Lost Odyssey, the latest effort to bring turn-based RPGs to Xbox 360, opens with an epic cut scene big on action, light on story. Sadly, things flip into the complete opposite once the battle is over. It is a fantastic game trapped in the past, with graphics screaming 360, but random battles, frequent load screens, and frustratingly infrequent save points crying Playstation One.
The game opens with a huge battle in the middle of a war between two powerful countries. You see your mildly androgynous hero taking on enemy after enemy until a meteor hits, killing everyone on both sides with the exception of you and another woman, oddly named Seth. From there, the game slowly peels back layers of lies, mystery, and deception, while weaving together a damn fine story detailing the mission of the 'immortal' characters, and the difficulties of living forever. Though the main hero, Kaim, comes across as the silent badass type to a frustrating degree at the start, the slowly revealed dreams and introduction of his stumbled-upon family members eventually turn him into the warm, charismatic hero you want to root for. The game wisely balances its focus so that the accompanying human Jansen feels just as integral and interesting as Kaim and Seth.
You begin to get a handle on the length of the game when the credits do not roll until you have been playing for half an hour, although opening the case and discovering four discs should have been a clue. Lost Odyssey not only demands a large chunk of your time in total (over forty hours, easily), but also frequently requires that you are prepared to devote at least two hours a sitting, thanks to the antiquated save system. You never know when the game will bombard you with a solid chunk of story and multiple boss battles before allowing you to reach another glowing orange orb, which is your only opportunity to save.
Gamers with limited time will find themselves with the unappealing decision of leaving their unit on until they can get back to it, or loosing a solid hour of gameplay and being forced to replay a chunk of the game in favor of not leaving the space heater known as the 360 on for hours unattended. The game's frequent forays into lengthy cinematics makes it all the more frustrating, especially when you expect a save point following a twenty-minute cut-scene only to find more battles. At times save points feel well placed, like right in front of a dungeon, only to the designers are taunting you when you run into another one in the next room.
The forty-hour game seems to split evenly between twenty-hours of play and twenty-hours of cut-scene viewing. The long cinematics would be easy to skip if the story were not so damned good. Lost Odyssey features one of the finest stories in gaming today, full of enough drama, action, mystery, and comedy making you care about your characters and enjoy every cut-scene's slow reveal of the story. There are Hollywood films less complex and interesting. The only portion of the story that fails to work is the recurring 'dream' sequences, where your heroes begin to remember their past. Rather than receive another fantastically acted cut scene, you get pages upon pages of text. While the 'dreams' do reveal more detail as to the personality (vital to understanding Kaim early in the game) and past adventures of the immortals, they are all lengthy reads, which take you out of the game for too long. Thankfully, impatient gamers have the option of skipping straight through them and reading any of the unlocked 'dreams' at their convenience, either at the start menu for the game or via the in-game menu.
The game does have some serious problems balancing the action with the story. The first disc gives you a battle early, but then runs on for two hours straight of story and exploration until you reach another. There are large chunks of the game where you will explore a dungeon and hardly find a monster to fight, followed by rooms where you can not take two steps without starting a five-enemy brawl. The game seems to obsess over battles, story, or exploration one at a time, rarely juggling more than one.
