Beautiful.
Lost Odyssey follows the story of Kaim Argonar, an immortal mercenary who has lived for a thousand years. Along the way he makes friends, fights monsters, and maybe just maybe, discovers a little something about himself along the way. Sure, at first glance Lost Odyssey doesn't appear to be anything different from what's been seen before in Japanese role-playing games, you've got your brooding hero; an assorted group of companions with varying personalities; and a crazy guy that wants to rule and/or destroy the universe. What sets Lost Odyssey apart from the rest of Japanese role-playing games is how well the story is conveyed, the way characters grow and mature, and how deeply emotional and engaging the entire experience really is. Lost Odyssey features some of the most absolutely touching, depressing, funny, and sincerest moments I've ever experienced from a video game.
One of Lost Odyssey's most critically acclaimed aspects as well as most widely discussed features is the Thousand Years of Dreams element of the storyline. Very early on in the game Kaim will begin to experience dreams, although they function more or less as recalled memories that Kaim had forgotten over his one thousand year life span. These dream sequences are exceptionally well written, and offer a deeply personal insight into Kaim's character. These dreams often aim to teach some sort of moral value or life lesson - they often carry heavy existential themes about life and death, and more often than not are incredibly sad. They could even possibly cause you to actually cry at some point, I know I did. The very first dream in the game - entitled "Hannah's Departure" tells the story of a little girl who is dying on her death bed; this story caused me to shed a few tears, and I can state that fact proudly.
It'd be easy to assume that these dreams would disrupt the flow of the game, but the way that they are presented simply proves to further enrich the emotionally moving story. You have simple text on a ever-changing background, with beautifully composed music that always fits the mood exceptionally well. The dreams are presented in such a way that even people who normally don't like reading will probably find themselves captivated by the stellar writing and presentation. It's an incredibly interesting game mechanic that is one of the main reasons why Lost Odyssey is such an incredible game.
Lost Odyssey's battle system is essentially a mix of older Final Fantasy battle systems, and is very reminiscent of the earliest games in the series. You issue commands to all of your characters, and then the commands are performed based on their agility statistic, as well as the cast time associated with the desired ability. Being attacked while prepping a spell or special attack can also cause the cast time for a spell to increase, due to the character losing concentration from being attacked.
The Guard Condition is an incredibly important aspect of Lost Odyssey's battle system, and it's essentially an elaboration of the row system from the Final Fantasy series. Characters in the front row will have their hit points totaled to create the GC meter, which will guard the characters in the back row. The difference here is that characters in the back row in Lost Odyssey are pretty much invincible until the GC has been damaged significantly. The trick with this system though, is that it also applies to your enemies. Often enemy encounters will have powerful enemies in the back row, guarded by numerous other foes. In order to defeat them you will have to dispatch the front row enemies first, or significantly reduce their GC enough so that you can damage them. This adds an extra element of strategy to the combat, so it's not always as easy as simply just attacking whomever the targeting reticle lands on first.
Last but not least, there's the ring targeting system. Throughout the game you will gain many components that you can use to craft rings, that can then be equipped. Rings offer unique bonuses to your melee attacks, so they're an integral aspect of fighting. Gathering items from battles, stealing them from enemies, or buying them from shops will allow you to craft a large amount of different rings with varied abilities, such as a "water ring" which will cause melee attacks to deal significantly higher damage to fire-based opponents. The targeting system is an extension of the ring system, because you need to have rings equipped in order to use it. When an attack is executed, you will have to hold down the right trigger on the controller and try to line up a circle which will constantly decrease its size as it collapses on a center circle. Scoring a bad rating will have zero effect, scoring a good rating will have a normal effect, and lining the ring up perfectly will put all of the ring's attributes into action as well as scoring a critical hit. The ring system is incredibly important and is definitely the main reason behind why combat stays interesting because you can constantly change rings on the fly during battles.
The playable characters in Lost Odyssey function a lot differently from most characters in other RPGs. In Lost Odyssy you have the immortals, and the mortals. Mortal characters will learn new spells and abilities as they level up, while immortal characters like Kaim do not learn anything on their own. The immortals learn new abilities through the use of accessories, which when enough AP is gained, they will permanently learn said ability and can equip it using one of their available skill slots. Immortal characters can also learn spells by skill linking with mortal characters, but they'll both need to participate in battle at the same time in order for the ability to gain enough AP to be learned.
Lost Odyssey makes use of the Unreal Engine 3, and it definitely shows. Many of the locations in Lost Odyssey are absolutely gorgeous, both artistically and visually. There will be moments where you will simply stop in awe at some of the absolutely beautiful locals that you will eventually visit. The characters models for the main cast of characters are very well designed and animated. They feature very realistic and impressive facial expressions, which is a part of what makes some of the more dramatic moments so memorable. Not all of the graphical aspects of Lost Odyssey are absolutely stellar though. The NPC characters don't look nearly as good as the main crew, but they're good enough to serve their purpose - Lost Odyssey is still by and large an incredibly good looking game from an artistic standpoint.
Unfortunately the game engine itself is an entirely different story, and during cutscenes you'll notice some slowdown. It can be kind of annoying but it's never so severe that it really does anything to detract from the overall game experience. The load times are also quite long, but installing the game to your Xbox 360 hard drive pretty much entirely negates the slow load times, as well as significantly improving the overall performance of the game in general. After installing the game you'll notice that pre-battle loads are nearly non-existent compared to how they were pre-installation. Therefore, if you're planning on playing Lost Odyssey then an installation of all four game discs is a must. Thankfully you only need to install them as you need them, and the installation process is fairly speedy and painless.
Nobuo Uematsu, much to the joy of Final Fantasy fans everywhere, graces Lost Odyssey with his absolutely beautiful compositions. It's very special to be playing a game fully designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi himself, with the music of Nobuo Uematsu to compliment it once again. The voice work of Lost Odyssey is also notably exceptional, with the main cast of English voice actors providing absolutely spot-on performances in nearly all cases. In a surprising turn of events, the dialogue for Lost Odyssey was actually synced to the English script of the game, so the characters mouths actually match what they were saying. This allowed Jansen's voice actor to actually take significant liberty with his role, allowing him to ad lib many of his lines - most of which are spontaneous and unscripted. Huge props have to go out to the localization and scripting teams for this cast and performance, as it's quite exceptional - characters such as Kaim, Seth, and Jansen are all incredibly expressive in their personalities, body language and general tone of voice.
Lost Odyssey is not a game that you could really adequately define as "perfect". Sure, it has some minor flaws here and there, and even though there's a noticeable similarity between Lost Odyssey and the Final Fantasy series, Lost Odyssey is definitely not a Final Fantasy game. There are no Chocobos, no limit breaks, none of that stuff, Lost Odyssey is uniquely its own, and that's what makes it so refreshing. That being said, it's also something that those fans will probably grow to love anyway, as it still has many of the things Final Fantasy fans love such as exceptional story telling, interesting characters, and a long and engaging experience.
Lost Odyssey plays a lot like role-playing games did back in the day, and it definitely isn't going to change the minds of the naysayers, but what it does do is provide a classic experience that brings back the heart and soul that so many games have lost. It provides an amazing journey that offers insight into the values of family, friendship, and life itself. The emotions that Lost Odyssey instills in the player are few and far between in the gaming industry, and Lost Odyssey is a very human experience where you will grow with the characters and gain a new perspective on life, friends, and family - just as they do.
While It's true that many of Lost Odyssey's most basic elements such as its villain may be cliche at this point, it still provides a unique type of experience that simply just can't be found anywhere else. It goes without saying that this is without a doubt in my mind, the best game I've played in an incredibly long time. The only word that can truly describe how I feel about Lost Odyssey is "beautiful".