Post Summary: We all tend to fall back on our staple gaming genres, sometimes at the expense of trying new things. In One Night Stand, I'm going to try a game I wouldn't normally play for one evening. This time it's Mistwalker's JRPG Lost Odyssey.
This will seem like heresy to many of our readers, but I've never enjoyed JRPGs. This dates back to being bored with Dragon Warrior on NES (the retitled American release of Enix's Dragon Quest) when I was having a sleepover at a friend's house. I remembering bringing home Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation because of all the hype, and burning out after a few hours. Whether it's the often-stilted writing, turn-based combat, or languid pace, the genre has never resonated with me.
However, in hopes of becoming a more open-minded, well-rounded gamer, I'm going to be doing a series of "One Night Stand" articles this year, in which I take home a game from a genre or series that I'm normally not drawn to, and make an honest effort to play it with an open mind.
I decided to start with a JPRG. I asked my colleague Andrew Reiner, who has played more games than anyone I know, which JRPG might be fitting for this exercise. He recommended Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey, designed by famed Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and released for Xbox 360 in 2008.
After booting the game up, I'm pleased that - unlike so many of its ilk - Lost Odyssey gets off to a peppy start, throwing me into the middle of an epic battle reminiscent of a Lord of the Rings film. The only difference is the knights on one side of the battle have odd helmets that make them appear to be large bottle openers. I take this as a sign, pause, and grab a beer from the fridge. It's an impressive scene, but also makes me realize just how long the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 console generation lasted. Lost Odyssey still looks good, but it's from 2008 and does appear visibly dated. In particular, the facial and character animations look extremely artificial - even in cutscenes. The last game I played on my Xbox 360 was Tomb Raider (to compare against the new Definitive Edition), and it's amazing how much better graphics have become over the course of a few years.
Soon, a handsome, long-haired gentleman in odd armor (which, I guess, describes 75 percent of all RPG heroes ever) starts single-handedly conquering the battlefield like a medieval Neo from The Matrix. After the cutscenes stop, I'm introduced to the turn-based battle system. It's a short but informative tutorial. One of the things I really like about Lost Odyssey is that it does a good job of explaining new gameplay and battle system concepts. Each new layer to the systems that is introduced has a nice, concise tutorial. Even as a relative novice, I always felt as though I knew what was going on.
I made some dumb mistakes in my initial battle, especially when I was matched against a giant tank, but I still escaped the battle with 2 HP left. Ultimately, my heroics didn't matter much because a giant lava-filled meteor crashed landed on the battlefield, engulfing my enemies and allies alike.
I somehow survived this catastrophe, and now spend some time wandering about, engaging in random encounters with enemies that resemble the zombie-like minions I just battled.
I'm going to pause here and inject my opinion: I don't like random encounters. I realize they are a staple of the JRPG, but I think they are lazy design in a modern game. I understand the need for players to grind for XP and items, but I feel that it could be done in a much more meaningful way than just taking two steps in the wrong direction then arbitrarily being teleported into a battle screen. As a player, it makes me feel as though I have no agency - why can't I at least see the enemies so I can try to avoid them? Or, better yet, flank them in some way to gain the element of surprise? In any case, it gets really annoying, especially later when I sometimes had characters who were low on HP and I was trying to make the next save point.
Speaking of which: remember save points? You get so accustomed to the modern automatic checkpointing of games or save anywhere functionality, it's a bit tedious to go back to save points. The (perhaps sad) fact is that I've been spoiled now to the point where I hate losing progress of any kind when I die.
Eventually I meet up with some fellow soldiers, who seem surprised I survived. They take me to their camp, put me on a strangle vehicle that resembles a long box with four large wheels, and it's time to head to the big city.