So far so good.
Now, as many game reviewers will complain about, this game does not re-invent the wheel, it does not create fire for the second time, it is an old-school style RPG. Not to say it doesn't have many modern touches though. Before I say to much, I would like to state that I am only about 10 hours in, so keep this in mind.
The Game play is solid, so far. The battle system is easy to use, and to me very enjoyable. Lost Odyssey employs random enemy encounters, but the rate of you running into an enemy on the map seems pretty low; I've run across an entire map only fighting 2 times or so. One in battle, you will get the traditional options, Attack, Defend, Magic etc, while there are several twists, combat on average remains pretty traditional. Though, your character may equip rings which have an array of different effects, what this will do is during an attack phase, make you try to trigger the perfect timing to get some extra damage off on the enemy. You can add different element types such as Fire and Water, or equip rings that are good versus Beast or Aerial monster and so on. One last thing, the "Loading Time", the critics hit this pretty heavily, though as I've played through, I have yet to wait more then 4-10 seconds for anything, so unless they are utterly impatient and need to down 5 bottles of Ritalin a day to stay patient, I don't see a problem whatsoever.
The Sound in lost Odyssey is very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy series, for obvious reasons as the games composer is non other than Nobou Uematsu. I've enjoyed all the tracks thus far, much better than what I heard in Blue Dragon which were pretty much all hit or miss. The voice acting has gone over rather well too, I have yet to hear a voice that just utterly annoys me and force me to scratch my nails on a chalkboard to make it stop. Aside from that, all sound effects in the game seem in place and compliment the environments well.
The Graphics in the game are pretty awe-inspiring at times, seldom coming across a map that isn't interesting in one way or another. The world for the most part is very unique, with interesting structures, surroundings and objects, such as vehicles. The character models are well done and seem to express emotion well, though I've noticed in combat when they give their opening battle lines their mouths don't actually move; obviously a very minor detail, I just happened to catch it. The CGI scenes are what you would expect from a former Square employee and creator of Final Fantasy, very well done, flashy pretty etc etc.
The Story in the game so far has kept me interested. It's cryptic enough that it keeps you guessing, though some times as suspected, you will know what is about to happen. Kaim is an immortal who throughout the game seems to unlock his past, though sometimes unwillingly. He meets a cast of interesting characters along the way who team up and inevitably help save the planet in one way or another. As you play the game, it almost feels as if you are playing an older Final Fantasy title, before the Playstation 2 days, which isn't a bad thing.
So far it's looking to be a very promising title, which hopefully won't disappoint in the end. The characters are likeable, the sound is good, and the story is entertaining. Some will complain about the game play because it isn't anything you haven't seen, but it gets the job done, and does it well. Compared to their last game, this is in a whole different league, in Blue Dragon I didn't care for any of the characters, I couldn't sympathize with any of the characters, and it was just pretty boring; for me anyways. This game has managed to entertain me more in 10 hours then Blue Dragon did through its entirety. If you haven't played it, give it a shot if you're a RPG fan, I'm pretty sure it won't disappoint.
Thanks for reading my review.