A must have game for anyone who loves depth of character, customization and story.
1. Voice acting: 9.5
-If Final Fantasy 12 has Balthier then Lost Odyssey has Jensen. Jensen is a scene stealer just like Balthier.
2. Translation and storytelling: 10.00
-Dialogue is amazing with 5 different languages to choose from.
-The built-in literature for the 1000 Dreams is an amazine 'ebook' by itself. Whoever wrote that has to be commended for his story telling. The presentation just blew me away.
3. Graphics and Visualization: 9.5
-Amazing attention to detail best viewed on an HDTV. The hues and the shading is a sight to behold and the monsters and enemies are really INTIMIDATING and FORMIDABLE to look at. The special effects gets kudos. A good job by the artists and animators who created this game.
4. Experience and characters:10.0
-You will really care about each characters in this game. The maker of the game wanted to create in anyone to play the game empathize and make an attachment to their struggles in their journey.
CONS:
1. Story: 7.0
-Not that much deep as FFantasy 7 or Xenogears, Chronotrigger or Xenosaga. More like a step lower than FF X-2
2. Load times: 7.5
-Lots of it during the beginning of battles and when going from one room or dungeon to the next. HOWEVER, this does not distract you from playing the game. The loading time is less than 5-7 seconds. Again this is hardly annoying. Persona 3 has more annoying load times than this game.
3. Frame rate issues in some areas: 7.5
-There are choppiness during some scenes but again this is minor
4. LOUD XBOX 360: 1.0
-When playing an RPG, you should be able to enjoy and listen to the orchestrated music during gameplay. The loud fan of the XBOX 360 just ruined the experience. If there is a time to use the Hard drive, this should be the game to do it.
5. Packaging: 0.00
- It has 4 DVD discs and they crammed(literally) all the discs inside with the 4th CD on a separate PAPER SLEEVE! Talk about poor presentation. There is a great chance that your precious dvd will be scratched and damage when storing them even before you finish the game. Shame on you Microsoft!
Conclusion: 8.5
As JRPG fan, I would recommend this a must buy. You will get your money's worth compared to buying the same old FPS, Sports or RAcing game for your Xbox 360. I just hope that they could port this game on a PS3 so I can enjoy the games ambience and great storytelling without being annoyed by the Xbox 360's 'vacuum' sound effects.
UPDATE(Nov 2008): After installing the game on the HDD, made possible by the NXE, the game now is much more enjoyable to play. You can now hear and enjoy the soundtrack, dialog and sound effects. The loading times IMPROVES dramatically and corrected some framerate issues!! Definitely the BEST JRPG on the system. The only thing that preventing me to elevate the score above 9.0 would be to allow gamers to just use 1 single DVD for authentication when playing different parts of the game. Its tedious to reload a cutscene for disc1 while you are on disc4. Only a minor thing but hopefully it will be done.