Lost Odyssey is a throwback in almost every way, but in my eyes, that isn't a bad thing, and we will hopefully see more.
The very first tip-off to how nostalgic this game will make you is the fact that it comes on 4 discs. I have never understood the griping that goes along with multiple disc games, but I changed disc 1 after about 9 hours of playtime, disc 2 after about 18 hours, and disc 3 after about 25 hours. So somewhere between 25-30 hours later you will be done changing discs, and even then, you will have sunk a considerable amount of time into the game. I don't really see the big deal here. In addition to the swapping, I installed the discs using NXE's install feature. I noticed a very slight decrease in load times, but I would recommend only installing the 4th disc, as you will spend the most time on that one finishing up side quests and the like.
As for the content on each disc, there are a lot of really good cut scenes to expand the story. While the graphics in the game are hardly mind-blowing, they are decent enough. The cut scenes vary from full-on CG with voices, to in-game scenes with voices where you have to hit 'A' to advance, to in-game scenes without voices where you have to hit 'A' to advance. I wish the latter would have been dropped completely, as it was sometimes hard to keep track of who says what, but overall it was ample. While on the subject of scenes, the voice work in the game is ace. Each character has a personality, and the acting matches them pretty well, though Jansen does get a bit annoying in some spots.
The story contains several JRPG standards, the main being amnesia for the main character. When they first introduced that I groaned a bit, but when you learn the reasoning behind it, it makes sense. Without giving away anything, some of the characters are immortal, though at first you don't know why or how. These immortals are the ones without their memories, but you learn a bit as the game progresses. Some of the memories for the main character, Kaim, are brought out through dream sequences. These dreams are sparked from events or people in the game world and are then displayed as short stories. They range from tales of battle to tales of sorrow, and some are really quite beautiful. Most are found through the storyline, but all 30+ of them are worth seeking out.
In terms of sidequests, there are not a ton of them, but they are worthwhile for the most part. Immortal characters learn skills from accessories and also from mortal characters. Mortal characters learn skills as they level up, and are completely skilled by level 52 (with one character being done by 49). The mortal characters learn skills based on their archetype, so the 'healer' character, Cooke, learns white magic based skills for the most part. Getting the mortals maxed out isn't so much of a struggle, but to max out the immortals will take a large chunk of time. To max out one immortal character, you need to learn every skill from every maxed out mortal character (there are five mortals) AND learn every skill from every accessory, even if they overlap with skills learned from mortals. There are over 150 accessories, and obtaining some of them is a feat in and of itself, like collecting all 99 seeds.
If you're like me, and you absolutely need to do as many sidequests as you can, and try to max out your favored characters there is a lot of grinding you will need to do. By the time I had reached the 4th disc I was only level 30-35 for all the characters. Leveling characters is a bit different from leveling skill points to learn accessories for immortals, too, though both are related. Most of the sidequests are for powerful spells and/or accessories, so if you are a completionist, be prepared for some grinding and backtracking to get everything.
Without level grinding some of the bosses and even some of the enemies pose quite a challenge. At first, I was getting destroyed on a fairly regular basis, barely making my way past some of the boss battles. Once I started taking better advantage of save points and items, it was less of a struggle, and once I did an hour or so of level grinding, I was back on track for easier battles. For people that play RPGs but only stick to the story, you may have some difficulty near the end, especially considering that immortals need time to learn skills that help make battles much easier. So, in order to truly take full advantage of some having a solid party, be prepared to at least do some sidequesting, or stat padding.
Grinding may turn off some less devoted folks, but fortunately, the battle system is quite simple and I liked it immediately. It is turn based, and almost taken entirely from an earlier Square game. Everything is there that you would expect, though I wish there were summon spells for some more flair. Aside from the standard black and white magics, there are spirit magics, which are stat boosting for the most part, and also composite magic. Composite magic is a little different, but it is what it sounds like, the combination of spells to make a larger, more effective spell. While it's nice, I would have liked to be able to combine my own spells, like you can with some of the ring accessories.
The rings are another major component of battles. Rings are accessories that have certain attributes associated with them, some cause status ailments, some have elemental effects, some steal items, some are a combination of several of those things. You can find them, buy them, but most importantly you can create them. Creatures drop rare items after most battles, and these rare items can be combined to create rings with corresponding effects. Obtain enough items to meet the requirements of a ring, and you can create the ring. Rings also have levels, so you can continue upgrading them to be more effective. In battle, in addition to the status effects, holding down the right trigger for a regular attack is sort of a mini-game where you have to get a ring inside a target ring. Have the ring match up perfectly nets a 'perfect' and more damage is done, you have better chance of a critical hit and/or the rings effects.
When it comes to achievements, Lost Odyssey has some of the best for an RPG. Instead of the standard fare of all collection-based achievements (get 100% of ___) they are somewhat diverse. The game starts you off with some easy ones, and then you get 125 pointers for finishing every disc. However, after the initial achievements, the next ones I got were for finishing discs 1, 2, and 3. It was not until the 4th disc that I started getting other achievements, so there is a bit of a long stretch there. Just for beating the game, you are guaranteed 500 points just from those achievements, though, which is nice. The rest of the achievements are for leveling up characters, learning all skills for immortals, finding all spells, and extra boss fights. They aren't worth much, but if you do sidequests, you will end up with a lot of them.
Overall, Lost Odyssey is familiar. It probably doesn't do anything new if you have been playing RPGs for the past 20 years, like I have. However, I don't see that as a bad thing, necessarily. RPGs haven't changed drastically in that time, and maybe they don't need to. A lot of the components of this game work now just as well as they first did, the only difference is their age. It's almost nostalgic playing this game, and I was frequently reminded of RPG gems like Final Fantasy 7. I truly hope that we see more installments in the Lost Odyssey franchise, as the groundwork laid is both solid and engrossing. As far as JRPGs on the Xbox 360 go, this is definitely worth playing.