Totilo: Lost Odyssey is a slow-paced, well-written game

that it IS* a 360 RPG


Sorry for that, it's late/early here.

Basically, it is just a 360 JRPG, made by some top JRPG talent in Japan.

Story is about a man who has lived 1,000 yrs, but does not remember his life. Flashbacks ensue. Seems like pretty standard JRPG stuff, and they are working the story angle to move the game.

I'm buying it.

Its so refreshing to see a long story driven game developed and released amidst all of the gore crazy alien shooters that we've seen recently. Definite buy.

Its geared towards Western audiences though. I dunno if that negates its "JRPG" status.

it's definitely not geared towards western audiences, or if it is they failed miserably because that's about as japanese as an RPG can get.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3157756

*shrug*

Make with it what you will, I don't remember where I first heard about the western thing though...

Remember in FF6 how you break into the Narshe cave and start fighting right away? And in FF7 how you jump off a train and start kicking ass? FF8 with it's beach invasion? That's how you start a game.

Over 50 hours of gameplay, I have to figure you can weave in slow/boring stuff in the middle. Grab my attention at the beginning. Hardcore gamers (this game's audience) do not want two hour tutorials.

Lol then stay away from Fire Emblem for the Ds. The whole first part of the game is a tutorial.

Theres a fire emblem for the DS? want...

Well, RPGs are for people who like to think and enjoy a good and deep story; not for you I guess.

@ark_v2 - "Well, RPGs are for people who like to think and enjoy a good and deep story; not for you I guess."

I said the same thing. But then I realized that the only reason I play RPGs is because I lacked the skill to play other genres. Since that realization, I've made the effort to play the "twitch" games; I'm still not very good at them.

It is much more rewarding to be a game based on your skill, rather than your ability to level up based on randomly generated rolls. And I've never seen stories more engrossing in any RPG than those found in Bioshock, The Orange Box, or Call of Duty 4. RPGs stories get too bloated.

/end rant

@captain
its a different type of skill to play (good) RPG's.
sure its not twitch (unless its an action rpg with no wait between actions) but it takes alot of skill and actual thinking to defeat mobs. you dont just throw out a fireII on every mob, boss, or npc you see... you have to actually use youre brain... OH NOES!

"It is much more rewarding to be a game based on your skill, rather than your ability to level up based on randomly generated rolls."

Finally someone who gets it, and who is humble enough to point out the major distinction between genres! You are a special person to recognize this. Unfortunately if you go over to Kotaku and spout this your head will be on a platter. JRPG's are the least skillfull of all genres, I know it pains many to say this but its true. It requires more skill to play a twitch game than to navigate through scripted battles, now does this make the JRPG genre an inferior genre, no. One is an interactive movie and other genres represent a pure form of gaming. Yet you have JRPG die hards saying the FPS genre is full of meatheads and uncultured ADD troglodytes. Yet if you put a die hard JRPG fan in front of Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 they probably would get their butts handed to them in a second because it requires a level of honed skill to master a competitive FPS whereas any person with any type of video game experience can play an JRPG and know the ins and outs of combat in a matter of minutes. I am not trying to put down the JRPG genre by any means because it does offer a unique experience but the G in JRPG is misleading.

Also what if someone is tired of Anime, or Manga and wants to play a Japanese RPG with a different style of animation? They can't its impossible and Squeenix and other Japanese developers need to recognize this, look at Lost Odyssey's character design, at least they are trying.

but think of the synergy!

I am happily playing FFX for the first time (thank you BC PS3!) - just defeated Seymore on Mt Gagazet last night. I think it's a great game - however not twitchy - and yes lots of opportunities to get up and make some popcorn during the FMV cut scenes.

But really for me it's all about a change of pace - I love the shooters and I love the RPGs but they are like chocolate and coffee too much and you get sick.

Oh please give it a rest.

I agree...

And please stop bitching about load times...whether its 15 seconds or 1 minute its NOT the end of the world. Surely you've got more patience than that of a 2 year old.

To the guy above me.. I don't have a PS3 but I can certainly say for a game like this that is supposed to be an immersive experience, long load times certainly would be a pain. I mean as it is you're already "playing" the game for 2 hours before you actually PLAY. So what's worse than WATCHING your video game? WAITING to watch it.

Lol @ the idea that swapping discs every 12.5 game-hours is "constantly swapping discs." Also, the PS3 is not immune to load times.

Actually, the PS3 is far more susceptible to load times, because the Blu-Ray drive is slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w. In order to get better load times, a lot of games have content REPEATED several times on the disc. That's why Microsoft opted out of including a HD-DVD drive to play games - they went with the faster disc.

That is so not relevant to the topic, please go hang yourself.

every word of dialogue in mass effect is spoken and skippable. Most of lost odyssey's text is not spoken from what i heard, which imo is totally unacceptable in a modern RPG.

I'd just say good story and gameplay are what's important in a modern RPG.

By your standards I wonder if you're equating FFX-2 to Lost Odyssey LAWL.

well no, at least not yet cause i haven't played odyssey. I'm hoping that i dont have to ever compare it to the abomination that was FF 10-2

" do yourself a favor--don't be a fanboy--get all the systems."

Yea let me get right on that easy task. Let's see....only $1053 to boot? Sign me up!

Think he means that some games (like upcoming DMC4) have the option of installing to the harddrive. People have calculated that load times diminish to about a third of the 360's load time for that game so its pretty awesome for PS3 owners.

Also, to put it simply (cuz I'm not that deeply technical myself), the DVD drive has a variable read time depending on where the data is stored on the DVD, while Blu-ray contains a constant speed. So the fact that the 360 has faster read times is a bit blurred.

Actually, the BR drive reads at a constant rate across that disc that isn't much slower than the average speed of the 360's drive. DVD drives read faster at one edge of the disc and slower at the other, some parts of the disc are actually read slower than BR discs in the PS3. I think it should be obvious by now that load times are often dependent upon developers decisions. That why you have games like this and Mass Effect that have bad load times on the supposedly faster reading 360. There are games on the PS3 that load slowly and games that have no discernable or short load times.

As I mentioned, the install to hard drive is what would speed it up for us. Yes, blu-ray's transfer speed on a 2x reader, like the one in the PS3, is slower than 12x DVD reader in the 360. But many games still have no loading times. Uncharted is a huge game with a ton of data to get off the disc - it doesn't even do an install, and it still has no load times.

As for getting all the systems - I patently don't want a wii. About the only game I want for it is Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

I'll get a 360 when there's a compelling reason to do so, and when I don't have to wonder how long it'll be until it breaks. Right now there's very little to draw me to the 360. The market is flooded with FPS's, and what does the 360 offer besides that? Not much.

I am a fanboy, but not a rabid one. I like Live and wish the PSN had more of those features. I think the 360 has some great games, there just aren't enough of them that are unique enough to get me to pay an extra $450 to get them.

@Nate

"I'll get a 360 when there's a compelling reason to do so"


Wow thats the first time Ive ever heard that. Its always the other way around. Hmmm...wierd.

*Hears the twilight zone music*

@Fenix -

I know it sounds odd. But with a lot of the best games being multiplatform, and several of the non-PS3 games being available on PC... the 360 exclusive list just doesn't draw me in. Halo 3? Good game, but I'm not lacking in FPS's. Gears? See Halo 3. Uhh... Forza? Got enough driving games. Mass Effect? Ok, there's one that I would really like to be able to play.... and that's about it.

So... from the position of someone who already has a PS3 and has to justify $350 for a 360 pro, $50 for Live, and then $30-ish for a wifi adapter (I'm not spending $100 on the official 360 one... what a total ripoff!)... $430 as an entry fee just so I can play Mass Effect? I can't justify it.

I don't know what you are talking about, Dragon Quest 8 was awesome.

I guess.. if all you care about is pointless level grinding and a terrible story with terrible characters of which are terrible.

Did you even play Dragon Quest 8? Yangus is terrible? You have no heart.