Lost Odyssey is Microsoft’s second serious foray into Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) this generation. Teamed up with Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi to produce and Nobuo Uematsu for the music, hopes were soaring for this title. The epic journey travels across 4 discs and will probably take 50 or more hours to complete. Unfortunately to claim that these immense expectations were met would be a lie but this title definitely does not disappoint.

You play Kaim Argonar, a quiet immortal who has seemingly has forgotten the memories of his thousand year past. Throughout the game you will uncover his past, acquire companions, and of course save the world. While this setup is awfully generic, the story will keep you entertained throughout, even if it is for the most part predictable. An innovative addition to the storytelling is the ability to unlock memories, which are well-written stories that explore the past of your character. While these stories are neat, they have the problem of breaking up the action and flow of the game and will probably end up being skipped, since they are optional, unless you’re an avid reader. Overall the mature look of the game does not translate very well to the story; it can be very “kiddie” at times. In general, the story is merely good but is disappointing because of how close it was to so much more.

The gameplay starts off phenomenally. The ring system keeps you active in the fight by requiring you to pull the trigger in an attempt to match up two rings as best as you can, which imbue the attacks with special effects. The random battles are spaced apart well enough to not get in the way. In the beginning you might even find yourself walking around in circles to initiate the random battles because they are so much fun. But after about 40 hours into the game, the battle system will start to wear on you. The random battles will start to become more and more annoying. Eventually you might even start fleeing most battles because you just do not want to deal with them. Luckily this game requires no grinding and the difficulty is relatively low which will allow you to get away with this practice. The menu system works well enough but after you accumulate tons of items, you’ll find yourself fighting it a little bit to find what you want. There is a sort system, which helps, but is insufficient in helping you find the best ring for the situation, especially when you will be switching your rings nearly every battle. The immortals in your party acquire skills by learning them from mortals and the mortals acquire new skills traditionally by leveling up. This forces you to balance your party out between the two types to be at peak efficiency. Basically the game is fun but tends to get drowned out by minor annoyances late in the game.

Lost Odyssey is a beautiful game. The colors are vibrant and colorful. The characters are very detailed but some do look “cartoony” unfortunately, even some of the main characters. Consistently throughout the game you will encounter a lot of moderate loading. It is not Deus Ex 2 (on Xbox 1) bad, but you will definitely notice it. In summation, the graphics are just something you will not be disappointed about.

The sound is above average. The orchestrated music from Nobuo Uematsu is really good but there are a couple of odd music choices. The voice-overs are overall pretty good but there are some poor voice choices for some of the characters, which might just make you laugh at some otherwise serious situations. The sound effects are decent, nothing out of this world but good. Basically the sound is pretty good except for some odd choices.

Lost Odyssey is a great JRPG and is currently the best you can find on the Xbox 360. This JRPG sticks to the traditional roots of the genre and therefore you will not find any revolutionary features in this game. Story is fairly generic and predictable but keep will keep you entertained until the end. The gameplay is pretty good throughout, the ring system keeps you in the action, but the fights do become increasingly more of a burden as the game enters its final 10 or so hours. The graphics are simply beautiful but unfortunately are very static. The game also suffers slightly from a moderate amount of loading. The sound is above average; the music is pretty good, voice acting is good but has some odd choices, and the sound effects are decent. Overall, Lost Odyssey is a good game; worthy of any JRPG fans collection and is forgiving enough for newcomers.

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