Lost Odyssey: COMPLETED! And of course, for a game like this, how can I NOT Meeple Rant!? As usual, spoilers and such, read at your own digression etc. Making the text small to mask spoilers and what not when its actually applicable.
What's there to say about the game...well...the game from the get go gives off a Final Fantasy feel. Even before you press a button, something about its presentation and style just feels like its a Final Fantasy game. And truth be told, outside of how the game lacks usual Final Fantasy conventions like Summons, Moogles, general spell names, etc., it...never really gives it up. Given I've compared Blue Dragon often to Chrono Trigger (with the "Using FF5's Job System instead of Combos"), its not shocking that a more traditional style game from them resembles Final Fantasy. OF COURSE, the real reason is "it has a lot of the old Square Developers, most notably Sagakuchi and Uematsu." The game really comes off as "Final Fantasy: We FOrgot to Give it a Number."
To take it a step further...well, you know how Xenogears was initially going to be a Chrono Trigger sequel, but it deviated so far from the source material, they realized it really CAN'T be a sequel anymore, but liked what they had, so they just made an entirely new game from there? Or alternatively, how Devil May Cry spawned from the Resident Evil franchise in a similar manner? Well, Lost Odyssey feels like that, just in this case, its "FF6 Prequel." No, I'm not kidding; there's a lot of things that made me think of FF6's setting, plot, etc. and "Wow, this game could very well be the War of the Magi if you change a few minor details, like saying Immortals are Espers" and what not. Now yes, the way the game is NOW, it clearly isn't, and its not trying to be either, I'm just saying it feels like Sakaguchi planned this story a while back as an FF6 prequel, but never got off the ground, so turned it into something new since, well, he's no longer with Square-enix, it can't be related to FF!
Due to this, Lost Odyssey is summed up nicely as being a traditional style RPG that manages to have its own unique touches, which is basically how most FF games pre-FF11 sold themselves. I say Pre-FF11, cause FF11 was an MMO, thus different genre, and FF12 and FF13 are NOT traditional, for better or worse. In general, Lost Odyssey succeeds at this too, and it proved that yes, there is still room in modern gaming for a jRPG that doesn't try to be NEW AND EXCITING!!!, but goes back to older standards, while trying to not just be another bland generic entry in the genre.
The one gripe I have about the gameplay is, well, difficulty. Now part of this is because I did do Temple of Enlightenment with Double EXP which gave me oodles more EXP than is healthy, so I had Kaim and Seth with 9500+ HP end game, and Ming and Sarah with 5k+ (they all had Max HP Up 3 and 4 equipped mind. Fun fact? I never found Max HP Up 1, and I ONLY just got Max HP Up 2 before the final boss. yeah, almost completely ignored Cubic Music Boxes, cause i was too lazy until the end of the game to grab a pen and paper), which kind of destroyed the game. Though, I can tell that wasn't the only thing, cause the general boss damage just wasn't doing enough to break through all the cheese my Immortals have.
Game has way too many good defensive skills. Between a bunch of random nullifying moves, random absorption abilities (as in, get hit with physical, there's a chance it'll heal you instead of do damage!), some skills that COMPLETELY NEGATE THE BIG 4 ELEMENTs, a "Survive hit with 1 HP!" ability, etc. This wouldn't be so bad if your skill slots were more limited, by which I mean they only gave you Slot Seeds to boost this. However, the game gives you Slot+ Abilities, which really ramp it up. Now, I don't mind that these exist, but rather, THEY STACK. If the game just said "Best one overrides previous one!" on Skill Slots? That'd be fine, as yes, Slot+10 is cruel, but its also from a side quest, and its more than enough by itself. The fact that Slot+3 and Slot+5 can be used at the same time gives you a net gain of +15 Slots...that's like more than you'll ever need, I was shoving random filler skills on for the shit of it cause I didn't know what I wanted.
Actually, that's one of the reasons its so easy in general; skills stack. Max HP Up 3 and Max HP Up 4? Oh hey, now I have 182% of my original max...and you can still use Max HP Up 2!
In fairness...the game is too easy partially because of the system implemented and how easy it is to exploit, not necessarily cause enemies suck. So if you did put restrictions on the game, like "only use the best of a current Parameter Skill" and what not, the game may actually fight back. I suspect to make it HARD, you'd need to do some really big restrictions, though, there were shades of potential competence as while more Immortals felt...uhh...Immortal, the Mortals did have points where they'd die. Not often, mind, mostly because you'd only use Tolten in the front row, so the other 4 were all protected by GC usually, but that's something.
Actually, Kaim and Seth being your two big tanks and immortals in itself is what adds to this. Since they're not taking that much damage after a point, your GC value never drops, so your back row characters almost never take damage outside of a few bosses who have good GC Raping capabilities, who'd then fire off MT damage.
That said, the difficulty is really my only major gripe about the gameplay. The game starts off well and good in this regard, as through Disc 2, game is actually not that easy. The First Dungeon especially puts up quite a fight, though mostly a resource thing there. The following dungeons aren't "lul" worthy, like Sorceress' Mansion has enemies with nasty ST damage, and defensive gimmicks that made you actually worry about survival at times, what have you. I'm told people have trouble with the Black Cave, but I didn't find it all particularly noteworthy, though probably last dungeon that actually tried to fight back?
I think best way to put it is Lost Odyssey's difficulty is FF6's if you started with Floating Continent, Kefka's Tower, Fanatics Tower and Phoenix Cave immediately, and got progressively easier until its...basically FF7. Really, because the game just gets progressively easier, I'm thinking its a case of "Enemies aren't weak, you're just too overpowered" so uh, yeah, make of that as you will!
NON Difficulty things however? Well, I liked how it distinguished Mortals and Immortals; yes, Immortals were just far better, but I felt that was 100% intended especially given the final boss and they wanted to make it as obvious as possible. Mortals didn't feel worthless though, as they could still DO STUFF in battle; I'll get to that when I assess characters individually. Its very much like Phantasy Star 4 how the "Big 4" are clearly better than the other 5, but the 5th PC is by no means worthless. It also did a good job making Physicals and Magic good, as well as having good buffs. One thing I felt was a waste was a lot of the status magic. I used a few status spells throughout, saw them miss, and just went "ok, fuck it, I'm just winning with damage." I DID use Sed's Magic Seal on a durable random in Grand Staff #1, mostly cause Shadowus is annoying, and I had his AI more or less figured out, so why not screw him over (Magic Seal is basically like FF6 Runic, except it targets the enemy, rather than being a field effect, and lasts until the ENEMY activates it and thus is just better...and yet, you still probably will rarely use it!)? Either way...Status felt worthless cause it doesn't do much. Go figure, status can be a bitch in this game when hit with it, especially Seal on one of your mages.
...then you get the Angel Guard and suddenly your Immortals just mock status, so now Status is a wasted turn beyond "Oh no, my Mortal might be weakened!"
There's a few little polish things that aren't major, but would have been nice. For starters, while game does tell you Magic speeds (if are misleading at first until you realize the "1" does not mean "will be cast this turn"), it doesn't tell you Skill speeds, which is annoying. To be fair, game is nice about charge times cause you can always cancel the charge on the following turn and change your action entirely if things get out of hand, so you're not committed to it, and it doesn't cost MP until its actually USED, so no harm there. Also, Immortals should be able to cast Healing magic regardless of if they have the skill equipped out of battle, so long as they have the ability learned. Its basically saying "spend the extra time to equip Level # White Magic on Seth, have her use MP, go back and take it off." There were a few filter options I kind of wanted or would have preferred the game filtered somethings differently (eg "Elemental" for Rings should take into account ANYTHING with an Elemental feature on it, not just the basic rings), but just having an Item Filter in itself is a godsend when your inventory, skillsets, etc. get so freaking large, and more RPGs need to have it.
I guess I'll just say that the difficulty issues aside, the game is just well polished and well handled on gameplay fronts.
SO WHAT ABOUT PLOT!?!?!
Well, plot can be summed up as "evil guy wants to take over the world, Immortals who lost their memories must team up with a few friends and STOP HIM!" Oh sure, there's more to it than that, but its a very simple plot with a nice easy summary. I remember Yahtzee once said he liked FF6 because its plot could be summarized "nicely onto a pamphlet", and I feel that's the case of Lost Odyssey; it recognizes that a simple base-line does not mean you can't have an in-depth, decently written plot. Is it the greatest thing of all time? No, far from it, but its an engaging enough story that never gets too confusing that handles its faces its well. The plot twists aren't OMG AMAZING, and are kind of predictable, though they aren't cheesily handled either, and the game just kind of treats it as they are, not "WE MUST MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS!", instead focusing areas that matter more. That's about all I'll say; its nothing special but competent enough.
One major thing Lost Odyssey has going for it that, again, reminds me of FF games (FF9 most specifically in this case) is that while having a clear Protagonist (Kaim), it was NOT afraid to shift focus away from him at times and let other characters get limelight. You know...the way a story SHOULD be? The main character does not have to be the CENTER OF ATTENTION!!! all the damn time, nor does he have to witness all events. At first, yes, it seems like this is going to be "ALL KAIM ALL THE TIME!" but as more characters appear (Immortals especially), the game takes more of a focus of "This story is about the immortals in general, not just Kaim...Kaim's just the guy you're playing as most of the time." He's still the main of course, but it gives chance for us to see the game from OTHER perspectievs. It doesn't do it quite as much as, say, FF9 which changed characters on a whim, but it does it enough (most particularly, Disc 3) that it helped.
It stands out since there are too many jRPGs that fall into this trap of "THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST BE EVERYWHERE!!" and that's part of why jRPG stories tend to be questionable, especially when said protagonist IS SILENT. Lost Odyssey is not the best example of a game that defies this, but it does a good enough job to say "Kaim is the main, but we aren't reliant on his existence to move the story along."
NOW FOR CHARACTER ANALYSES!!!
First off, a blanket thing that needs to be said for the game at large. The cast as a whole has one big thing going for it and that is, with the exception of Cooke and Mack, THEY'RE ALL ADULTS. Well, ok, Tolten might be a teen, but I'd assume he'd be like 19 at youngest cause game treats him as a young adult, and him being younger than the other adults plays into his character. So it avoids a lot of jRPG cliche and tropetastic characters. Cooke and Mack are actually children, and they actually FEEL like children, not just based off design and "Remember, they're kids!" like, say, how FF4 treated Palom/Porom. This factor is nice since it means the characters act like rational human beings, so we don't see "yet another dumb idealistic teen who wants to see the world" or the alternative "a teen who hates himself and everyone around him but will slowly learn to appreciate things!"
If you've ever seen me rant about FF12, one of the things that annoys me is how the fans partially ruined the game's plot. See, Basch being the main would have been awesome because "30~ year old War vet as a main" is NOT a conventional thing in jRPGs and its something new and fresh, but Japanese fans bitched and moaned and demanded their TEENAGE MAIN CHARACTER and thus, we got Vaan (I don't hate Vaan, but seriously, he's a walking cliche.) Well, Lost Odyssey just said bollocks to that, and gave us adults. Yes, being immortal and 1000 years old, they kind of HAD to do that, but with the whole "He lost his memory!" plot device, they could have easily gotten away with a bullshit "regressed to a teenager mindset!" and kept him looking physically 16 or something cause hey, immortal, doesn't age! They didn't however, and I respect the game more for that.
THAT SAID, ONTO THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS!
Kaim: He starts the game off being a bad-ass immortal who doesn't really speak much about 2 words cause he's a jackass. He's really completely unlikable in the early game, but I feel that was intended; yes, its kind of like being an Emo Teen, except here its more like he's just trying to get his job done, doesn't care about sentimental things, etc. Then he gets his memory back, remembers he has a daughter and wife and suddenly becomes a totally different person. Now, he always remains calm, rational, and duty driven instead of emotional, but he clearly lightens up...A LOT. The sudden change actually is explainable too, unlike say, Squall's or Ryudo's. He isn't afraid to show a sign of weakness, or crack a smile, or show sympathy or whatever...its like he's actually showing signs of BEING HUMAN! Yeah, ended up liking him in the end; he was something different and while at first he gives off bad vibes, he ended up decent.
IN BATTLE!? He's your Tank Immortal. He hits hard, takes hit well, has ass for MP and...well, he's basically a staple in the front lines. Gets job done well and that's all you care about, really likes if you don't mind micromanaging rings to constantly hit elemental/species weaknesses. Also, He's married and has an established love interest before the game begins as a result, which is rare as fuck. basically avoids sappy love story tropes with Sarah as a result, cause they've already BEEN through that.
IN A DUEL!? ...fuck if I'm interpreting Immortals in a duel.
Seth: So, second character introduced, and she's also an Immortal, who also lost her memories! The instant "THESE TWO ARE OBVIOUSLY CONNECTED IN SOME WAY!" thing aside, Seth is how you do an optimistic, cheerful, free-spirited character WITHOUT making them massively energetic. Granted, she's also got a loose temper, but only seems to lose that with Jansen. She worked as an early foil to Kaim, as Kaim's more like "Whatever, lets get this over with" while Seth was more like "Oh, this is going to be a fun adventure!" She's also a former pirate so there's that! She's a pretty static character throughout the game truth be told, but her personality is well established early, and its the kind that based on her past lifestyle, wouldn't change much, so yeah. Also, props to Seth being the "martyr" in the game, not Kaim. It makes more sense that way too. Everyone but Seth had something strong to hold onto in that world that they wouldn't want to give up. Seth did have her son Sed, HOWEVER, it was in a state where Sed clearly didn't need her anymore, being an adult whose been living fine without her those 30 years, and much as they want to be with each other, they can be parted. Its sad, but compare it to Kaim/Sarah who had their Grand Children that DID rely on them, and Ming who had a genuine lover, they were clearly more grounded in this world, so Seth, both with her higher anger levels, and less attachment to the world, made the most sense to take the silver bullet for the others.
IN BATTLE!? She's your speedster character...and your second best Tank. yes, that's right, the "Thief" build character is your 2nd best tank in the game, so she's basically the other Staple in the front lines. Really, Seth and Kaim tend to do the same actions, its more that Seth does things first, Kaim hits enemies harder, and Seth has more MP to expend, but isn't as tanky. Being an immortal makes her a staple in general.
IN A DUEL!? ...see Kaim...
Jansen: In short? A better version of Edge in terms of personality. There is NOTHING redeeming about this guy; he's a pervert, he's incompetent, he's easily swayed by money, and he's a wimp who gets beaten up by a female (namely Seth). Apparently the only thing he's good for is 'having connections' that Gongora claims, but we never actually see, and...yeah, he's just there to be an idiot basically...which is his charm, cause he's very clearly the comic relief in the game, and a good one as he actually remains entertaining, and they never really break from his general speech pattern too, so he was written consistently. Furthermore, he gets into a believable, genuine relationship with Ming THAT ACTUALLY GOES SOMEWHERE. Its not a case of "yeah, they're going to hook up", the game actually shows them confessing their love to another and ends with their wedding. Its a nice "from rags to riches" story that's actually believable...in that fictional way...and the fact they weren't afraid to be direct about Jansen's relationship with Ming allowed it to evolve.
IN BATTLE!? Early game he's frail as fuck cause your GC drops too quickly and that's the only thing that protects him, and he doesn't have much resources. Then you get Relax, which can be given to him via a Circlet, and suddenly his MP woes are mitigated significantly (not that MP Healing is hard to come by in items.) He's your offensive Spell Caster, and has more HP than Cooke, so giving her Black Magic accessory doesn't obsolete him. He also has stuff like Factual Analysis innately, Steal which you probably will never use, and Double Accessory is of course nice as it allows him to be more flexible than other Mortals.
IN A DUEL!? Probably Light. His good stuff has way too high charge time and he has no way to mitigate that, and the fastest stuff (the "us" spells) I can't imagine is all that good one on one. He has status but I'm not sold on their status rates. He also has like 10% HEALING...which is only 10% cause of his god awful durability.
Cooke: I don't how old she is suppose to be, so I'm going to say she's 10 years old cause she reminds me of my sister whose the same age! That said...she's actual 10 year old girl. She's smart and mature enough to understand what's going on, but only on a basic level. She doesn't try to butt-in and pretend she's more than she is, she lets the adults do the talking. She only acts like she's in charge around Mack, her little brother. Her looking up to Seth as a role model was a nice touch, as "hey, an awesome female pirate captain! I want to be strong like her!" so she's constantly cheering her on whenever she beats up Jansen and such. See, THIS is how you handle a "young but mature" character. You don't make them act ultra polite and going "I'm sorry for my brothers idiocy" and pretend they are equal to adults like they did with Porom in FF4, you just make them show a degree of comprehension and show they understand their place. To add to this, just some of the way she acts in battle, like yelling "BOOM!!" when casting a spell further cemented "yes, she's still a 10 year old girl." She's mature, yes, but she still has that innocent mischievous, wants to haev fun, etc. aspect that children generally have.
IN BATTLE!? Team White Mage. Now yes, this is kind of pointless with Immortals, and how you can hand White Magic to others, but when you consider she has Angel Heart, Reduce Casting Time, and Casting Support for Mid-Game MT damage smash, she's good for filling that extra role, despite her game-worst HP. Her spells come off fast, she has the MP to support them, and she keeps you alive while Sarah and Ming can take more integral roles. So yeah, decent "pure healer" character.
IN A DUEL!? Light. Divide isn't really helping her as its too slow (thankfully still turn 1!) and with Game Worst HP, she's relying on turtling and stick beat downs. yeah, that's not getting anywhere fast.
Mack: So naturally, being the 7 year old (yes, I decided he's 7, DEAL WITH IT) little brother of Cooke, he's going to be all HYPER ACTIVE IMMATURE BRAT WHO YOU WANT TO WRING THE NECK OF!? ...except not, cause Mack is NOT Palom. Mack is more the depressed little boy whose been through hardships despite his age, but is trying his best to deal with them, but being young and inexperienced, he doesn't know how too. Like Cooke, the big thing he has going for him is he actually feels his age. He's not just "another kid" but he comes off as genuinely younger than Cooke, and a lot more naive. One scene that stands out to me is in the Cirmson Forest. Mack says he went there cause he wanted to see Mom, and Cooke responds with "Mom's dead, Mack, we can't see her ever again." He says he knows, but its clear he hasn't fully accepted that his mother is actually not coming back until later. That seen really displayed how Cooke is already grown up enough to understand the harsh reality, while Mack is stuck in his own innocence that allows him to deny the harsh truth, despite knowing its nothing more than denial.
IN BATTLE!? ...why is the 7 year old boy more durable than half the cast? Yes, I know, gameplay balance and Mack was suppose to be the "Red Mage" of the team, given his attack is JUST high enough that he can do something approaching damage with Ring Support or using one of his physical skills, his speed is on Kaim's level, and he has MP and magic to support being a mage, but is clearly worse at it than specialists. He's also your source of Spirit Magic, thus main MT damage for a good part of the game, and has buffs. He sort of ended up in my final party by accident only cause it was his turn in the cycle, and I thought the final dungeon would be, you know...a dungeon. Not that Mortals actually play a genuine role in the final boss fight.
IN A DUEL!? Well, he has healing though I forget how good (you tend to never use it cause its just worse than White Magic), some buffs, and probably okish damage. I dunno, Middle? he has notably better durability than other Mages so he's got something I guess!
Ming: The Calm, attractive, rational Queen of Numara whose immortal, and a proper noble, thus contrasting the commoners (or in Jansen's case, A CLEAR BUM) the rest of the team is. She doesn't leave much of an impression, but she's hardly bad, just...I dunno how to say it. I will say however props to her for actually being OPEN about her relationship and intrigue with Jansen. No denial, no subtlety, and no shame; she's accepting that yes, she's fallen for this bum, but mostly because he's so different from everything else, and she can see the decent person he is underneath. Plus he adds excitement to her life. The fact that she openly kisses him at one point and blatantly confesses her love puts her far above most other "exists for a love story" females. I guess I like her but I can't really explain why!
IN BATTLE!? Immortal Mage #1, so she exists to nuke things, and heal your team. Her MP almost matters at first, though you teach he Relax, and she can last a while...then your MP gets too high for MP costs and you have plenty of MP Healing...then you get "Auto MP Restore" and well, now she's never running out of MP ever, even if you spam High end Composite Magic! Yeah, she's another staple in your team, cause well, immortal.
IN A DUEL!? Immortal, and one who REALLY relies on what you allow, so a big "OH GOD NO" to that.
Sarah: Kaim's wife from the past and still his wife to this day once they reunite after that catastrophe! For the most part, that's what she exists for. She's sort of like Rosa in that regard, except has a few notable advantages on Rosa...mostly she's not a major insult to feminism everywhere. Yes, Sarah is pretty standard in how she acts like a "sweet kind woman" and is smart and all that...even has a diary which was actually a cute way to allow her to remember Kaim but still have amnesia, and is a nice twist to the usual amnesiac always starting from scratch, like Kaim, Ming and Seth did....but her being female is never a negative factor of her character. She comes off as the "Team Mom" figure at times appropriately enough, as well as the team's encyclopedia at times (which makes sense given the circumstances), but she never once goes into a "DiD" moment barring when you first met her, and that was too surreal to really count and totally not a standard one. She was an actual adult female.
And since I covered all 4 characters of this group, I feel I need to highlight one thing:
The family formed by Kaim, Sarah, Cooke and Mack. I honestly thought this was very well handled as they actually FELT like a family, and they all needed each other. Cooke and Mack is all that is left of Kaim and Sarah's daughter, who they lost 30 years prior, and thus kind of fills the void, while Kaim and Sarah are there to be parents for Cooke and Mack. The way Sarah would actually be worried and protective of them, with the occasional loving embrace, and Kaim's "pat Mack on the head for encouragement" as well as the moment where Mack makes a major screw up, and Kaim reprimands him, but only by saying "You really had us worried" with an obvious tone of anger, but not actually taking it any further...yeah, felt like a genuine family. The ending only further secures that where Kaim and Sarah are just watching Cooke and Mack play and have fun at the beach, smiling at them, etc.
IN BATTLE!? ...see Ming. Really, she's literally Ming who joins later, thus with less skills initially (she catches up quickly) and SLIGHTLY HIGHER MAGIC POWER! Honestly, they should have given Ming at least SOME stat difference other than the slightly lower Magic compared to Sarah, like one girl should have had more HP or MP, while the other more Magic? Something to make Sarah not look flat out better than Ming BUT ONLY SUPERFICIALLY!!!
IN A DUEL!? She's a Ming Clone, so see her.
Tolten: Starts the game off as a noble who apparently fully accepted the disbanding of his own monarchy into a republic cause...we're not sure, I guess we're to assume he just has no interesting power. Then gets used by the villain, and re-instates the Monarchy and...well, ok, won't get into full details, but basically, Tolten is like Edward without the survivor's guilt nonsense. He's a person who clearly has no interest in ruling and has been pampered his entire life, so he knows nothing of how things actually WORK, and is easily pushed around. He slowly grows a backbone, and slowly recognizes "I'm in this position, I can't change this fact, I better actually take some damn responsibility." He always sounds like a spoiled brat granted, but that's mostly the VA. He's also a nice contrast to Ming in some regards. Ming is like him, a ruler of a country, but she's experienced and knows exactly what goes into this, and understands she needs to take risks and make some really hard decisions. Tolten...is basically hoping everything is given to him on a silver platter, and that he can get away with just being a Puppet Ruler, slowly learning "no, that's not how things work", as being a puppet ruler = he's expendable, and well, that is kind of what happens!
IN BATTLE!? LVP overall. His Attack is just too low despite getting really strong weapons early, and he really needed the 2 Accessory ability, if only cause GOD DAMN does he get some awesome unique stuff. I guess he gets points for "Royal Equipment" that allows the Immortals to learn a lot of the broken goodness he gives (even if Auto Barrier and Auto Shield are kind of meaningless when a character HAS THEM INNATELY, and thus serve no purpose other than to give him those abilities...) Guess he deserves points for being only Mortal who can null elements, and will probably be the highest survivable character due to being able to equip Max HP Up 4 Accessory, Persistence ability, and a few other defensive tricks. He's not USELESS, but he clearly feels game worst.
IN A DUEL!? I guess he can take a few hits and Power Hit might be good damage, but I'd need to look at averages. His accessories if you allow them (cause technically Immortals can use them too) are a nice boon and good for spoiling.
Sed: Basically exists to be Tolten's foil. Instead of being a young, stuck up spoiled brat, we have an experienced, worldly BAD ASS pirate whose also a technological genius. He was kind of introduced a little too fast though. He's mentioned in Seth's dream sequences once, then suddenly he gets mentioned out of nowhere ON DISC 3, and very shortly after, we meet him. I understand they wanted emotional build up for Seth and Sed's reunion, but they could have noted him earlier in the game, and made Seth have that extra motivation. That said, he's just a fun guy in general. His relationship with Seth was kind of awkward though but then againthe guy is in his 40s and calling his mother who looks to be half his age "Momma", so I'm pretty sure that was intended. Tolten even goes out of his way to say "Don't you think its weird a man of your age is using that term!?" The way he interacts with Tolten was just fun too, what with Sed not giving Tolten any respect but Tolten is determined to earn it, and then in the ending, its Tolten whose encouraging Sed to move on, while Sed's basically given up. Granted, the reasoning was because "Tolten is younger, so he's withstanding this better" but still, the fact that Tolten was the one holding Sed up instead of the other way around was quite a contrast. Also, Sed has a GUN AXE. Yes, I mean similar to the original Black Power Ranger; its a big rifle that has an axe attached to it. Thankfully, its used logically, as its clear its primarily a Gun, and the Axe is just a compliment ala a Bayonette's blade, so its just there if he runs out of ammo (which he never does, so we never see him USE the axe.)
IN BATTLE!? Sed is actually a really cool idea that would have been brilliant if the game was harder. His weapon seems to ignore any back row penalties (actually, are there back row penalties? I could never tell!), but he's a tank and could easily go in the front lines. So what's good about this? He has Taunt. Shove him in the back row, taunt an enemy with dangerous ST damage, suddenly you have a tanky character taking the hit for the team WHILE benefitting from GC Defensive Bonuses *AND* your GC doesn't lower. Really need concept...pity you never really care. Thankfully, Sed ahs other things, mostly notably, best Item Boy, with all those item buffing skills, best passive PC cause of DOuble SP/Gold/EXP/Loot, *AND* he has Auto Barrier and Auto Shield, allowing Kaim and Seth to be EVEN TANKIER (this isn't as broken as it sounds, as Lost Odyssey has 2 levels of defensive buffs, so this is just level 1. You can still stack Level 2 ON TOP of that, of course, though I think it just overrides the previous buffs.) unlike Tolten, his damage didn't suck when he attacked physically, so he felt like a genuine 3rd physical damage dealer...and he's almost as fast as Seth. If I actually cared about that 5th slot, I'd have seriously given him consideration for it.
IN A DUEL!? Some High Middle. Given Special Accessory, he's got access to the Angel Guard which gives him Status Immunity, and given he's decently tanky, he can probably slug fest a good deal of middle.
And lastly, done entirely in spoiler tags cause by nature, its hard to talk about him without being a spoiler:
Gongora: Ah, yes, the antagonist. Props to the game for trying to throw us off early on by making him not seem like a bad guy, and doing an actual good job of making him almost seem like a victim of the senate's assumptions...then the Tolten stuff kicks in and it diverts slowly, such that by the end of Disc 1, its clear he's obviously the bad guy. From here on in, the game just throws subtlety out the window, and goes "This guy is evil, he's immortal, and he doesn't have amnesia so he knows more than the rest of the team!" He's not a well developed villain or unique or anything like that...but he still does the role fine. Why? Cause he is clearly a threat, and its clear he's just a corrupt bastard who became mad with power. Easy to see how too. The other 4 immortals all had something to hold onto, or before they got that, some kind of perspective in life that allowed them to just move on and not care about power. I recently saw a claim that a villain doesn't have to be elaborate or in-depth to be well done if they're just trying to come off as "Generic Evil", they just need to be a genuine threat to the team. Gongora fills that role well enough. He's nothing special or anything, but he's hardly bad, so..."adequate" I guess <.<?
That's it for characters. Other things...well, Music is Uematsu stuff and there's some good stuff in there (Boss Theme, Grand Staff 2's theme, Final Boss Theme, and Overworld all come to mind)...its a notable improvement over Blue Dragon's which was mostly forgettable.
Oh and of course, there are the dream sequences. I...really don't have much to say about this other than them being really good. Well written, plays to your emotions, music playing in the background often helped establish the mood, and entirely optional! Its exactly how "Back story Padding" should be done. Its not important, but its nice to learn tibits of Kaim's 1000 year life (or in some cases, Ming and Seth) that have NOTHING to do with the main story, more just show the stuff that Kaim has been through, both the good and bad. They do a good range of "genuinely sad and melancholy" to "bittersweet." I say Bittersweet cause there's very few that can be considered 100% good, as by nature, the good ones are just fleeting moments in Kaim's life, and further establish his nature, as while the world around him changes everyday, he is completely static.
So overall? Game's probably an 8/10. It was a much better game than I expected, and a good experience overall; the difficulty in the latter half is its main weakness, but otherwise, it doesn't really have any notable flaws. At worst, its "problems" are that it isn't EXCEPTIONAL in areas, just merely good.
