My review for Lost Odyssey is now up:

Lost Odyssey - the JRPG for Next-Gen Gaming!

[QUOTE="yahoosoda"]

Some of the reviews out there for Lost Odyssey are saying that the game requires so much grind/power-leveling to advance and beat the bosses. I have managed to disprove this and have beaten the game at level 48, with over 52 hours of play without finishing the sidequests and getting the superweapons.

My husband made a post about it here:

http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-completed-at-level-48.html

I was able to beat the game using purely strategy and a good understanding of how the turn based combat system works. You can check the gamercard 'Tankblitzer' to see proof that I have indeed finished it.

I will be posting screenshots and my own impressions later on on our blog, http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com

Tree06

Sweet do you plan on going through the game again to get the rest of the achievements?

It's my husband who will play the game with a completionist stance---he wants to get all the superweapons and maximize the exploration. There's also benefit to exploring because you get some extra cutscenes which highlight your characters.

hey, a quick question, are the technical issues & loading times as detrimental to the gameplay as ive heard in reviews? or are they just minor flaws that can be overlooked? (like Oblivion)steveslugga

I think they're minor flaws because they only happen during cutscenes and not gameplay. Also, the combat is turn based so the graphical glitches hardly affect your game. During exploration you also don't get any graphical glitches.

For the most part, many of the cutscenes are watchable even with few occasions of framerate problems and tearing.

And in some cases, the game can get quite beautiful. UE3 seems to be tailored for a specific type of environment. Anything dark with a lot of 'dirty' textures always looks great on UE3 and that's how it is on Lost Odyssey, too.

Right now I'm editing some photos I took of the ending and my characters stats and items before I finished the game. I'll be posting this in our blog very shortly. I'll update this thread once it's up.

Regarding "superweapons", each character has one and you can get it through the sidequests. The thing is, I didn't get the superweapons intentionally because I wanted to see for myself if what the reviewers were saying is true, that the game can't be beaten without excessive power-leveling and grind. I've managed to disprove the reviewer's claims. All it takes is good strategy and defense. The turn-based system in Lost Odyssey is truly well designed since I was able to finish the game without making my party overwhelmingly powerful against the last boss.

Some of the reviews out there for Lost Odyssey are saying that the game requires so much grind/power-leveling to advance and beat the bosses. I have managed to disprove this and have beaten the game at level 48, with over 52 hours of play without finishing the sidequests and getting the superweapons.

My husband made a post about it here:

http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-completed-at-level-48.html

I was able to beat the game using purely strategy and a good understanding of how the turn based combat system works. You can check the gamercard 'Tankblitzer' to see proof that I have indeed finished it.

I will be posting screenshots and my own impressions later on on our blog, http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com

We bought the Asian version of Lost Odyssey (It has english text, voice and menus) and wrote up some impressions on our blog. If you're interested to hear about what the game is like from a gamer's perspective (the type of gamer who enjoys JRPGs) these impressions are well worth a read:

Now Playing: Lost Odyssey
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/01/now-playing-lost-odyssey.html

Lost Odyssey Soundtrack: Nobuo Uematsu's Greatest Work Yet
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/01/lost-odysseys-soundtrack-is-nobuo.html

Lost Odyssey US TV Ad Commentary
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/world-premiere-lost-odyssey-us-tv.html

Lost Odyssey TV Ad Remixed with Nobuo Uematsu's Work
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-extended-tv-ad-remixed.html

Lost Odyssey Soundtrack: Live Performance
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/live-performance-lost-odyssey-main.html

1UP Interviews Hironobu Sakaguchi
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/1up-interviews-hironobu-sakaguchi.html

Lost Odyssey vs. Final Fantasy
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/differences-between-lost-odyssey-and.html

More Lost Odyssey Impressions
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-impressions-20-hours-into.html

The Mark of a Great RPG
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/mark-of-great-rpg.html

Even hard-to-please NEOGAF players like this game
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/hard-to-please-sony-centric-neogaffers.html

Lost Odyssey PAL box art
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-pal-box-art.html

More impressions @ 36 hours in
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-36-hours-in-now-in-disc-4.html

IGN AU couldn't beat Bogimoray in Lost Odyssey
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/ign-au-couldnt-beat-bogimoray-in-lost.html

First Major Boss of Disc 4
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-odyssey-first-major-boss-of-disc-4.html

What the---that thing is HUGE!
http://thirdworldgamer.blogspot.com/2008/02/oh-my-god.html

I'm still continuing to play the game and my husband is starting out on the first disc. That said, this game is the best JRPG ever made for the Xbox 360 thus far, it is very polished and in terms of story and character development it really delivers. I can imagine that this will be a major franchise for Microsoft in the future considering the amount of work that went into it.

Right now I'm on the 4th disc, at around 41 hours of play. Impressions will continue to be posted on our blog as we're progressing through the game. Please note that we are not rushing through this game; we're playing this as any player would, and we're not trying to beat a deadline.

For those of you who want to see the same trailer this time with Nobuo's music check this one out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA1Q0_ZxKZc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_os0OK2eU

Nice haunting song.

I just wanted to share some photos my husband and I took for Lost Odyssey. These pictures were taken from a Samsung HDTV using an Olympus D510. Please note that these pictures are from the Asian English version of the game, which works for PAL consoles but will not work for US consoles.