I've been playing Lost Odyssey off and on for the past few days because it's been bugging me that I've owned it for so long and haven't finished it. If it were a bad game I wouldn't mind, but it's actually pretty good, although not without its flaws.
I think what I lost most about it has nothing to do with the gameplay at all. The protagonist is Kaim Argonar, an immortal man who has lived for a thousand years, although most of his memories are lost to him. Sometimes, certain places or events will trigger memories of his travels. These memories play out as animated text over static backgrounds--which sounds like a cheap gimmick but somehow Lost Odyssey makes it work, primarily because these segments are so well-written. I'm reasonably sure that these memory sequences were penned by a single author rather than a collaborative effort of the writing team.
These memories chronicle Kaim's travels. One story details a festival, the meaning of which has been lost to time. He wants to make sure the festival's purpose lives on--because he was there to witness the great earthquake that rent the town asunder some two hundred years prior. Another discusses a little girl who never tells the truth and is ostracized because of it--but she only lies to mask her despair. I became more invested in these tales than the plot of the game itself, which concerns itself with wars and "magical energy."
It's been a long time since I originally played the game since I purchased it around the time it released in 2007. The graphics are a little dated, but since I spend a lot of time playing games much older than it, I certainly don't mind. The art style is appealing, even if I'm skeptical about the wardrobe choices of some of the main characters--but that's a common theme in Japanese RPGs, new and old. What's most dated, however, is the traditional turn-based combat system. This was considered somewhat antiquated even in 2007. Personally, I'm accustomed to turn-based combat and random encounters, but Lost Odyssey doesn't bring a ton of flavor to the tradition.
Like the SquareSoft classic Final Fantasy IV, characters are arranged into rows in combat. Characters in the back row take less damage--although unlike its predecessor, there is a mechanic that increases damage taken by the back row as the front row loses HP. Other than that, the combat is very traditional. Actions are chosen for all characters at the beginning of each turn instead of in real time, so combat does lose some of its immediacy compared to most of the Final Fantasy series.
There are only two major mechanics that distinguish Lost Odyssey from other RPGs: one is in the way your characters learn skills and the other is the Ring System. Although most characters will learn skills as normal through leveling up, immortals like Kaim will learn their spells from mortal party members. By shuffling the members of your party, you can teach Kaim (and others) a large variety of different spells, though Kaim in particular is a poor spellcaster.
The Ring System is very simple as well. Whenever you use a basic attack on an enemy, you are prompted to hold down the left trigger and release it when two rings line up on screen. Perfect execution is rewarded with more damage. As you progress through the game, you collect various different components that allow you to craft new rings, each with varying effects. So far I've only acquired the Bruiser Ring, which just increases damage dealt. I'll write more about this as I progress further into the game.
Lost Odyssey's gameplay is vanilla, but JRPGs aren't often purely focused on gameplay. The story--especially Kaim's dream sequences--is interesting, but I'm not sold on the characters just yet. Although the dream sequences do flesh out Kaim's character extremely well, they feel detached--separate from the game itself in a lot of ways. It feels unfair to judge the protagonist based on these sequences and not on his actions in the game itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment