Why is Lost Odyssey so under rated?

Xluna

I've started playing through L.O. again recently and I just can't understand why it never got the acclaim it deserved. It has true next gen graphics, a rare thing with next gen JRPGs, beautiful scores and some wonderful story script,aswell as decent character developement. The gameplay is old school turn based as is the closest thing I've experienced to a true Final Fantasy game since FFX. Yet people rarely talk about it and the reviews have been just above average in general.
The loading times are no where near as bad as it's made out and if you install it to your hard drive it's practically non existant.

For me it's by far the best RPG of this generation of games,and that includes Oblivion and the wonderful,but tedious Dragon Age.

DHYNZY

i imagine purely because of the dull main character... I enjoyed it too, but he lacked the smoldering mysteriousness that cloud had, or any number of other main characters.

Xluna

DHYNZY wrote: »

i imagine purely because of the dull main character... I enjoyed it too, but he lacked the smoldering mysteriousness that cloud had, or any number of other main characters.

He was a bit of a miserable old sh!te alright but then again his dreams/retrieved memories make a point of how seeing so many people he cared about die caused him a lot of pain. He was immortal and could never die,he became used to losing people so he eventually just closed up emotionally. That's how I perceived it anyway. That said the other immortals were'nt like that.
And Jansen makes up for Kaims depressing lack of emotions anyway.

Retr0gamer

I loved it as well but have to say I didn't love it initially. It's a slow burner and not helped by the fact that the story starts in the biggest and most boring city in the game and stays there for ages. The battle system also doesn't become good until much later in the game. It's not for everyone and takes a bit of an investment to get into it.

As for cloud, he's an emo twonk copy and pasted from every anime since evangelion.

DHYNZY

I think no one wants to read novels when they're playing an RPG too...


They made the same mistake with Dragon Age:Origins recently.. If i wanted to read a book, I'd read a book! I want to see pretty cutscenes and loads of action, not long passages (no matter how good!)

DHYNZY

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As for cloud, he's an emo twonk copy and pasted from every anime since evangelion.

but... wasn't that the idea? :P

GothPunk

As it happens I've only gotten back into this game as of yesterday. I'm really enjoying it and I love the dream sequences, I really like the animation of the letters in certain parts of each tale. The battle system is fun enough although the encounter rate is a little uneven for me, but the boss battles so far have been fantastic.

I actually like Kaim, I don't mind that he's so stoic and you don't really know a lot about him. It makes him interesting to me as I read the dreams I can see that he's had a complicated aul life... being immortal and all that.

I can't stand the English voice actors - Seth who comes across as a strong character has the most 'Cali' OC-like voice whilst her Japanese voice actor sounds like a strong woman should. I might try the German and French voices as well to see what they're like. I just really appreciate having the choice and it's unfortunate that so many games haven't followed Lost Odyssey's example in this respect.

I haven't played Blue Dragon and I don't think that I ever will, but I'm definitely looking forward to their next HD RPG. I'm sure I'll pick up The Last Story once I get a Wii (which will surely be after that game has released).

landsleaving

Twonk... must say that more often.

Xluna

DHYNZY wrote: »

I think no one wants to read novels when they're playing an RPG too...


They made the same mistake with Dragon Age:Origins recently.. If i wanted to read a book, I'd read a book! I want to see pretty cutscenes and loads of action, not long passages (no matter how good!)

I really enjoyed the the literture in Lost Odyssey,but no way was I going to read all those codexs in Dragon age,too many and not as interesting as Kaims reclaimed dreams in L.O. That said,we don't have to read them so it's nice to have the option.

Xluna

GothPunk wrote: »

I actually like Kaim, I don't mind that he's so stoic and you don't really know a lot about him. It makes him interesting to me as I read the dreams I can see that he's had a complicated aul life... being immortal and all that.

I can't stand the English voice actors - Seth who comes across as a strong character has the most 'Cali' OC-like voice whilst her Japanese voice actor sounds like a strong woman should. I might try the German and French voices as well to see what they're like. I just really appreciate having the choice and it's unfortunate that so many games haven't followed Lost Odyssey's example in this respect.

I haven't played Blue Dragon and I don't think that I ever will, but I'm definitely looking forward to their next HD RPG. I'm sure I'll pick up The Last Story once I get a Wii (which will surely be after that game has released).

I really like the voice acting in L.O. and I usually hate English voice acting. Yeah don't bother with Blue Dragon,it's a yawnfest.

Retr0gamer

GothPunk wrote: »

I can't stand the English voice actors - Seth who comes across as a strong character has the most 'Cali' OC-like voice whilst her Japanese voice actor sounds like a strong woman should.

She's voice by Tara Strong who did Rikku and the Power Puff Girls I actually thought Seth was one of the better performances and I think Tara Strong is probably the most talented VO actress around at the moment.

elekid

I loved Lost Odyssey and was also surprised by how under-rated it is.

The great thing about Kaim is he starts off seeming so closed and unemotional but you learn more and more about him with each dream so by the end of the game you have a much better understanding of him and see him in a whole different light. I thought it was a very interesting way to develop a character and the presentation of the dreams stopped them from becoming boring to me.

I liked most of the other characters and their voice actors too, particularly Jansen who almost seemed to be doing a bit of ad-libbing and got all the best lines. I didn't realise Tara Strong was voicing Seth until near the end so I was impressed by the job she did. I thought the gameplay was great, it had a very good battle and ability system which actually required a bit of thought in how you set up the characters.

Throw in a few chocobos and I'd say it's the best Final Fantasy since FFX

GothPunk

Retr0gamer wrote: »

She's voice by Tara Strong who did Rikku and the Power Puff Girls I actually thought Seth was one of the better performances and I think Tara Strong is probably the most talented VO actress around at the moment.

Hey I know who she is, I watched Rugrats as a kid. I shan't comment on her work with Rikku suffice it to say that my point wasn't to crap all over the voice actors, but to praise the game for allowing us all the choice of dub.

Why is Lost Odyssey so under rated? Is it under rated? I mean when I was asked what JRPG to get for my 360, Lost Odyssey was the most highly recommended. However, the game has it's flaws and it's battle system is fairly unoriginal. The ring system is great but I don't think the game really pushes the battle system anywhere new. The game is a slow burner and I think that whilst the slow pace does suit the story and the tone they're going for with the game I think that perhaps the game makes you work too hard to like it.

On the other hand, a proper large scale 'Final Fantasy-esque' HD JRPG from Sakaguchi with music from Uematsu should probably be a bigger deal than it is. The names behind it aren't enough to disguise the fact though that whilst Lost Odyssey is good, it's hardly outstanding in the way people would talk about Persona 3/4, SMT 3, FFX or Demon's Souls. I think most JRPG fans would recommend Lost Odyssey if you were looking for an HD JRPG, or a game for your 360, but better games have come before it and have been released since.

Burning Eclipse

I really enjoyed the game, and the dream sequences are about the most moving thing I've experienced in games, but something didn't click, so to speak.

Did anybody else find Gongora to be a weak antagonist?

Xluna

GothPunk wrote: »

Why is Lost Odyssey so under rated? Is it under rated? I mean when I was asked what JRPG to get for my 360, Lost Odyssey was the most highly recommended. However, the game has it's flaws and it's battle system is fairly unoriginal. The ring system is great but I don't think the game really pushes the battle system anywhere new. The game is a slow burner and I think that whilst the slow pace does suit the story and the tone they're going for with the game I think that perhaps the game makes you work too hard to like it.

I did'nt think it was that much of a slow starter. Compare to Suikoden V and that was a great game too. At least the story actually picked up, Vespasia's story seems to be in perpetual limbo. I prefer it to FFX. I found Tidus annoying. The battle system is unoriginal but I'd rather have a few tweaks to a tried and test formula that works than something original that sucks (cough,FFXII and Crisis Core cough.)

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

Did anybody else find Gongora to be a weak antagonist?

I felt that they could have made a better effort to hide his intentions until later in the game. I suppose he did'nt as much character depth as I'd like but his dialogue was o.k. I would'nt say weak but not outstanding either.

Mr. K

Xluna wrote: »

I felt that they could have made a better effort to hide his intentions until later in the game. I suppose he did'nt as much character depth as I'd like but his dialogue was o.k. I would'nt say weak but not outstanding either.

Isn't there a moment where the camera moves up to his face and he has an expression of pure eeevil? He seemed a bit of cardboard cutout villain.

Xluna

Mr. K wrote: »

Isn't there a moment where the camera moves up to his face and he has an expression of pure eeevil? He seemed a bit of cardboard cutout villain.

Yeah,there's a few moments of that early on alright and you're absolutely right in saying he's a bit of the stereotypical evil manipulater. Even the beard and facial features allude to the Satan caricuture-and the King is a so naive and weak willed it seems they got lazy with that area of the story. (Most unpredictable twist I've seen in a JRPG was in Terranigma.)

Fringe

It's a good game but I didn't find it ended well. Had a really nice start with the whole immortal thing but the story was a bit of a disappointment for me. Also, for some reason, I never really got the same feelings I got with Final Fantasy. There was something missing from it that didn't really make it great.

Vyse

Fringe wrote: »

It's a good game but I didn't find it ended well.

Agreed, felt it dragged a bit towards the end.

Also never felt it was underrated just never go widespread commercial success (which is not atypical for a JRPG outside of Japan).

rgt320q

On disc 3 at the moment. Absolutely loving it so far, particularly the dream/memory sequences. In my eyes, this is the game that FFXII should have been.

I think one of the main problems it faced as regards to getting the mainstream recognition it deserved is the fact that it lacked some of the big budget polish and shiny eyecandy that's expected with the likes of Final Fantasy - by that, I mean it's a AAA title that only looked like a B+. I honestly think the gaming public at large is indeed shallow enough for that to be a major contributing factor to it's success, or arguable lack thereof. It might have also done better if they had of whored out the "From the creator of Final Fantasy" tagline a bit more.

Xluna

rgt320q wrote: »

On disc 3 at the moment. Absolutely loving it so far, particularly the dream/memory sequences. In my eyes, this is the game that FFXII should have been.

I think one of the main problems it faced as regards to getting the mainstream recognition it deserved is the fact that it lacked some of the big budget polish and shiny eyecandy that's expected with the likes of Final Fantasy - by that, I mean it's a AAA title that only looked like a B+. I honestly think the gaming public at large is indeed shallow enough for that to be a major contributing factor to it's success, or arguable lack thereof. It might have also done better if they had of whored out the "From the creator of Final Fantasy" tagline a bit more.

Another thing which contributed to it's average popularity was the lacklustre reviews it received. Apparently when the developers gave the reviewers the review copy the battles took 15 seconds to load. In the finished version it's a few seconds and not even noticable when you install it.