A diamond in the rough. But overall a masterpiece.

User Rating: 8.5 | Lost Odyssey X360
Well, where do I start, I know! - Firstly, and let me get this out of the way; the game is a technological mess - MistWalker did not take full hardware optimization of the Unreal Engine, and thus made the graphics side of the game (and a portion of the playability) flawed. Long load times and choppy frame rates hamper those breathtaking moments that you are surely going to have: (and example of this is that when you are going into a battle - you have to wait a good 15 to 20 seconds before you actually get to fight, which gives you time to go get a soda or a beer, or even a sandwich) or when you are about to enter any door, - boom! load time again. Second issue is the frame rate, choppy animations at times, but in all truth I could are less about that, as to it was barely noticeable when I was planning my next attack. And thirdly, are the character animations in the non-cg cut-scenes; they feel sub par to the overall to this could-have-been-a-masterpiece game; Characters often show little emotion, and are kind of bland . Oh, and also the combat might get pretty hard at times (especially at the first to second disks)

Enough about the bad points of the game, its on to the numerous good ones!

Kaim is a really likable character, that you will enjoy playing through the game with. The battles are strategic - the rings ( rings are magical - rings that add attack bonuses to your character, such as standard JRPG fire v.s. ice combat, and that it will give you a bonus to your attack if you are equipped to fight elemanally different monsters.) add a great deal of depth, and that you can swap them to your liking at any time. In addition, the great level-up system, non-immortal characters can level up as a standard experience system, and the immortals can level up by means of "linking" to the non immortal characters. Also, the writing is great, - the so-called "dreams" are pages that you can read of extremely well written content, compete with their own theme and BGM. (If you do not know what BGM is then you have to right to read this review :) lol). Also, about the BGM - it is very well done, and allthough I wish there were more tracks done - really fantastic, adding a awesome and sometimes epic feel to the game. For us "old-school" players and fans off FF7, we [loved or hated] the message "Please insert disk [blank]" and this game just brings back this feeling of "Just at the last part and ..... Insert next disk!?" - so you thumble around all those pizza containers and (oh, by the way, I know the word "thumble" is not a word) cannot find the box, which contains the game's four-DVD set. Also on the notion of why the game is 4-DVD's: each disk is filled with awesome HD movies that you cannot but praise. That is really the only reason on why there are for disks other then to maintain the old JRPG spirit of "disk-swapping". Despite some outdated graphics, and choppy frame rates, the enemies that you encounter look really good - If reels like you are facing some boss or another with every encounter in some ares. And another point on the graphics is how remarkable the environments look - I Cannot help but to compare the environments to the FF series, especially some parts of the game to FF10. Its time to get to the story; It does not really seem like a original story at times, and If you played lots of JRPG's like Enchanted Arms, FF, and some others, you might feel a bit of deja-vu. Even this doesnt stop this game from being really fun - though linear, and you feel engulfed my the magnitude of the story. And that is about all there is to say: If you can look past the games technical flaws, you will have a blast with it, more-so if you are a newcomer to JRPG's.