Lost Odyssey = Hard & Boring Odyssey?

S

Seros

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2003
Messages
1,358
Hey everyone,
i just bought Lost Odyssey from GameStop yesterday.. i havent played a JRPG in years and figured i would give this a whirl. I love games with deep stories and character development, so i figured this would be a no brainer. (Games ive recently enjoyed include Mass Effect and Fallout 3) I played Final Fantasy 7-10 when i was younger and i figured i would love this.

Well, im four hours into the game and im not really digging it as much as i hoped. My friend said the game has points within it that are incredibly difficult and tedious with grinding along with the story that includes characters you cant relate to and cliche stories.

I reached the second boss (The worm.. bogimoray) and see what my friend means by incredibly hard bosses. This guy is a BITCH. I found some walkthroughs online (i shutter at the fact ive even stooped this low) and realized i need to backtrack a bit and grind out some shit. I spent a hour on this boss trying to figure out a strategy.. seems im just missing a few items.. i dont like the fact im dependent on these items, gah.

The battle system does seem a bit sluggish and magic-heavy, and the characters seem like your "typical" Japanese anime-ish cliche people.. this so far ive been enjoying for waht it it, but i understand where my buddy was coming from in this department.

Anyway, my question to everyone: does the game pick up? Does the story get much deeper? Can you relate to the characters eventually? Or have i simply chosen the wrong game for me. Luckily, i have four more days to decide if i want to return the game for full refund or not..
 
I managed to trudge through to the middle of disc 2 and eventually stopped there. The way you've described it is pretty dead on, though. All the bosses have one strategy that you either have to figure out on your own, or use a walkthrough to beat. I never really made a connection with any of the characters (the best part in my opinion were the dream sequences.)

By the time you get to the mandatory "ghost house" level (this is where I got fed up and quit,) even the random encounters you get into take forever and a half to beat. Sluggish loading was another big part of it, as you mentioned as well.

I picked up the game on a whim when it was brand new, and wish I'd returned it. As far as another JRPG to play in its place, though? I honestly couldn't say. Some people have said Eternal Sonata is alright, though kind of childish. Blue Dragon is another very vanilla JRPG. Haven't read anything about Infinite Undiscovery.

Hope this helps.
 
yeah the ghost house is holding me up as well, i thought i was underleveled or something, glad to see i'm not the only one. means i can just suck it up and trudge through, haven't played in months.
 
wow glad to see someone else feels the same..
im reading more on another website and it seems we aren't alone in our opinions..
yeah, i think im going to exchange.. im thinking maybe the new Tales or Eternal Sonata.. hmm..
too bad, i had high hopes for this game.. and im not ususally one to give up and quit, but it seems there are many points within this game that you MUST complete way X.. thats just not me.
 
eternal sonata got really boring for me. the fighting system is interesting, but i feel like it makes for boring combat, i'd definately suggest a rent before buying
 
things finally start to get interesting after beating the ghost house if your finding it hard to kill guys and bosses you need to lvl up more
 
Eh? Lost Odyssey's exp system is made so you can't be underleveled or overleveled without actually attempting to do so. Although I will have to agree the first two boss fights are a lot harder than pretty much the entire game. Hell, even the the optional bosses can be taken down with one attempt as long as you have enough healing.
 
rcf1987 said:
things finally start to get interesting after beating the ghost house if your finding it hard to kill guys and bosses you need to lvl up more
Click to expand...

"finally start getting interesting after the ghost house".. ultimate said that he was half way through disc 2 and at this part.. so your telling me the game gets interesting during the last portion of the SECOND disk? jeez haha.
 
That particular boss is very poorly tuned and yes, you'll probably have to grind out a level or three to beat him. There's a few other spots in the game that were also not tuned very well compared to the rest of the game's natural progression, but that particular one is the worst. Eventually you'll come to a few certain points where you either must out-level these specific poorly-tuned bosses or learn/equip certain skills if you are at a natural level. First, this requires trial and error, because unless you're using a walkthrough to get you through, you most likely won't know what's coming (some places are of course, obvious, like a watery dungeon will probably have a watery-based boss that's weak to fire or what not). Second, having said skills/spells ready requires grind investment, unless you happen to luck out and train the exact skills needed (yeah right) or you're the type to train everyone with everything, in which case you'd out-level the bosses anyway.

The game falls into a lot of cliches, both story and gameplay-wise. Really its redeeming aspect are the short stories (1000 years of dreaming) which supposedly give the characters depth. That would be true if the stories' characters had anything to do with the game's characters, which it does not. The entire atmosphere of the short stories are radically different from the actual story and plot of the game. Had the game been more like the short stories, it would've been something to write about. The same characters in the story and the game act and react completely differently to the point where the two only share the same names and nothing else. It's not a matter of character development. The 1000 Years of Dreaming is darker, deeper, and far more engrossing than the actual game.

The best way I can sum up Lost Odyssey is this: MS threw a lot of money at Sakaguchi to win over the JRPG crowd. Sakaguchi makes big claims about crushing the FF franchise but instead churns out the same stuff he did while at Square, but with far less polish. LO isn't even at the point where it needs polish really; it needs a lot of elbow grease to get all the deep grooves and kinks out.

I actually don't hate the game, but it's not exactly going to become a classic.
 
Seros said:
"finally start getting interesting after the ghost house".. ultimate said that he was half way through disc 2 and at this part.. so your telling me the game gets interesting during the last portion of the SECOND disk? jeez haha.
Click to expand...

Just because the game has a lot of desks doesn't mean it's long, you don't even have all the party members at that part of the game. :p

The game only takes roughly 50 hours if not less to beat if you don't do side quests.
 
I loved Lost Odyssey. I found just about every aspect of the game enjoyable (I just couldn't stand Gongora, damn he was annoying).

I honestly didn't think the battles were too difficult and I didn't really spend much time grinding either. The levels gained from fighting all the random encounters while exploring all the areas seemed to be sufficient.
 
Too hard? Not that I ever really noticed. The only boss I struggled with was the first one and that was only because I didn't know you could get paralysis resistance.
 
I foudn it hard... that ghost house really is killer for me. Like loads of people it seems, I also stopped there. Been months since I've played as well. But boring... nah, I found it pretty fun until I got raped by the ghost house.
 
Odd, I never struggled with the ghost house at all. Maybe it's a case of how you have your party set up.
 
i ended up trading that game in after playing it for a few hours. i enjoyed ff8 that was my favorite game but this game was boring in comparison. i miss the guardian forces from final fantasy and all the weapons
 
I found that this game actually has a great story, it is truly unfortunate that the pacing was a little slow. Honestly it wasn't until about halfway through disc 2 that it got really good.
 
I thought it got good once I got to the second disc, then boring again towards the end of the fourth disc. Never did quite finish the game.
 
It's been a while, but I do recall some trouble at the mansion. Not a lot, really, but a bit. The difficulty in the game is indeed uneven, but at least it doesn't tend to peak or valley _too_ extremely. IMHO, a fair bit is in using the right rings - if you haven't been paying attention to ring fusion, you can find yourself in more trouble than you should. Ditto for skills - I usually used only two immortals at a time.

That said, I found the story and characterization _very_ compelling, and finished the game in one run. The ending wasn't terribly satisfying, but I survived. The story picks up somewhat halfway through, IMHO.
 
Game was okay. I grinded a lot so all my characters were level 70+ by the time I got to the end for the final battle, which was way too easy. Spent about 80 hours on the game which included backtracking and finding chests and items and doing a lot of side quests. When I was bored with other games I just loaded up Lost Odyssey and grinded for a bit and repeated this cycle for a while. Took me two months to finish the game.

I started Tales of Vesperia and that game is a lot more fun IMO.
 
yeah you need to really give the game more than a good chance, the beginning is just way too boring.
 
I absolutely love this game. Like some of the others, I didn't find this game very hard (I'm on Disc 4, just got the nautilus so i'm starting some side quests). Only hard boss fight was the first or second one. I never had to level grind. As for the ghost house being hard, I didn't think it was hard at all. The games makes it so you get a bunch of experience if you are low and little experience if you are at the limit. I love the story. The beginning is kinda slow because it's still setting up the story but it wasn't awful.

The game isn't hard, you just have to think. For instance, I got raped by the Ice Beast monster-thingy because I casted Gamble on him 3 times during the first round and 3 of my guys died lol. 2nd try it was cake. It's just little things. O_O

Only bad thing I can think of was the load times. But ever since I installed the game to my hard drive, it's been smooth sailing.

I'd say keep the game. Playing through the game reminded me of FF games lots of times. It just gave me that nostalgic feeling often and it was great.
 
I played all the way through and enjoyed it over all, so is my friend i lent it too. Takes a certain kind of RPG player I guess.
 
I think the little dream experiences are the best part of the game. A lot of the rest is just typical JRPG stuff. Japanese RPG game design has evolved extremely slowly relative to the rest of the gaming industry.
 
Ghost house was the area where I stopped too. I personally like to grind but there's no reason to grind in this game. I didn't like the idea of not having numerical exp. Grinding in this game became too much of a chore because the enemy ai didn't feel varied at all. As far as I remember, I never really wiped on any of the bosses. First boss took me a while to figure it out but none of my guys died. I stopped playing maybe in March '08 but don't get me wrong, I love the game. I just play rpgs at my own pace. Play the shit out of the rpg halfway through then take a break for a few months (ocarina was a year and a half later) and then beat it. I'm sorta dreading starting Persona 3 and 4.

From what I've played through, I feel like this has been the best rpg (story wise) since Final Fantasy III(6) and Chrono Trigger.
 
sooo ive decided to keep going and im 8 hours in on disc one still.. im enjoying the game and i might keep going with it.
 
Calpis said:
From what I've played through, I feel like this has been the best rpg (story wise) since Final Fantasy III(6) and Chrono Trigger.
Click to expand...

Have you ever played Xenogears? If not, you sir, are missing out.
 
I had a hard time getting into Lost Odyssey when I first got it, too. Somewhere around the 8 hour mark for me is when the game took a turn for the better and became very entertaining! From that point on I was hooked and really enjoyed the game.
 
Something I just realized a week or so ago. You can run in this game by holding X. For some reason I never knew that, definitely makes exploring areas faster.
 
IndyJoe said:
Something I just realized a week or so ago. You can run in this game by holding X. For some reason I never knew that, definitely makes exploring areas faster.
Click to expand...

Haha. At the end of the first disc, I realized I could swap rings and accessories during battle. :(
 
NeoGohan said:
Haha. At the end of the first disc, I realized I could swap rings and accessories during battle. :(
Click to expand...

Haha, I didn't realize it until around that point either. I don't think it matters too much though, rings at the point of the game don't add too much damage from what I can tell.

All this Lost Odyssey talk makes me want to replay the game, too bad the game+ mode sucks so badly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top