Half-Assed Game Reviews: Lost Odyssey

Welcome to the first and most likely last edition of:

Half-Assed Game Reviews

I'm ConVito. Let's get started.

Today, I'll be reviewing the Xbox 360 game, "Lost Odyssey." Before we start, I never finished the game, and never plan to. We'll get to the reason later.

Lost Odyssey is about immortal people who like to bitch about being immortal while their immortal boss is all like "I'm more immortal than you, so I need to take over the world." So the good immortal people take a journey to stop their immortal boss from being an immortal boss.

Along the way, they meet several mortal people who aren't immortal. They suck, but you're still forced to use them in battle to make them feel needed. The only mortal you'll enjoy using is Jansen, the sarcastic wimp who is sent by the immortal boss to spy on them. He does this by being loud, stupid (funny though), and incompetent. The immortal people know the boss sent him but they let him stay anyway because he's the comic relief which is something they desperately need.

The other characters (that I've encountered) are:
Kaim, the immortal main character who somehow scored a hot immortal wife despite having less emotion and depth than a sparkly vampire. Looks do matter. He uses a sword.

Seth, the immortal other main character who's a girl. With a guy's name. You are given an explicit upskirt shot of her very early in the game as the designers' way of saying "There, beat you to it, you sick f*cks." She also uses a sword.

Ming, the immortal eye candy, and queen. Apparently, the more skin you show, the more royal you are. She's a fairly decent magic user.

Cooke, Kaim's granddaughter (remember, he's immortal, but she isn't. Sucks to be her.) and winner of the "Why are you wearing that, did you lose a bet?" award. Her brother, Mack, is runner up. Annoying, but nowhere near as much so as she could have been. I give props to the developers for that. She's a pretty crappy magic user.

Mack, Kaim's grandson. Also not immortal, and therefore sucky. He uses a sh*tty little disc thing in battle that might as well be a piece of fruitcake for all the good it'll do you. He's given a special kind of magic early on in order to try and trick you, the player, into thinking he might be useful. He isn't. The magic sucks.

Sarah, Kaim's wife, and apparently victor in the arm wrestling tournament before the game that determined who would get a normal name. She joins the party later on, and is a pretty good magic user. She at least gives you a reason to never use Cooke again.

Sed, Seth's son (looks around 80 while she still looks 18. Bet that was an awkward puberty) and winner of the "Why the f*ck didn't you join sooner?!" award. He's got some really good attack power and a kickass gun/axe weapon.

NOW THE SERIOUS STUFF:

Contrary to how I described it, it's actually got great writing and a wonderful story. But where it starts to fall flat is:

GAMEPLAY:

There are random battles. I'm convinced that the guy who programmed this into the game was about to be fired right before the game was finished so he used this as a final "screw all y'all!" to the devs and players. Monsters attack at seemingly random intervals, and it's quite a pain when you have a long way to walk. Luckily, there's a "run" button, or as I like to call it, the "I'm over here, monsters!" button, because you tend to attract more monsters when you run.

While we're on the subject of battles, let me bring up how much I hate them. It's pretty standard turn-based combat, not active time, which gives you all the time you need to choose your moves. Apparently the devs thought that would make it too easy, so they decided to make every enemy extremely cheap. Monsters will get several more turns than you, these little monkey bastards steal your items then run away, giving you no chance to get them back (and you need those items, I'll explain why in a bit), and they all do way too much damage. Plus, there's a level cap of sorts. You can only get up to a certain level in each part of the game. Once you get to that level, each battle gives you about 1xp, and you need 1000 to level up. The game is, of course, specifically designed to let you go up to a level where you do just enough and take just enough damage to make you think you have a chance at winning. You don't.

Still in battles, the biggest flaw has to be the way magic is implemented. The more powerful your spell is, the more time it needs to charge up. This is what I was referring to when I said that you need items. The lower level healing spells give you a lot less hp than what you're losing with each hit, and the higher level ones take too long to be worth casting, because you'll usually die waiting for it to charge (immortal my ass). I firmly believe that, in RPGs, magic or abilities should be handled by either an mp penalty or a time penalty. Never both. Items can be used instantaneously. Your only hope is to grind not for levels, but for money so you can afford as many healing potions as you can carry.

There is a world map, but it's pretty much the same as Final Fantasy X, only you get to use it right away. Though, I guess it's a blessing since I know there would just be more random battles if you got to walk around on the map. Seriously, no more random battles. Are you listening, game developers? Nobody likes them. Nobody. Not even the fanboys. It's not like the system's specs can't handle any more. It doesn't even have camera controls, that means there's less to render in each frame (I think. I'm no techie. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. It just sounded smart to me.) I think you can put a few f*cking monsters on the g*ddamn screen.

EVERYTHING ELSE:

That all being said and done, it really is a beautiful game. Very detailed, great soundtrack (can't expect anything less from Uematsu), and superb voice acting for the most part. But that's all for aesthetic value really. A game can't hold up if it's all about looks and no depth. It would be like having a meaningful conversation with a cheerleader. Sure, you have something fun to look at, but when you start asking about feelings and she says she likes puppies, you just feel like you're missing something important. Lost Odyssey has plenty of depth. Unfortunately it's cheap as hell. This is especially evident during a certain boss battle against a general and 3 armored tanks. This is also the point where I stopped playing the game. I figure, if you're following a walkthrough of the battle perfectly and you still get your ass kicked in less than 3 turns, something's wrong.

FINAL VERDICT:
If you're patient, in the mood for a good story, and a glutton for punishment, this is your game. If you're like me and would prefer more depth and character development over challenge, I'd recommend:
Tales of Vesperia (360)
Tales of the Abyss (PS2)
The Final Fantasy Series
Anything by BioWare
(I'm not saying these games are easy, but they're definitely more forgiving. Plus most of them have difficulty settings, which I believe is a must in every game.)

Thanks for reading, maybe I'll see you next time.