Seriously, where to begin. Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 encompasses almost everything you want in a traditional RPG. It harks back to the beginning, when the genre was primitive (and turn-based). That's right; you may be looking at a dazzling display of animated characters, in breath-taking scenery, all while hacking away at baddies, but the game is derived from that classic turn-based combat system. Personally, I didn't mind the dive back into the past at all. With all the edge-of-the-seat action slashers out there, ex-Square-Enix producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, and his studio, Mistwalker, have created a commendable archetypal blend of the conventional role playing game. Mistwalker previously released Blue Dragon for the 360, but it didn't do as well as they would have liked. Lost Odyssey hopes to help reignite Sakaguchi's success, who's most well known for being the forefather of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Let's get the obvious and most enjoyable aspect out of the way first, the graphics. They are outstanding. They are remarkable. They are drop-dead gorgeous. Lost Odyssey's graphics can be ranked up there as some of the best visuals we've seen on Microsoft's noisy box of joy. Honestly, if you're not impressed by the visuals, then slap yourself, because you won't be finding much better for a while to come. They truly push the next-gen console to its graphical limits. The animations are incredibly well done and character movements look realistic. The voice-over syncing with character mouths isn't too shabby either. The stunning graphics, sound, music, and voice acting all mix together to make a very enthralling experience. However, herein lies a small downfall. You'll quickly notice when you first start playing Lost Odyssey that there are more loading screens than you can shake a stick at. All those fancy visuals and great sound design pushes the game to span four DVD disks. You heard right, Lost Odyssey spans four DVD disks. But that doesn't imply that it's excessively long, if you're looking to race through the game, you can do it within 25-30 hours, maybe less.

In my opinion, the characters are actually one of the high points of the game. They did a thorough job at creating memorable characters and dialogue that actually sounds like the natural thoughts of the characters. For most games, I feel they try too hard to make the dialogue work with the story, but Lost Odyssey does it justice. The characters range from the comic relief mage, Jansen, a Queen with a royal accent, and even an army general who strikes a strong resemblance to Heihachi from Tekken... Overall, the characters are well done.

The next big question; how's the plot? The plot is decent, but won't be receiving any awards for originality. It's probably one of the fews things that I thought they could have improved upon. The story is very cliche. Like in many stories, the main character has had something happen to him in the past resulting in him losing his memory (that's never been done before...). But wait, it's not just him. Almost half the playable characters, known as immortals, also have similar amnesia. Okay, so I sound a bit harsh when it comes to story models getting reused, but it's the simple truth. To give them credit, looking beyond the cliches, the story is still very solid and enjoyable. Even with some predictable plot twists, it's a decent story that will keep you wanting to continue playing until the end of the fourth disc.

Mistwalker develops the characters very well, most notably in the "Dreams" which appear occasionally throughout your adventure. These "Dreams", which are actually just mini side stories, were one of my favorite parts of the game. Most of them are optional to read, but they do provide a variety of detailed background events that have happened to the characters in the past. These sub-stories are pretty good, however, it would have been nice if Mistwalker dished out the extra money to get all the dreams voiced-over by the cast. Instead you'll be reading numerous pages of text that can only be described as Power Point slides on steroids. Still, they have nice art and subtle animations in the background as you're reading these five to ten minute stories. There's also music and sound that goes along with the context of the stories to add richness. They’re actually not as bad to read as you'd expect, but if they voice-acted them, they would've really been brought to the next level.

Onto one of my favorite parts of gaming, the music. Famed composer Nobuo Uematsu, from the Final Fantasy series, lends his talent to Lost Odyssey. Like usual, it's an over-the-top beautiful score that works exceedingly well with the characters to assist in immersing you into the plot of the game. His careful touch and his way of bringing forth emotions through his music is truly remarkable, and Lost Odyssey would not be the game it is, if Uematsu wasn't the man behind the music. Sound design is also top-notch with realistic sound effects for all the different events.

I talked about gameplay mechanics briefly in the first paragraph, but let's dive a bit deeper. Beyond the fact that the game's battle system is run in the traditional turn-based format, the rest of the game also functions as you'd expect from a typical RPG. They did a nice job in giving you an enormous amount of items and treasure to find throughout your journey. One downfall is that there aren't any true pieces of equipment in the game. Your stats come solely from rings and other accessories. Obviously, since there aren't any types of body, leg, hand, or feet equipment, you won't be seeing your characters in different outfits. The accessories can change the character's appearance slightly, i.e. wearing glasses and other head gear, but that's the extent of physical changes. They've integrated a "Ring Assembly" system into the game where you can use items and materials collected throughout the game and forge an assortment of rings, which have different ailments and bonuses for your party members. The system is nothing deep or complex, but it works.



They have a Skill System in the game that consists of learning abilities from each other. The Immortals can only have a certain amount of skills activated at a given time. However you can increase the amount of skill slots with certain items. Immortals also need to learn their skills/abilities from the humans. You simply have to link what skill you want to learn with the human he knows it. Nothing brilliant, but it's cool that the Immortal characters can learn every skill in the game. The humans unfortunately are limited to their pre-selected skills and cannot learn from other individuals.

Mistwalker added some unique parts to the gameplay to spice things up a bit. Near the beginning of the story, you'll find yourself carefully sneaking pass security robots in the hull of a large ocean cruiser. Also, towards the end of the game you'll be forced to use your sea craft to stop four huge monsters simultaneously from breaching a city. At the same time, there are items hidden in the water to collect. You'll have to tactically take down all four of them before any one of them can reach their destination. I wouldn't call the game overwhelmingly linear, because you do have the option to digress from the main story and revisit locations for things that you missed, however these little nuances to the gameplay mechanics help keep things fresh.

One of the best features of the game is the battle system. Yes, it's turn-based and yes, it's still fun. Rings that are equipped to your character will bring up a circular meter every time a character attacks. Holding the right trigger and releasing as the circular ring closes in on a smaller ring will increase damage output. You'll be judge on how accurate you are at this by "Bad!", "Good!", and "Perfect!". At first, the damage won't amount to much, but as you progress further into the game, hitting "Perfect!" on this gauge can net you hundreds more points in damage each hit. Not to mention, some rings have effects which only can be activated by hitting "Perfect!"

They've added numerous side-quests to do when you want to take a break from the main plot. In one of the main cities there's a mini arena known as the "Backyard" where you can fight various pre-determined battles with certain battle conditions to win prizes. Think Final Fantasy X's Monster Arena, but with rankings. You'll be given star rankings, one to three stars depending on the pre-defined conditions. There are also optional bosses scattered around the world if you wish to gain more 360 Achievement Points while winning some decent items and weapons. Additionally, there's a treasure hunting side quest that doesn't really entail anything innovating, but some of the rewards are worth it. In it, you receive a Treasure Locator and your goal is to find clues from various NPCs, which will enable you to target your desired loot. Lastly, they give you the option of a New Game+ once you've beaten the entire game. Unfortunately, the feature really doesn't do anything differently than the initial play-through besides allowing you to start the game at level 50. It would've been nice if they added new items/weapons, a hard mode, hidden scenes/dreams to the New Game+; it makes me sad that such things weren't included. Overall though, there are still plenty of things to keep yourself busy before and after you finish the main premise of the normal game.

Lost Odyssey gets the big "A for effort" in my books. The only minor downfalls I found were the dreams, which I wish were voice-acted, and the main plot which doesn't scream with originality. Don't interpret the story as bad though; because it's enjoyable nonetheless. The battle system is fun, the graphics will make you wet your pants, and the characters are memorable enough that I'll probably replay the game at some point. With the 360's terrible selection of RPGs to choose from, there's absolutely no reason why any 360 owner/RPG fanatic should have a gaming shelf without Hironobu Sakaguchi's, Lost Odyssey. Case closed.