Yes, this more so than part twelve of Final Fantasy seems more like that series. However, it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination as I almost gave this game an eight instead and it probably deserves an eight more. The story has an immortal named Kaim who has no memories of his past sent on a mission to explore an object called Grand Staff. He is joined by Seth another fellow immortal and Jansen who tags along at the request of the obvious villain Gongorra. During your many adventures Kaim regains his lost memories, his lost love, and his lost for good loved ones. The fighting is basically turned based using at times a ring system that when timed right can cause extra damage in battles, causes elemental damage, and can inflict status ailments. Sort of like Shadow Hearts, but not quite as involved or as good. I like Hearts better cause there you used the rings for everything...here you only use it for the standard attack. The music is okay, though kind of minimal as it does not exactly blow you away. However, the music was very good during the cut scenes called a thousand years of dreams, a series of stories telling of Kaim's past. Most of them are rather sad, but they add a lot to the game. The problems with the game though are many too. One, Cooke and Mack are a bit annoying at times and they are in the story a lot. I wish Sed was in the story more than these two kiddies. There is also the fact that Kaim is the main character for most of the game, but he does not stand out in any way at the end, really standing back as the pirate Seth takes center stage. Then there is the loading. Why on a next generation console is there so much loading? Why is the game broken down on four disks and they can not do a better job of transitions than they did is beyond me. Look at Final Fantasy X...all on one disc, but it flowed very smoothly. It was also a Ps2 game. I just do not get this at all. However, for the most part you are in store for a really good game, the fighting is fun, the side quests easy enough to do, and the ending was rather good as well. So for the most part a fun role-playing game for the Xbox 360.
Review of Lost Odyssey
