Reviews
Japanese role-playing games have become something of a rare breed in recent years to an extent that outside of the huge Final Fantasy series’ you’d be hard pressed to count up the number of Japanese RPG’s to hit our western shores with one hand. With Western developers always inclined to release more action orientated RPG’s such as Mass Effect or Fable this downshift in popularity of the niche genre is compounded even further when you take into consideration that the Xbox 360, like its previous brethren has failed to penetrate the huge Japanese game market as much as we would like. Thankfully start-up developer Mistwalker Studios still refuses to break with this honourable tradition. Helmed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (reputedly the father of Final Fantasy) and having had some success with its first effort Blue Dragon we are grateful to now receive Lost Odyssey, a turn-based Japanese role-playing game in the truest form. Spanning some 50-60 hours of gameplay over four DVDs Lost Odyssey ties in everything fans love about JPRG’s whilst delivering a much more mature experience.
The story opens in spectacular form introducing the main protagonist Kaim Argonar, a 1000 year old immortal fighting amidst a huge battlefield before a meteor crashes wiping out most of the armies involved. From this epic beginning Lost Odyssey attempts to envelop the player into a world full of political drama with the threat of all out war ever present. At the same time the game slowly unveils the real plot surrounding Kaim and his broken past. Having lost all of his memories he is a tortured soul who slowly begins to uncover his past through flashbacks and dreams, piecing together the truth that will be the key to solving the real reason for the current state of turmoil. Similarly other immortals enter the story that share the identical symptoms of amnesia and as the past slowly unveils itself to link to the present the main story arc pales into insignificance as the history of the immortals shows itself to be the more engaging sub-plot.
Indeed it is safe to say that the main bulk of the story in Lost Odyssey is completely cliche, drawn out and wholly predictable but it is the back story of the immortals which keeps the player compelled to see it through to its inevitable conclusion. It is also safe to say any RPG worth the price of admission lives and dies on the strength of its storyline. Here in Lost Odyssey though the main story runs the gauntlet of becoming formulaic in the extreme its saving grace is its more mature approach to dialogue as these main characters develop throughout the game. Sure there are still plenty of throwaway humorous conversations, childish party members that fit all the required stereotypes seen in previous JRPG’s but at the same time tucked away amongst this generalised approach are some much more serious themes. Most revolve around Kaim himself, starting as quite the loner but soon progressively evolving into a man suffering some true agony handled quite deftly with dialogue that isn’t so much spoon fed emotion but that shows more in what it doesn’t say directly.
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