After what has seemed like an eternity I finally had some time to play Lost Odyssey after a couple weeks since my last session. I made quite a bit of progress this time, and completed disc 1.

One thing I have to get out of the way right off the bat is that this game is hard. As a self-proclaimed RPG veteran, even I have been having problems with some of the encounters in this game, almost to the point where it is absolutely ridiculous. That being said, the great thing about Lost Odyssey is the fact that even though you can get into an encounter that is seemingly impossible to win unless you go grind 20 levels, there generally is a method to win but Lost Odyssey makes you figure it out without giving you any goddamn clue as to how to beat it. Despite the fact that a particular battle against 3 infantry men and 2 calvalry right after meeting Cooke and Mack made me want to throw my Xbox 360 off my house's balcony I have found the experience refreshing as well as definitely rewarding too. I have felt a great sense of satisfaction of finally figuring out a strategy that works during these encounters.

Aside from that I'll go ahead and point out that the first boss of the game was another battle which to me seemed genuinly impossible, funnily enough the reason why it seemed impossible was because I was trying to set up my defenses before attacking. After I got royally pwned I decided to just try and unleash a barrage of non-stop attacks from the get-go without any healing or defensive spells whatsoever and I dispatched of the boss quite easily.

The second boss was a bit different, in that I had a significant problem surviving the battle once the second worm appeared, mostly due to the fact that I didn't have a way of protecting myself against paralyzation. I managed to devise a strategy that would allow me to dispose of the first worm without him being able to use his super attack, but seeing as how the second one appears with his super attack charged up already I ran into a significant snag. I went back and looked through my menu and discovered that I had an item which could teach Kaim and Seth paralyze immunity, so I had to do a bit of grinding to teach them that ability. Once they learned it I put the item on Jansen and the fight was a relative breeze.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that in a lot of RPGs you can go into most boss fights without that much preparation and usually throughout the fight you can figure out the boss' strategy, attack patterns, etc and come out with a win by adapting your strategy to the boss. Lost Odyssey is not so similar. Lost Odyssey really feels like if you go into a fight without any pre-conceived plan whatsoever you will get completely decimated. Once I knew what I was up against by getting royally pwned once or twice I generally devised fool-proof strategies that allowed me to win without too much difficulty. In a way it's kind of annoying, but at the same time I guess it's good to have a challenge too. Although I didn't find the last boss on disc 1 difficult at all and actually beat this boss in my first try. This boss was significantly easier to deal with than the previous two, as well as the soldier fight. I don't even know if the soldier fight qualifies as a boss fight... more of a semi-boss but I feel almost ridiculous admitting that I lost this fight at LEAST 5 times in a row, maybe even closer to 10 before I finally figured out a way to win. For anyone who has played this who may be thinking I am a complete noob for losing this fight I will point out that I was level 17 at the time. The main reason why I had so much trouble with this encounter was because the two calvalry soldiers were in the back row. The way Lost Odyssey works for the uninitiated is that the characters in the front row create a guard meter that makes it so anyone in the back row takes massively reduced damage to the point where attacking them is completely futile. You must weaken the frontline before you can get rid of the guys in the back. The problem was that they kept using this attack called "Rush" that was dealing 300 damage a hit, and they could effectively kill Kaim and Seth in 2 hits depending on their HP level, and Jansen in 1 hit depending on his HP level. This made the fight extremely frustrating, and I actually beat the fight finally by spamming flare bombs with Kaim and Seth as they allowed me to attack FIRST. This way I was able to quickly dispose of the soldiers in 2 turns, thus destroying the guard meter and then taking out the calvalry before they could take me out with their rush attacks. There was also a bit of luck involved in this fight though too... seeing as how if the cavalry decided to use rush right off the bat I could have potentially stood no chance regardless of what I chose to do.

Anyway, I'm done rambling about the difficulty of the game. It's not as hard as I am making it sound, it was generally just the boss fights on disc 1 aside from the last one that game me trouble. What I do what to talk about is the theme of this game so far. Lost Odyssey has no problem pulling at the heart strings, and one scene in particular near the end of disc 1 literally moved me to tears. If you've played Lost Odyssey you most likely know what part I am referring to, but I won't talk about it because it's a pretty significant scene, as well as a pretty big spoiler too. Man, am I turning into a big softy or what? :P But in all seriousness, this scene was beautifully conveyed to the player and the facial expressions, voice acting, emotions of the characters as well as the absolutely beautiful music combines to just make some really emotionally impactful scenes. The first dream from the Thousand Years of Dreams about the little girl also really got to me emotionally too. There's just so much sadness in Lost Odyssey so far and I'm really looking forward to seeing where the plot goes, especially dealing with Kaim's immortality. A central theme in Losy Odyssey so far has been death, as well as dealing with issues of existentialism which is something I also find pretty fascinating. It's funny how people always say stuff like it would be awesome if they could live forever... but then you experience Kaim's life and memories in Lost Odyssey and it kind of hits you what it would really be like, and it doesn't seem all that great either.

I'll end this here before this gets way too out of hand but Lost Odyssey has been pretty amazing so far. I really like Kaim as a character. I find him extremely refreshing from the usual RPG heroes. A lot of people kind of associate characters like Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart as "typical RPG heroes" when they really arn't. Hey, I can admit that maybe some features about them are typical of RPG heroes, but their personalities definitely are not. People always go on these tyrades about blah blah cold anti-social RPG heroes, when in retrospect... there really aren't that many. Who else is there outside of Cloud and Squall? Kaim Argonar is the first I've encountered since I played those two games. I guess I prefer these types of characters though because they are more reflective of how I am, so I find it easier to relate to them than people like Zidane, Tidus, or any other happy-go-lucky dude that doesn't have a care in the world. Although I wouldn't say I don't enjoy these characters either, Zack Fair is one of the most out-going and expressive main characters I've ever seen in an RPG and he totally grew on me to the point where he's probably extremely high on my list of favourite video game characters.

As for the rest of the cast, well Seth is alright. I don't really know what to think of her yet. I guess I would say I'm neutral at this point. She's a fairly decent character and has a refreshing design from most female RPG characters, but her character development hasn't really gone anywhere yet. She has a likable personality, but like I said I don't really know anything about her aside from the fact that she is there and thinks Jansen is annoying so... hopefully her life will get a bit more fleshed out further into the game. Jansen is a mix of humourous and irritating, and I'm not really sure what to make of him at this point. I don't dislike the guy, but I find that I go back and forth between finding him kind of charming in a way, to thinking he's a dirtbag. I guess this is probably what they were trying to do, but it seems like everytime Jansen looks like he's starting to have a conscious his worst features start to come back out again. I actually surprisingly like both of the kids so far too. Some of the scenes with them were a bit... odd (mostly the first one) and in a way kind of cheesy, but hey, they're kids, so what do you expect. There's something kind of amusing about them though - they remind me of Palom and Porom from FFIV.

Well I guess that about covers it. Feel free to share any thoughts about Lost Odyssey in the comments. I figure I'll probably update my thoughts on the game as each disc ends, and maybe if all goes according to plan I might actually write a review for it if I feel up to it.

As an aside, I attempted to write a review for Crysis a week or so ago. It never really came to a form that I was pleased with so I saved it and then just kind of stashed it away for later. I'm not sure if I'll go back to the text I have or just start again completely from scratch. I think I my have waited too long after I finished it (beat it in January) to review it, because I have found that the way I was reviewing the game felt really stale to me. Ah well, I'll get it eventually.

Oh, I also bought Fable II. I haven't tried it yet, I kind of want to concentrate of Lost Odyssey, as well as finish up Gears of War 2 first before I move onto that. I'm definitely looking forward to it though, I LOVE the original Fable. (especially The Lost Chapters).

Well then... until next time, folks.