Lost Odyssey- Finally beat this. Had spent several weeks not really playing anything and then doing sidequesting (partially for stat topic reasons). Anyways, little actually tempts me to post in this topic and Lost Odyssey at one point was making me do it multiple times a day, so I definitely feel strongly enough about the game for a fairly extensive writeup. Of course, writing isn't my strongsuit, so that will can of be slapdash and such. Oh well.
First off, think that game comes in at 7 for me. I overall really liked a lot of facets of the game, but the first chunk of this writeup at least is going to be attacking some notably battle issues (Although it was up and down on a lot of issues, not just battle!)
Gameplay:
GC System: Somewhat reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz RPG in that it takes a simple conceit regarding formation and runs with it on both the PC and enemy side. In Lost Odyssey, that's GC's points, which are based on the front row's HP, and helps reduce damage for the back row. This can work especially well with enemies because it effectively means that you can see some formations that have nasty enemies in the back, and you basically can't do much to them until disabling the front row. For at least the first half the game, this can mean that randoms can get really mean. There were several places were you had nasty status/painful MT magic/just a large glut of competent enemies that could easily wipe you out (And in my case, they often did!). Worst was the Cave of Darkness, which I probably had to make 4 attempts at. Competent randoms at least lasted until Sed's joining!
Immortals vs Mortals
On the PC side, the other main facets was Immortals vs Mortals. Mortals naturally learned skills, while Immortals could learn skills by linking with Mortals or by wearing equipment for a while (FF 9 style). Immortals started with a set number of blank skill slots to be filled, and these were increased by items you found, or later on, by skills. The balance here was...not good overall; Immortals easily had the ability to pick up all the major skills a PC had. This was comprised by badly balanced things, like Black-White, combining two mortal skillsets in one! Sure, you could put a Black-White accessory on a Mortal, but they are still limited by needing that one accessory; mage Immortals can easily stock up on 4 types of magic easily while taking in a host of super potent support skills and having the same base stats.
At endgame you were looking at Sarah and Ming have all the advantages of the other mages, plus 40% more HP and MP, random damage nulling or absorption, a host of extra status immunities, complete elemental immunity...yeah, the balance was just not good. Oh yeah, Immortals also revive after several turns dead too! Part of this was that the cost of learning the skills was just way too low. Halving one element was 20 SP, halving all elements was 40 SP, and NULLING them all was 50? You can learn Black-White 8 with like 40 SP (4 random battles) before Jansen and Cooke can even get the skills. Yeah, just not well balanced at all in this respect.
More bad balance!
Speaking of more misbalancing, the game had a bad, bad, bad balance of items versus magic. Magic tends to be slow, while items were often the first thing to go off in battle. While the white mage might heal 200 and do it slowly, items could heal for 500 HP much more quickly. Magic damage items were also notably quick, although at least weaker than mages casting. Still badly designed, but unlike healing where items at points multiple times stronger, ridiculously quicker, and usable by everyone, using damage spells in battle actually felt like it had some use.
Another balance issue: Physical vs Magic
You get rings that can boost Physical damage; Magic gets nothing. Physicals are much quicker and the good phsyicals are on characters that have double the HP of the good mages. Magic...might do 25%-50%...sometimes. Sometimes enemy Mdef is too high, sometimes physicals are hitting elemental weaknesses, type weaknesses, and getting general damage boosts! Just overall, physicals and physical fighters felt way too potent. The part with two physical fighters was easier than the part with 4 mages.
Last balance issue: Casting Speed
Already tied into some previous mentions, but casting speed had issues. Given the GC system, MT stuff is awesome...minus that you aren't seeing it go off on turn 1 until Cooke hits L48 I believe. The problem is that this applies to shitty, shitty MT too (which in fairness, could see some use it went off quicker. As is, using an MT move for 200 on turn 2 or one for 500 on turn 2 makes little question which to use). Sure, you could use the buff to speed up casting which I believe can move some spells to round 1, but then using two people for it makes it feel somewhat pointless too. That said, while all MT regardless of quality basically goes off turn 2 most of the game, the second Cooke gets "Reduce Casting Speed 2" almost all MT, regardless of quality, hits turn 1. This just bugs, because it would have actually made a decent quirk or facet! This even includes the few, very rare and very late MT healing spells (Which in themselves are so absurdly balanced against normal spells, which I guess kind of fits in general annoying balance marring what could have been a more interesting battle system)
And the PCs in battle!
Kaim: Absurd HP, strength and relatively quick physical.
Seth: Slightly less HP and strength than Kaim, faster physical. Still absurd stats.
Jensen: Black mage. Best base HP of the pure mage types, but still not good. Magic generally does more than physicals (maybe by about 50% on average), but is slower, costs more, and isn't as boostable! The balance isn't great, but given the GC setup, mages still get a lot of use. Jensen is mostly the same until the end, although getting him to L52 nets him double casting! Of course, which Ming and Sarah can probably
Cooke: White mage. 70% or so of Jensen's HP. A lot of her skillset is not good. ST defensive buffs and healing magic are both pretty bad. She does have MT healing, but it's fairly weak and for most of the game needs two turns! Turn 2 100% MT Blind is kind of cute. Most important thing is that she gets "casting speed up" skills, which don't come on any accessory. As noted, this makes stupidly good spells go off turn 1 (Although it's very late).
---->Also of note, her ultimate White magic skill is lolzy. Directly based on her raw HP. Off the person who can easily have 1/4 of Kaim's HP at endgame. Of course, mages that can grab a lot more HP can get and (using Cooke's own speed boosting, of course), can use the spell damn well. Still, funny how badly it suits Cooke herself.
Macke: Fighter Mage. HP is middle of the road, has a passable (if wholly unimpressive physical), kind of okay magic (Until Gamble, a surprisngly potent random damage magic skill), extremely shitty healing (again, fits in with the game's general power balance since healing magic is shit), some eh status, and then kick-ass attack buffs. Attack buffs eventually become MT, and are awesome.
Ming: Immortal Mage 1. Able to pick up the skillsets of all three mages before her. Starts with slightly less HP than
Jansen, but can equip HP + Skills (Although those take a while to exist). As I ranted above, Immortal Mages end up making Mortal ones look like fools.
Sarah: Immortal Mage 2. Battlewise essentially identical in all ways to Ming.
Tolten: Fighter who joins mid/late disk 3. Doesn't have the raw HP of Kaim or Seth, but still very durable with a lot of random skills to boost that durability. 100% on first activation Guts, weapon guard, things of that nature. Decent enough, although Kaim and Seth having better raw stats and then being able to boost their stats easily...again, balance! It was not good.
Sed: MINUS HERE. Random slapdash of skills that ends up being very, very stupid. Laying them out:
--->Double Item: Completely changes the game. Right, items are by far the best healing, and now you can double them with no speed cost. Oh yeah, Sed also has item booster, so the effect is now 50% more? As if magic as healing wasn't already trivialized enough. And he starts with this! Needless to say, first skill the Immortals picked up from him
--->Double SP: A skill designed to quicken the rates at which Immortals gained superiority over Mortals! And you only needed one for it to work for the whole party! Which is good, because the Double skills (SP, EXP, Items?) cost 100 SP where I think the next highest was 50? So actually having needed to learn this on every Immortal would have actually balanced the skill quite well! But that wasn't the case.
--->Auto Barrier and Shell: Yep, automatically cut basically all damage 40%, and immortals can learn these easily. At least I don't think he started with these, but still. Needless to say, for choosing a 5th PC, Sed badly mocked other Mortals and actually felt like he could almost hang with Immortals. UOM power.
Bosses
Wait, did I say there weren't going to be any more balance issues? I was wrong! Bosses could be a wild trip here. The second legit boss of the game...a very durable backrow enemy that can eat his front row to charge up a powerful MT+paralysis attack (MT is about 200 IIRC. Your healing is...not 200 at first point, and somewhat limited). Killing it once is actually decently difficult....and then another one of them spawns. This boss was extremely cruel, and I had an absurd number of resets. I almost quit the game at this point, and if people did, it wouldn't surprise me. The first boss of the game is also pretty evil with MT+Poison, but in comparison to the boss that comes soon after, it was a big deal.
After putting the game down a while thanks to headache bosses, and finally coming back to it, I was glad to see that most bosses after that were decently challenging, but not 7 reset level. There were a lot of quirks, some very good damage, and bosses generally kept me on my toes. The final late game bosses got horrible though. The final boss first form (plot battle) had a bunch of moves that made me think the actual battle might be decent...but then they went and neutured him (MT HP->1 became like effective MT 10% damage. Faaaaaaaaail hard).
Overall, I did like the battles. Both randoms and bosses were solid difficulty, and the game had a lot of really nice quirks. However, it just had so, so many balance issues, although luckily none of them of the fatal sort. Just pesky and bothersome design wise!
World/Dungeon Design
Awesome. I've come to recognize that one thing that I look for in games (and is one of the big things I can look for, which is probably rare overall) is a fully realized, fully developed unique world. I can read books with this being one of the drivers, and I can certainly play games. In that respsect, Lost Odyssey truly delivered in many ways (Although not fully, which I'll deal with). Starting with the base world design, it feels like the creators spent a lot of full fleshing out each area. Cities are quite large, filled with what felt like countless little sidequests, unique little nooks and crannies and a hell of a lot of personality (Even down the refugee camp). My favorite was the half-possessed town of Saman, which was a lot of fun.
This held for dungeons. They were large, full of a lot of unique designs, and awesomely, many pratfalls. These weren't over the top like the bludgeon to you death endless puzzles of Lufia 2 or a WA game, but rather a lot of what felt like quirky area appropriate real-life dangers with an in game incorporation. This included Wind, Dark Holes in Caves, Poisoned Gas, Ice Flows and Sludge. Basically every dungeon was good about throwing in some unique mechanism, which added a lot to the feel of exploration (Cave of Darkness was especially awesome at this!). Mechnical dungeons were also great at this even if there was some stock things (Definitely groaned when I got to the MGS inspired sneak dungeon). Bonus points to Experimental Staff for integrating stealing in to the puzzle. Bonus points then removed for making the stealing rate so shitty, but still awesome idea. So, yeah, this is something that overall really, really worked for the game for me.
Plot/Theme/Characters
RPGs aiming for a cohesive theme are generally pretty rare, but Lost Odyssey was able to pull off a nice, subtle yet very cohesive them (albeit a very easy one to tackle) with life and death. It's the very core of the game's driving plot mechanism (immortality), included in a lot of the world extras (Kaim's dream) and even gets some categorical in battle showing. The dreams are one of the nice things of the game, if not always well spaced. I do wish they had they intergrated more the dreams into the locations you cross (This was my design flaw for the world. Kaim has been everywhere, and it felt like some of the places that were in his dreams should have been blatantly noted in the game).
So, the theme was established early and well done, and the overall plot wasn't too bad...but it was marred by the characters. We did battle-summaries, now lets see them in plot!
Ruby Earrings (Kaim)- Relatively stoic immortal main character. Sensible as his memories have been sealed. Unthaws a bit as the game moves on, but never much. Decent designwise, although ruby earrings? Really?
No Actual Physical Design Flaw (Seth)- Less stoic immortal character! She generally works, although she gets 1 too many PC groupies and can be a bit abresive at times.
Man Leggings (Jansen)- All fucking over the place. His introduction is him saying goodbye to 3 whores. His story arc is a chaste romance. The game wobbles back and forth with this. He at one point blushes when they practically fall in each other, which is absurd for a character whose introduction is leaving 3 whores. I believe that in essentially every scene, he's making unfunny, badly placed comments (Two were hilarious, but...that's it). Someone should tell him the art of snarking best works with selective silence. He's also the rare character because he's the only one who has a complete mystery of a backstory. Where he's from, why he started working for the villian, how he got his skills? It's all a complete mystery, and kind of lacking thinking about it.
Cooke- I actually liked her design, so no pointing that out. She's fun enough, although sometimes she can be a bit annoying as Seth's groupie. That said, her brother....
Wore a Dress in the Ending (Macke)- Sucks. Cooke is somewhat mature and can fit in with an adult party. Macke is constantly running off looking for his mother's spirit and endangerous himself and therefore your party. I generally hate this type of character, and Macke didn't really have anything else. Even worse, unlike his sister, the game had to bend over backwards to think of reason for his inclusion in your party!
Double Thong and Stripper Boobs (Ming)- Senses magic energy and passes out drunk. Super eventually asked me about her design, bringing up Tifa. Ming put Tifa to shame since at least Tifa is covered up. Ming has obviously fact breasts and is perfectly willing to have that half out all the time!
---->Gaping Plot Hole: Ming has no reason to know Cooke and Mack. She's lost her memory, basically locks herself away playing harp all day. Cooke and Mack are two kids who are basically in the Numaran slums. Clearly an instance where someone was writing dialogue without reading the whole script!
Hammer Pants (Sarah): Not an actual character, just another appendage of Kaim. Characterization starts and stops with Kaim's wife who loves her family.
---->Gaping Plot Hole: For an Immortal, Sarah got...remarkably little accomplished. In fact, unlike every immortal, there's almost no implication of what she did for 1000 years. 35 years ago at least, she had a baby. She wasn't Kaim's first wife though (One of the dreams mentions that), so...what the hell did she do for lets say 900 years?
Tolten- Eh, he's not a good character and they don't pretend otherwise. I liked some the early manipulation stuff, but that was Gongora
UOM (With bad clothing, yes; Sed)- 65 Year Old who says "Momma" in half his lines. Seth groupie 2, but unlike the teenage girl, he's a 65 year old man. Doesn't work, and he just generally looks like a fool always!
Gongora- Kickass design! I'd call him a babyeater supported by bad writing. When he wasn't acting a fool he didn't come off too badly, but LO loves to make everyone act the fool
Ming's Underling- Well, at one point the PCs trick him by throwing a smoke bomb in his face and then stripping him to his panties and an apron? Bigger fool than all PCs, which wasn't easy.
Needless to say, LO has an issue with making character say moronic, bombastic things in the most typical over the top JRPG style. It has some neat plot stuff (I actually really like the funeral and the game's ability to really switch up the pace), but the characters needed muzzles sometimes.
Hmm, this feels like a sufficient rant to me! I did actually as noted enjoy the game at lot, but it did have it's issues.
