Lost Odyssey

First of all, and most importantly... this game is awesome!

Im not here to review, thats been done about 50 times already. Im just giving you a few short facts that you may not know.

Battles are turn-based

This seems to get different reactions nowadays, me myself i prefer turn based fights in RPG's.

There are no summons

Which is a shame because summons in the final fantasy series are all kinds of glorious!

You cannot equip new armor

I was quite surprised by this but they do have a pretty smart ring system. And the lack of armor is not as bad as i thought it would be, infact after a while you dont even notice.

Game is spread across 4 discs

Just like the good ol days.

You can have upto 5 party members in a battle at any one time.

I dont even think any of the final fantasys had 5! I could be wrong i cant remember.

9 playable characters, 4 immortal and 5 mortals.

Only mortals learn skills by levelling up, Immortals learn skills from the mortals using a skill link system, immortals can also learn skills by equiping accessories.
Example - equip treasure glasses and you get the ability see what items the enemy is holding - you get to see what you can steal and what they drop when killed. Now when you first equip them it will say 0/10 sp, but as you earn sp during battles eventually you will learn treasure glasses 10/10 and can unequip them and still use that skill while learning another by equipping another accessory then you can learn that then another and so on. You can learn loads of different skills but can only equip a certain amount. Immortals start off with 3 skill slots to which 3 skills can be equipped, for example you could have black magic level 3, counter, and white magic level 2. But as you progress through the game you will pick up slot seeds which give another skill slot to your immortals. So you could then add say treasure glasses to you black and white magic and your counter. But using mortals is also very important because as they level up they can teach the immortals some pretty handy skills. So a party of both is usually the best option.

Ring system

The ring system lets you create special rings to equip to you party members. Im not gonna go into to much detail because there are loads of possibilities but i shall give and example of one of the first rings you get. When you kill enemys they drop all kinds of stuff and some of the stuff they drop is what u need to make rings, so say you kill some fire creature and they drop a magma fragment well u may need 5 magma fragments and 4 wheystones to create a fire ring which adds fire damage to your attack. Everytime you pick up a new part for a ring a new ring design will appear in your ring menu telling you what u need to make the new ring and what it does. Then later on you can combine rings buy finding certain people. So you may be able to combine your fire ring with a extra attack ring to make a ring with fire damage and extra attack power and so on. There are loads of possibilities so that is a good thing to play around with. Some rings even allow 3 effects!

Well that will do for now. This game really is great and i hope i have helped people to understand the game a little better!!!

There is much positive to say about this game, it is Epic, the story is emotional and well scripted, the characters memorable and individual and in some cases very funny.

The graphics are very good for the most part and the musical score is atmospheric and endearing without being so overwhelming it drowns out the action or dialogue.

There are plenty of things to do in this game all of which are found along the route of the main story by talking to various people (so pay attention to the text when there is no dialogue), some are easy to miss if you arent paying attention.

The comabt is Turn based, which for me is awesome and very much my preferred set up, being very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy games.

The Skill link system is good too, being very similar to final fantasy 8 where you can learn abilities from items and also the mortals you team with, which once learnt can be put in a skill slot on the relevant character to be in effect.

On the downside the game is very linear again a lot like the later Final Fantasy games, where your choice of path really can only go in one direction.. ever onwards.. checking for containers and side things to do (which are also also provided on the main story path). This is not a sandbox game where things can be done in any order like Final Fantasy VII or Oblivion for example.

Also on the downside is the Camera control your line of sight is fairly restrictive and your ability to move the camera to look around is minimal so you have to spend most of your time paying attention to the mini map more than anything in order to spot side paths or hidden nooks and turns offs.

Another oddness is Brightness Control, on my TV the game was very dark the game offers a brightness control in the settings menu but when you open it there is no contorl at all, and all it tells you is to turn up the brightness on the TV itself..which is kind of pointless.

On the whole this is a very good game with a very emotional storyline and some very charged and memorable cut scenes indeed.

This game is a must buy for any RPG fan. The story is great and keeps you hooked from start to finish and it actually makes you care about the characters. Yes the battle system to the game is old style RPG, but random battles aren't as annoying as they used to be as they are capped within each area so you don't find yourself getting so stressed out crossing an area that you want to throw your keypad at the TV. Also the battles are turn based but again its not as simple as that as there is alot of strategy needed in the battles otherwise you WILL lose! This is a bonus as with amost other RPG games I find myself getting through the game without dying once so it makes for good gameplay. I have to admit that this game is the best RPG on the next gen consoles so far and if you want something with a good story and good gameplay then this is for you! Let's just hope that if this game turns in to a series like the Final Fantasy games as it has been rumoured to, they don't make the same mistake and make such a terrible RPG like FFxii.

After reading the reviews and seeing the graphics i saw the chance of re-living my Final Fantasy Years that i missed so much on the old Playstation. The game wil never be as good as Final Fantasy 7 but works along par with FF8. For £20 this is a bargain and to fit the game on 4 discs you know the game is going to give you hours of fun. One draw back though was that i found after long hours of play your xbox can get quite hot and i myself found the disc un-readable at times this is due to the poor ventillation system in the xbox. There is no problem with the disc but leaving it to cool down again will enable the game to work again. Very addictive and definately worth £20 If this is an attempt to bring Final Fantasy back then they have done a good job.

It's about time the RPG's on the 360 was redeemed. With the exception of Oblivion theres not really a decent RPG on the console.

I'll start with the combat, yes, it's turn based. I've herd alot of people moan about this, saying it's a step backwards. Why fix somthing thats not broken? Final Fantasy 12 showed what a shambles non-turn based combat can become in a JRPG. This is not your standard turn based affiar with ATB meters ect.. Instead each skill, spell or move is given a rating, e.g. 1-A for attack. The number dictates how many "rounds" it takes to do the action, where as the letter shows how quick it will come in the round. So 1-A is fast, 1-G would be same turn, but quite slow. 2-G would take two turns and be quite slow. Generally the more powerful the move the longer it takes. The usual spells are about to increase the speed or your attacks and slow the enemys down.

There is also the "ring" system, basically rings add power's to your attacks, so a toxic ring would add a poison element, flame ring would be fire. Pretty standard affair.

The devolopment of char's is a normal level based affair, skills can be learned from two sources, other characters and items. Each require SP which is earned along side exp at the end of battle. Grinding in this game is basically impossable, each area has a "level cap" which basically means, once you hit the cap for a area, you get little or no exp from enemys. This means you cant over level, and because of this it keeps all the battles a challange. There are places in the game which were designed for "power levelling" but they are hard to find.

I will issue a warning, this game will REALLY kick you about for the first 25 levels. It's really quite a challange, which makes a refreshing change.

I've just completed this game (including all the side quests) and it's taken me just over 80 hours. Which is more than resonable seeing as most 360 games of late can be completed in less than 15 hours. Quite simply this is one of the best RPG's I've ever played, only beaten by Final Fantasy 7 and 10. If you a JRPG fan, you must own this game.