.O. is unforgiving. It is an extremely difficult game to play and I never got the feeling that I knew what to do next. Treasure hunting is painstaking and unintuitive and yet essential. It is a chore, not a joy.

L.O. has a PEGI of 16 but there is no sex and absolutely no gore whatsoever. Mass Effect has a PEGI of 12 and there is nudity in two sex scenes and lots of gore.

If you like turn based strategy and are into playing on insanity level then L.O. will delight you. Otherwise, see if you can get it cheaply as I did.

Conclusion: I'm glad I played it, I suppose, for it moved me. The game is absolutely wonderful at times. At other times it is absolutely awful, frustrating and uninspiring and way too difficult in combat. Better get used to seeing "Game Over" often and then try to load from a previous save. Yes, that's right, the game has limited save points so you will have to go through all of that 20 level cavern again just to beat the boss.

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review by: ravenshoe date: 2008-06-24 rating:
big investment for nothing
There are sections in this game that take hours with no save possible which ends in your death in an instant. I got to the fourth disk, followed the story for as long as possible and then died for no apparent reason in a pretty standard fight and lost 2 hours of unsaved play. There are better thought out RPG's out there. this is very sloppy development. Nice graphics though.

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review by: date: 2008-06-11 rating:
Awesome game :)
If u like final fantasy then u wil prob like this. The graphics are pretty good & so is the story.
Really got nothing bad to say about it lol just buy it!!!

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review by: # date: 2008-06-02 rating:
Good, but not amazing
If before begging my mum down the local blockbusters to buy this game i had been told it was turn based, then to be perfectly honest, i wouldnt have given it a second thought. But the story line is nothing short of epic and definetely worth a buy.


review by: Grand-daddy of horror date: 2008-05-23 rating:
Bringing back the old skool but minus the needless levelling up
I remember when i first played final fantasy and just couldn't put the thing down for weeks. It was like a good book, i just had to know what was going to happen to Squall and co. next, even when the combat started getting a tad repetitive. More modern RPG's i've played just seem to lack this seem appeal and when i heard the masterful creators of Chrono trigger were making an RPG for 360 i was green with anticipation. That was until it arrived and i realised that blue dragon didn't actually have a plot at all somewhere near the end of disc one.

I was therefore a little sceptical of LO but tried on recommendation from a friend and wow. Such an improvement on mistwalker's previous game. The story is genuinely gripping this time around and you will fall in love with the deep yet accessible story and characterisation. The graphics are amazing if you've cared to view any trailers of the game, easily the best graphics i've seen on an RPG yet.

The gameplay is also smashing with the combat having an addictive quality to it due to the VAST amount of skills, weapons and property-granting rings available for your characters to use. The battles have an amazing difficulty level that certainly isn't a breeze but doesn't require mindless level-grinding that's come to be associated with similar old skool RPG's.

Overall the best RPG i've played since FF9. Has a slow pace so if you're the kind of beer-swilling boar that can't divert his attention from Halo 3 matchmaking for more than 3 minutes this isn't the game for you but if you've ever liked a console RPG before i can't recommend this game to you any more.

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