Lost Odyssey [X360]

Ever wondered why the Final Fantasy games changed direction so radically around 2001? Hironobu Sakaguchi - or rather, the lack of Hironobu Sakaguchi - is the answer. This near-legendary designer stepped away from Final Fantasy creator Square after the completion of Final Fantasy X, forming his own studio with the backing of Microsoft.

Why should you care? Because if you understand where Sakaguchi comes from, you'll understand Lost Odyssey, too. It's the spiritual successor to the classic Final Fantasy games, with all the pros and cons that come with the genre, and thus in order to enjoy it you'll need to be in a forgiving mood.

Lost Odyssey kicks off with what's surely the biggest cliches in RPG history: protagonist Kaim has lost his memory. Groan. Cliches aren't in short supply in Lost Odyssey, but thankfully, there's a twist to this one. Kaim's an immortal, and his missing memories add up to about a thousand years of life. As you plod through Lost Odyssey's story, he'll gradually recapture them through a series of enchanting dream sequences.

Turn-based combat is the norm in Japanese role-playing games and Lost Odyssey is no exception, but it leans too far towards the conventional. If you've played any of the classic Final Fantasy games, you'll already know almost all there is to know about it. You stack up attack and heal orders for your team, your enemy does the same, and the two sides slug it out while you watch. Not the most exciting of systems, but there's a decent amount of tactical depth to the combat thanks in part to the unique method it uses to depict the shielding of back-row characters.

Once you start to rack up some hours with the game, you'll discover our major complaint with it: the pacing is wildly uneven. Lost Odyssey blazes through crucial plot points at breakneck speed, and then takes an hour to trudge through the most inconsequential of irrelevancies. You'll probably rack up ten hours of play time before you hit the party max of five characters and the combat starts getting interesting.

The difficulty follows suit, zigzagging from trivial to near-impossible with little warning. Don't fight the occasional urge to stroll about randomly fighting baddies in order to boost your levels; you'll need to in order to pass some of the game's tougher fights. Other times you'll cruise from scrap to scrap just by mashing the "A" button.

Uneven, too, is a good way to describe the game's writing. The dialogue is generally clumsy, rife with the awkward phrases that are so often present in hastily translated games. But Kaim's dream sequences are superbly penned, demonstrating a real flair for their sentimental, almost proverbial style -- they'll actually make you think, and their sparse presentation is perfect. If only the whole game was so inspiring.

At least the character design is consistently good. You'll face off against hulking golems, cute and blobby soldiers, and hopping, fiery bombs, each one full of life and originality. Kaim and his chums don't have much personality, but nevertheless they're packed with detail -- so much, actually, that the graphics engine bogs down on occasion, and while this isn't the deal-breaker it would be in an action game, it still interferes.

Kudos, too, goes to the soundtrack. Famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu has produced yet another stunning collection of music. If you're a fan of his work, you'll smile knowingly as pick up plenty of nods, conscious or not, to older Japanese RPGs. Much like the rest of the game, in fact.

But will you like Lost Odyssey? At times, it's a stunner, one of the best console RPGs to have crossed our path in years. But it's a schizophrenic game, veering unpredictably from brilliant to disastrous and spending far too much time in troubled territory to be an unqualified recommendation. If you have the patience -- and a nostalgic passion for this neglected genre -- you'll look beyond its shortcomings and enjoy Lost Odyssey for its strengths. If not, you'll wonder what all the fuss is about.