Game of the Month #24 (January) - Lost Odyssey

Our story follows Kaim, one of a few "immortals" who have lost their memories. He is serving in the army of the Magic Republic of Uhra, a nation still in turmoil from the abolition of its monarchy, in their war against the beastmen of Khent. We enter on the final battle of the war, which is concluded by a meteor strike (which takes the form of lava pouring out of the sky) that wipes out nearly everyone on both sides save Kaim and another amnesiac immortal, a woman named Seth Balmore.

From that moment, Kaim's memories start to coming back. At the same time, Uhra is convinced that the meteor was the result of some finicky wiring in their new Magitek tower, and send Kaim off to investigate. The plot thickens as Councilor Gongora schemes to restore the inept Prince Tolten to the Uhran throne and restore the monarchy. All of this is set against the background of the "Magic-Industrial Revolution," as the nations of the world are struggling to incorporate Magitek into their daily lives.

The game is a classic Turn-Based RPG Ala Final Fantasy (since it was produced by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, this would make sense). The main gimmick comes with the use of Mortal and Immortal characters. The Immortals automatically revive two turns after being KOed in battle, but only the Mortals learn skills naturally by leveling up. Thus, the Immortals rely on "skill-linking" with the Mortals as well as equipment in order to become more powerful. Another gameplay feature of note is the "Thousand Years of Dreams," which are short stories that flesh out Kaim's memory in the form of his dreams.

The game is available on Xbox 360 and can be played on XBox One through backwards compatibility and Digital Download.

I don't own any Xboxes so I won't be taking part this month. I have been able to read some of the "Thousand Years of Dreams" stories online, and they are amazing.

Voted for it as it's in my backlog.

And today have played about 1hr 15 minutes of it. Game has hardly gotten started really so can't really comment on whether I really like it or not yet.
I'm guessing I won't get it finished until probably March or so.

Would have played it if it was available for PC, sadly that doesn't seem to be the case? Hope it's interesting for the ones who will play it.

I didn't get a 360 until the middle of last year (as in 2016, not 2015), but one of the games I knew I had to get, and indeed one of my reasons for getting one at all, was Lost Odyssey. I've always wanted to play it, so this would be the perfect time for me to do so... were it not for the fact I'm not going to be home until the month is half over. = This to say nothing of the fact I need to devote my energies to Disney Infinity before they shut down the servers, but still. All this to say, I hope you all enjoy the game and I regret that I will be unable to participate.

Ahhh, it looks like an interesting game! Unfortunately, I don't own the Xbox360 or One, so I won't be participating this month.
To those who will, enjoy!

Wish I had time to participate in this one this month. This was easily my favorite game on 360.

I remember one of the early "Thousand Years of Dreams" stories was one of the first times a video game actually made me cry. I don't remember what it was about now. I could probably look it up, but I'm not sure I want to...

When I was trying to decide between the 360 and the PS3, I wanted the "RPG" system. At the time, the 360 had "Blue Dragon", "Lost Odyssey", "Enchanted Arms" , and "Tales of Vesperia". And the PS3 had... nothing of note. So I went with the 360. Of course we all know how that went. Japan basically dropped the 360 and so went the supply of RPGs. Although they did get "Magna Carta 2" later, which I thought was actually pretty good, and "Infinite Undiscovery" which was....not so great.

Anyway, if anyone is thinking about picking up a 360 on the cheap I think it's worth it for the titles I listed. Lost Odyssey is basically a FFX clone but it's a really good one. Blue Dragon is good and you get Akira Toriyama's character designs. Tales of Vesperia is one of my favorite Tales games. And Magna Carta 2 was surprisingly good considering how bad the first one was.

I picked this up last month when it was free on XBOX Live. I agree that it is basically a (very good) FFX clone. It is also incredibly emotional - it can be quite exhausting, especially Disc 1.

I am about half-way through Disc 3 at the moment (21 hours in), and while the plot is perhaps less compelling at this point, the gameplay changes keep it feeling fairly fresh. Some of the cut scenes though are very long - finished one that was almost 30 minutes last night.

So, just finished the first disc and I got to say from what I've played so far, this would have to be one of the hardest JRPGs I've played in a long time or ever. I can see why this game never really made a big splash in the mainstream. This is a JRPG for JRPG fans, if you're on the fence with the genre you'll probably rage quit after the first 2 bosses because they are brutal.

So, just finished the first disc and I got to say from what I've played so far, this would have to be one of the hardest JRPGs I've played in a long time or ever. I can see why this game never really made a big splash in the mainstream. This is a JRPG for JRPG fans, if you're on the fence with the genre you'll probably rage quit after the first 2 bosses because they are brutal.

I will say that the first few bosses are quite hard. I remember playing this on release many moons ago, and doing something similar that this thread is doing, in which many members of the forum I was posting on at the time (G4TV) were hyped for this game, so we basically did post after post detailing and discussing what was happening in our games, and a lot of people had trouble with the first few bosses. I remember specifically having to grind just to beat the first boss, however the difficulty does lessen as the game progresses by a considerable margin

I've noticed a lot of RPGs have this scaling issue, where the game is hardest at the beginning and just grinding a level or two makes ALL the difference. I imagine it's something like this:

Your defense of 5 versus the enemy's attack of 10 is a difference of 100%, which means you're going to get walloped. Gaining just one level gets you 2 defense points which now makes it 7 versus 10 which is a 40% difference, a 60% damage reduction for just one level.
Later in the game, 195 defense versus 200 attack is basically no difference, and gaining a level for 1-5 defense is not really going to improve it.

There's scaling tricks you can use to get around this problem, but not all developers think to use it.

Jan 12, 2017 - Lost Odyssey - 47h 31m

After a pretty rocky start I ended up really loving this game, I feel it has a lot more in common with FFVII then FFX with a pinch of The Legend of Dragoons with the quick time melee combat system. The characters I thought were great, the soundtrack was great, the leveling system was good enough not to get bored, story wise it ended up being a pretty generic JRPG but I have no problems with that.

All and all, I think it's worth playing if you're a JRPG fan. You'd probably be able to finish the main story without doing many side quest in under 40 hours I reckon. I played it on the Xbone backwards compatibility and it played fine except on the 4th disc it wouldn't let me go back to Gongora mansion, it'd always crash on the loading screen.

I've noticed a lot of RPGs have this scaling issue, where the game is hardest at the beginning and just grinding a level or two makes ALL the difference. I imagine it's something like this:

Your defense of 5 versus the enemy's attack of 10 is a difference of 100%, which means you're going to get walloped. Gaining just one level gets you 2 defense points which now makes it 7 versus 10 which is a 40% difference, a 60% damage reduction for just one level.
Later in the game, 195 defense versus 200 attack is basically no difference, and gaining a level for 1-5 defense is not really going to improve it.

There's scaling tricks you can use to get around this problem, but not all developers think to use it.

This game does something different where sometimes it doesn't matter what level you are the mobs will crash you if you haven't picked up the right skill/accessories to counter it. The problem with the early bosses are the status ailments(Paralysis, Petrify, etc). This game forces you to explore a lot in the first disc to get what you need to survive the coming boss fight and if you happen to not get a chest that you were meant to, it makes it very hard/impossible to beat some mobs.