![]() ![]() One innovation Lost Odyssey brings is the Aim Ring System. Turn order is handled similarly to the older Final Fantasy titles, where it’s based on the speed of each character or enemy, although there are skills and other factors that can affect the turn order. Combat is, naturally, a turn-based affair, with your party of up to five characters facing off against a group of enemies and taking turns whacking them with swords, staves, and other accouterments. The encounter rate is reasonable in the grand scheme of things, and I rarely felt like I could not take a step before being launched into another battle. Random encounters are the name of the game in Lost Odyssey: while navigating field areas or dungeons, fights will pull you in. ![]() One of the many bosses you’ll square off against. These stories are poignant, tragic, and above all, hopeful, touching on the nature of mortality and what people will do in the face of it, be it for their own sake or the sake of their loved ones. The use of text to convey Kaim’s past is one of Lost Odyssey’s claims to fame, and it’s a unique stylistic choice that does well to set the game apart from its contemporaries. As the story progresses, you’ll unlock Kaim’s lost memories, presented to the player as a written short story. This is captured beautifully in the Thousand Years of Dreams, a collection of short stories penned by famous Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu and translated into English by Harvard academic Jay Rubin for the game. Despite this, the story is more about the tenacity of mortal life and how ordinary people use finite time to burn all the brighter than it is about the sadness of one man. Kaim’s life has been somber and solitary, persisting through the ages as the ephemeral lives around him wither and die. Lost Odyssey’s opening scenes immediately set a striking tone. Accompanied by fellow immortal Seth Balmore and the lecherous mage Jansen Friedh, Kaim sets out to investigate the source of the meteor shower, gradually recruiting new allies while discovering who he is and unveiling the true purpose of the immortals along the way. As it turns out, Kaim is an immortal who has been around for a thousand years and has participated in countless wars, yet has no recollection of his past. But something goes horribly wrong, and a cataclysmic meteor shower engulfs the battlefield, killing everyone except for Kaim, who survives miraculously unscathed. Amidst the turmoil is a lone warrior: our protagonist, Kaim Argonar, carving a path through those who stand in his way with minimal effort. Amidst this chaotic backdrop, two armies clash on the Wohl Highlands, with neither side giving an inch of ground. This discovery has rapidly changed how society functions in a short period, causing significant shifts in industry, commerce, and war. The world of Lost Odyssey occurs after a Magic-Industrial Revolution, following the discovery of latent magical energy that permeates the world. Like a band getting back together to play their greatest hits, Lost Odyssey is a game fashioned by absolute masters of their craft, and it’s incredible. I’ll put this bluntly: if you’re the sort of gamer who wants Final Fantasy to return to its turn-based roots, you owe it to yourself to play Lost Odyssey. Fifteen years after its initial release, I finally played it, and I’m extremely glad I did. I missed it when it first came out, as a Nintendo and Sony kid during the late aughts, but while Lost Odyssey hadn’t been a sales juggernaut, those who had played it swore by it, with many calling it “the true Final Fantasy XIII” (a game I happen to like, but that’s a whole other conversation. Lost Odyssey, the second game put out by the studio and developed by Feelplus, is a game I’ve meant to play for a long time. It was, in short, not a great time to be a JRPG fan.Įnter Mistwalker Studios, a company formed by legendary Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi following his departure from Square Enix. Anyone active on the Internet during this time would likely hear Phil Fish’s quote “Japanese games suck” taken as gospel rather than as the short-sighted and disrespectful statement it was. ![]() As technology and design trends shifted in favor of more Western sensibilities, so did popular perception. The ballooning costs of high-definition game development and the rising popularity of mobile devices meant that the kind of big-budget experiences console players craved were few and far between. The seventh generation of consoles was an… interesting time for the Japanese game industry. ![]()
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