Strengths:Epic role-playing game for a system that needs more of them!
Weaknesses:Random battles can be a bit annoying.
Posted 1 year ago - Lost Odyssey is an epic turn-based Japanese role playing game that I enjoyed very much. In fact, I consider it to be one of the very best 360 games. The game stretches across 4 discs. It has a great story but you are never overwhelmed by cut scenes - they are well-spaced. It has a more serious tone and appearance than another excellent JRPG for the 360 - Blue Dragon. So those put off by the more cartoon-like appearance of that game (though I thought it was also excellent) may want to give Lost Odyssey a shot. The one big disadvantage Lost Odyssey has in comparison to Blue Dragon is that it has random battles. In Blue Dragon the enemies are visible and you can choose when to engage and when not to. The random battles in this game are not too overwhelming, but there is one later (optional) level that requires a lot of backtracking where the random battles may drive you crazy.
As is typical in JRPGs you will end up with a collection of characters that you can swap in and out of your active party. One twist this game introduces is that you have a mix of mortal and immortal characters. The mortals have fixed skill sets while the immortals can learn any skill via equipping items and by skill linkage with the mortals. This will keep you swapping your characters around throughout the game so that you can get the mortal skills unlocked and then transferred to your immortals. It is a fresh take on the otherwise fairly typical turn-based combat this game has. Also, if your characters equip a ring, you can use the left trigger during attacks to perform "Good" or "Perfect" attacks (by pressing and releasing the trigger so that a shrinking ring stops in the right place) that increase the standard damage.
The game can get fairly challenging in the later stages and now has a downloadable dungeon that contains a serious challenge for those who have gotten pretty far in the game. An optional "backyard" battle series can also provide a fair amount of challenge.
Don't let the not-quite-so-perfect review scores put you off this game. If you are a fan of Japanese RPGs you will find plenty to like in this game. It is an epic game that will take 50 or so hours to complete and much more to finish the optional quests and achievement-related tasks. There is plenty of content here for your money.
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