Last week, we started our look at Lost Odyssey, a title that seemed to break unwritten rules of gaming left and right. We have a traditional RPG, which is the brainchild of the creator of Final Fantasy, released for XBox, a console not known for the genre, at a time when said genre was at what felt like the absolute bottom of its popularity. We started with the story, characters and world, all of which I thought were really good to great. That's a great start for an RPG, where those aspects are very important. But all of that can be undone if the gameplay isn't up to par. It's critical in any generation, but this is an essential aspect to call out in 7th gen RPGs. There was a lot of experimentation going on in the genre at the time, a lot of which didn't yield positive results. I guess I get it, the genre wasn't doing well at the time and developers were trying to do anything they could to bring it back to relevance. Sometimes, that meant terrible gimmicks. Other times, it meant trying to shoehorn in elements of other genres that none of us wanted in our RPGs in the first place.
This led to a lot of messy gameplay and some level of identity confusion, where some RPGs didn't feel like RPGs at all. Games were also becoming more cinematic, which for some reason developers determined meant they had to be completely and obviously linear. This had kind of started in the 6th generation, but by the 7th it seemed like world maps were a thing of the past and dungeon design simply shuffled you from point A to point B like it would in any other type of game. Even in non-western RPGs, combat was getting more and more action oriented, to the point where it felt liked turn-based battles were becoming a thing of the past. Party preparation was unnecessary and stat and equipment management was starting to become bare bones and simple. In short, it seemed like truly traditional RPGs were going the way of the dodo.
That said, there were a handful of traditional JRPGs of the era, and Lost Odyssey was about as traditional as it got. It was probably more traditional than most of the 6th generation RPGs that are widely considered all time classics. That starts with the combat, which was as old school as I've seen in a long time. You take five characters into battle, with the ability to attack, use magic, use items, defend, run away or change formation (more on that later). You can also change your equipment in battle, which adds an element of strategy and allows you to switch to element or status effect preventing equipment on the fly. Once you input your commands you will see the order of attacks, which can be altered if you hit an enemy hard enough or with its weakness. Of course, this same thing applies to you, though it's mostly relevant when it comes to magic. Physical attacks activate right away, but magic needs time to be cast. Some spells require multiple turns to activate, which means they require a little bit of extra planning to use. Unfortunately, this kind of makes spellcasting a bit less relevant early in the game. By the end it is much more feasible to use as better stats and abilities can reduce the wait time drastically. Using the attack command will trigger what the game calls the "aim ring system," which can lead to a critical hit or reduced damage depending on how well you perform the skill check. I do like that it gives you something to do and adds some interactivity, but it really just boils down to holding the right trigger until the ring is at the right spot and letting it go at the correct time. More important to combat is the guard condition system, which is tied to the back and front row mechanics. As with most RPGs, characters can be lined up in either the front or back, with characters in the back enjoying added defense at the expense of reduced physical attack. However, Lost Odyssey further protects characters in the back row with a special shield that is directly tied to the HP of characters in the front row. Once that shield is broken, characters in the back will take additional damage. Again, this also applies to the enemy and it often requires you to take out the front row before dealing with foes in the back. Other than that, it really doesn't get too complicated. Magic is pretty similar to what you would see in most RPGs, black for damage, white for healing, spirit for support and composite to mix the various schools. The same is true for status effects, all the standards are here though there are a few unique ones like formation paralysis and keolon.
The biggest differentiators for Lost Odyssey are its upgrade and skill systems. Remember Final Fantasy IX, where you learn skills based on which items you have equipped? Lost Odyssey has that, but on steroids. Each character starts with five skill slots, which can be used to customize them to your content. These slots allow you to equip magic or skill abilities, buffs and resistances or other unique abilities. You can add more slots with slot seeds or by learning abilities, so even though the customization options are limited early it does open up later. Just like FFIX, learn these abilities by equipping accessories and earning experience through battle. I've always liked this system and it's great here because you can eventually equip so many skills it never feels like you are wasting your time learning something.
But that's not the only way you learn skills. During the plot synopsis, we looked at the immortal vs. mortal characters and how that impacted the story. Now it's time to talk about how that distinction impacts gameplay. The mortal characters learn skills by leveling up, just like any character in any RPG would. But the immortals are different. They all have the option to skill link with their mortal compatriots, allowing them to learn one of their skills at a time by earning AP. I really like this system because it incentivizes you to use all of your party members and create different alignments. I will say, you are best off focusing on building up the immortals for reasons I won't get into here, but you still want all of your people to learn all of the skills possible. The aim ring system is also fairly customizable, as you can build and find rings with unique abilities to power up your attacks. You can add status effects, elemental effects, MP or HP draining and a variety of other skills. These can be further upgraded and refined through crafting, which isn't my favorite but the system is okay here. Honestly, I didn't touch it very much as I don't really love crafting and you can find some pretty awesome rings just from treasure hunting. But I still kind of like that it's there. I like the upgrades and leveling systems here as a whole, there is a lot to do but all of it is easy to manage and doesn't devolve into a time sink. Being able to switch your equipment further incentivizes you to gather as many items as possible and cycle between your options.
Overworld exploration in modern JRPGs is sort of a sore spot for a lot of genre old heads and it's at the center of a debate that continues to this day. Old school players prefer actual world maps to explore and walk around as they please. However, modern sensibilities favor more menu driven navigation, with the justification that it keeps the game flowing, eliminates wasted time and allows for a more streamlined experience. The latter started taking over as the norm a few years before Lost Odyssey, I think Final Fantasy X was the first big game I remember doing this, but it was still very much common to have a more traditional world map as well. So, Lost Odyssey decided to do a little bit of both. Early in the game, you will navigate between towns, transitional areas and dungeons via a menu. But once you acquire a vehicle, you explore the world map old school style. As someone that's definitely way more in the "old school world map" camp, I have to say I kind of liked this approach. It allowed for some level of exploration and openness, especially at the very end of the game, while also providing the pacing advantages that menu-based navigation offers. As a whole, I think the world is well designed and it's definitely built around this style of navigation. I do wish there were some more on-land navigation (all of your vehicles are either sea or air vehicles) but there are still plenty of secrets to find hidden, from extra items to additional dungeons.
Speaking of dungeons, I think Lost Odyssey does a really great job and provides a lot of variety in this regard. You have a good mix of exploration based, puzzle based and straightforward combat-based dungeons, almost all of which are well designed. I think the difficulty curve is just about perfect as well, with one exception we will get to shortly. The Ipsilon Mountains are a perfect first dungeon, offering a reasonable challenge while also providing opportunities for players to learn about the game. It also has a rest point about halfway through, which I think is a great idea for a first dungeon. Things ramp up gradually as the Sea of Baus provides more of the same, just a little harder and the White Boa introduces more stealth and puzzle elements. By the time you reach the Great Ancient Ruins on disc 4, you are dealing with tough enemies all while solving elevator puzzles and taking on a multi-level maze. Even the optional dungeons fit appropriately on the curve, the ones that are accessible earlier like the Forgotten Cave or Terrace Cave are just a bit harder than the story dungeons you should be working through at the time. But the final optional dungeon, the Temple of Enlightenment, is a brutal, take no prisoners gauntlet far more difficult than any other challenge the game offers, as it should be. It really is surprising how few games get this right, even some of the best RPGs struggle with difficulty curve and Lost Odyssey almost nails it. The one exception is, sadly, the final dungeon. I don't think it's bad at all, but its entirely too short and too easy for a final dungeon. It's made even more disappointing because all of the dungeons that come before it are so appropriately challenging and well done. Lost Odyssey isn't a super hard game to begin with, but I always think the final dungeon should epitomize that epic, end-is-near lead up to the ultimate battle and this doesn't do it for me. Still though, the dungeons are superb throughout, from the Crimson Forest to the Old Sorceress's Mansion to the Experimental Staff, you could go all day talking about the positives here.
Sidequests can make or break an RPG, you don't want to have too many but if you don't have enough it can make a game feel like it's missing something. Lost Odyssey has the perfect amount of side content while also offering variety in that content. It feels like its meaningful and worth doing but doesn't feel absolutely essential to completing the game, which I like. Of course, you have your more "fetch-y" quests where you are scouring the world for items or events. We talked a little bit about the 1000 years of dreams in part one, which you can unlock by observing certain events in the world. Fetch quests aren't always great, but if you are going to do it this is how you do it. The dreams aren't too obtuse to find, they are so interesting that you want to find them but there aren't any necessary items locked behind them, so you don't HAVE to. The treasure hunts are less interesting, but they still aren't bad. While they do require going a bit out of your way, they don't typically require running from one end of the world to the other just for some items. I tend to like sidequests that add more gameplay, things like additional bosses or dungeons. There are plenty of those here, like the aforementioned caves and Temple of Enlightenment, and all of them are good to great. You can also fight special bosses by returning to certain completed dungeons, like the Persona and the Holy Beast. These are the sidequests that allow you to acquire your party's best rings and weapons, which I think is the way it should be. Leave the fetch quests for those who want to find bonus items and content. You have a battle arena minigame here, the backyard battles, which I didn't play much of. That was more a function of me just being done and less that they were bad, I think every RPG should have some level of battle arena game. The only sidequest here I didn't like was the cubic music mini game, but it was closer to boring than bad.
I should mention that there is DLC here, something that I did not have the chance to experience. Unfortunately, I probably never will as the MS store on the 360 is shut down and as far as I know there isn't any definitive or complete edition that includes it. It's a shame, because I've heard it's pretty solid. The biggest piece of this DLC is the additional dungeon, the Experimental Staff Remains. This is supposedly the toughest challenge in the game, which is exactly as it should be. Even though I didn't play it, this is an example of how DLC should be done, at least in theory. You add a few new items and features but center things around a massive new gameplay experience. Again, I can't speak to the quality of something I didn't play. Maybe this dungeon is terrible, but it's the idea of how the DLC was structured that I like. I know that DLC in general is a sort of boogeyman for gamers, but it can absolutely be used for good instead of evil. I have no problem paying a few dollars for new content that's actually playable. I do have a problem paying $5 of even $2 for a costume that doesn't actually do anything.
Of course, Lost Odyssey wasn't perfect. Again, I was really disappointed by the final dungeon and final boss in general. I wish it were a little more challenging, especially since the difficulty had ramped up so gradually up to that point. I think the transitional areas, like the ice canyon, were a little one note and boring and I wish they took a little more care with these. The pacing here isn't always great, you have a few sections where it seems like you go way too long just watching cutscenes with a few token gameplay segments thrown in. I am more okay with this in an RPG than with any other genre, but the part of the game where you visit Ghotza for the first time feels like you go hours with just exposition and no action. There are other points like this too, but that was the worst offender. My two biggest issues both pertain to the bosses. For one, they aren't really all that challenging and a lot of them feel underpowered. Lost Odyssey is in kind of a weird spot where more of the challenge comes from mobs than it does bosses. Much of the challenged is derived from grinding you down, forcing you to expend your resources just to get to the boss. I actually kind of like that, but it all kind of falls flat when said boss can be killed in a few turns with simple attacks. The other is the lack of viability of a lot of the late game spells, which predominately impacts boss fights. I think it's awesome how many skills you learn and spells you can cast. But by the end of the game, maybe 10 of these are viable and almost all of the bosses can be taken out with the same strategy. You pretty much have all of the elemental spells, the healing spells and one or two spirit magic spells that actually do anything. The buffs were okay early on, but by the end of the day they were almost unnecessary. This is a common problem with RPGs, but debuffs and status ailments basically do nothing as bosses are immune to them and you can forget about using any sort of death spell. There are some things I want to call out that I didn't think were issues, but some people might. I really don't mind random encounters, but I recognize a lot of gamers hate them. I loved the very old school combat system, but I recognize some might find them boring. There are other little things here, but Lost Odyssey definitely had far, far more good than bad going for it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the 7th generation was just not a great time for traditional RPGs. That's not to say there weren't any good titles, but the industry was transitioning and what gamers were looking for was starting to change. No one wants to play traditional RPGs that are slow and boring when you could have an open world game or FPS with a story. No one wants to play as someone else when you can customize a character any way you want provided you are okay with them having zero personality. At least that's what they keep telling us. But the last two years in the gaming industry have shown that's absolutely not true. I'm going to be honest, this is the first time in probably 10, maybe 15 years that I am interested in modern games to the point where I have a backlog. It almost feels like the RPG genre is entering a new golden age, with awesome and unqiue titles coming out left and right. From PC style adventures like Baldur's Gate 3, to fresh takes on traditional gameplay like Yakuza: Like a Dragon to interesting new IPs like Metaphor: RePhantazio, it seems like there are more options than there have ever been. And that's before we even touch on indie RPGs like Chained Echoes, Sea of Stars and the countless others that seem to take steps up in quality every year. It's not jus that these games are getting made, it's that people are buying them. Maybe not like they are buying Call of Duty, but they are buying them far more than the powers that be thought they would. That makes it frustrating to look back at a game like Lost Odyssey and how it might have been handicapped by the thinking of its day. I would have loved to see this blossom into a full fledged series, a Final Fantasy-esque adventure made by people who truly loved the genre backed by infinite money seems like it would be awesome. Hell, at this point I would be happy with a port to modern consoles so I could play the DLC. Or better yet, a sequel. I really hope the rumors are true, though based on some recent comments I have seen I'm not going to hold my breath. Another revival of an old school RPG doesn't seem as essential as it would have been two or three years ago, but it would still be nice. For now though, Lost Odyssey is still worth tracking down and playing, and it's surprisingly affordable for an RPG as old as it is. I'm not going to say it's the best 7th generation RPG quite yet, but it's definitely up there and proof that the genre can be spectacular, even in its darkest times.
9.5/10
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