Be Excellent To Each Other

I've had this sitting on my shelf for about a year now, so I thought the time was ripe to actually try it last night. It's not three bad, so far.

I haven't really been "in" to JRPGs since Final Fantasy IX due to the majority going for so-called realistic looking characters. My brain can't handle that. I'm somehow able to accept cartoony characters in games much easier than the plastic faced things from FF8,10-onwards. So it's nice to find this was cartooned up.

You control three hateful sprogs who have issues and revenge and lost from home and stuff. There's lots of annoying voice acting, and the sprogs have a tendancy to over explain things as if you're the biggest retard on the planet. Say you go up to a treasure chest, you get a dialogue exchange of
"Let's open this chest!"
"Yes! The chest must be opened!"
"I wonder what is in this chest?"
"The chest is locked!"
"We picked up a key earlier!"
"Do you think that key will work on this chest?"
"How shall we know if we do not try!"
"Shall I try the key in this chest?"
"I think that would wise!"
"I shall try the key in this chest!"
"The key fits!"
"The chest is unlocked now!"
"Shall we look in the chest?"
...and so forth. Instead of simply walking up to the FUCKING treasure chest and seeing a message "key used" or something.

It's surprisingly free of random battles, thankfully. You can see your enemies weebling about the environment and have a choice of avoidance, ambush or straight on battle. Typical turn based combat ripped straight out of the FF mould, even down to Scrappy Doo trumpeting your victory at the end. Quite a massive annoyance so far is the boss battles, which are accompanied by utterly, utterly shite music. Guitar noodling wankery of the first order, which is accompanied by lyrics of
"This is the beginning!
The beginning of the battle!
Fight the battle!
Use your heart!
Heart is in a battle!
Battle battle heart yeah!
HEART ATTACK!
ARGH MY HEART!
HEART!
OOOOOOWWWWWW!"

Anyway, it's hooked me enough to continue with it for the meantime. I shall report on it more, maybe.

I'd like to try a more traditional adventure on the 360 but so far sticking to the like of Fallout 3 and Mass Effect has seen me avoid the frustrations of your average JRPG. Seems like this isn't one to change my mind.

It's quite good, honest. I forgot to mention that some enemies leave a "poo" behind after defeat, which you can rummage in to find gold.

Please tell me you're joking.

I'd die of embarrassment playing that if not. (See also: Enchanted Arms, I couldn't play with the English speech, as the voice actors were just awful)

I've got the first line right, I think.

I may have to put it on to Japanese voices, because the 'merican voice actors are bloody awful. Rugrats rejects.

I seem to remember I couldn't play Skies of Arcadia in the presence of anyone else as it was too embarrassing.
I think I played the demo of this (was there a demo?), but my last attempt at an RPG was Eternal Sonata, which I still haven't started 18 months after I bought it.
(I did love FFIX though)

Lost Odyssey is worth it, if folks want a JRPG. Just, once you've watched the first dream, remember you can skip all the others.

The thing is that I found Enchanted Arms really quite funny (That the main character was incredibly stupid and had a magic arm was a joke which ran through the entire game) but hearing it through those voice actors was painful. I don't doubt that the japanese ones were similary bad, but at least I didn't recognise that.

I actually quite liked them, but they can be entirely ignored with little effect on the understanding of the actual plot.

Yeah, I appear to have collected quite a few for a fiver here and there, and never got around to starting them. I'm looking at you Lost Odyssey and Eternal Sonata. I've got a bit jaded of grubby "dark" games to be honest. I wanted something bright and cheerful to work away on, so I turned to the Dragon.

BAD GAME

I trust all the JRPG fans in here have played Dragon's Quest VIII? It's probably the only JRPG on the planet with good English voice-acting. They're not American, which is half the battle won right there. Plus, they can actually act.

That was so the Luxembourg entry in the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest.

Ee ar:

The ear muffs, they do nothing.

Do you get a different 'song' for each boss, of do you have to endure that aural monstrosity repeatedly? I find both possibilities terrifying.

Eh? Apart from the 'overrrrwraughtsppINNNIINGATTAAAAAAAAAAACK!' battlecries, there was no spoken dialogue, just wonderful music. Oh, and the odd laugh of glee/growl of anger as suited the dialogue.

But then, it was bright and colourful so perhaps you didn't feel 'hard' enough playing it and had to switch STABBY STABBY WHOREFEST: RAPERS back on to prove your 'hardness'.

I seem to remember some of the special attacks were full of cheesy speech. The actual game itself was fine (and great fun, I'd like to play it again if I could find the time).

Biff Byford? Is that you?!

I should give that another try. I was rather put off by the sheer amount of dialogue early on - they just went on and on.

COR BLIMEY!

Every boss. Every one. Luckily, I've only heard it about 6 times so far, but it's enough.

FUCKING MUSIC!! I've now got it so lodged in my head that I sing a commentary on most things I'm doing.
I am cooking breakfast!
Lovely lovely breakfast!
I shall put it in my mooooooouth!

Jebuz Crips help me.

I wouldn't recommend buying it if you don't have it.

I also wouldn't recommend playing it if you don't find the concept of the main character celebrating when he learns how to open doors (press A), open chests (press A) and similar (Press A) amusing.

In all, I wouldn't recommend it, but I liked it lots.

I've already got it so I might as well try it sometime. I've only watched GJ's youngest play it and we both got bored pretty quickly... we probably stuck EDF on soon after.

Is that any worse than when you walk up to characters who say things like 'gee, I heard if I walk up to treasure chests and push (A), I can open them!' or 'I've been trying all day to do a sliding jump by pressing (down) and (X) but I just can't pull it off! Can you?'

modern (aka, anything after Shining Force 2) jRPG's seem like they were designed for people with down's syndrome. I wonder if Shining Force and Phantasy Star also had all these stupidity, because i loved those games and i don't remember anything like that.

But to be fair, Mario and Zelda games do the same. It's one of the things that annoy me that reviewers never point it out. It's like they're clocking against each other to see who breaks the 4th wall first.

At the same time, I find the many cliches charming in a way.

The Grand List of RPG cliches (essential reading) aside, I love how there's always a villager obsessed with exercise, a woman cursing her absent child/spouse, a young boy trying to impress a disinterested girl, an aspiring hero, a crazy old drunk...

Certainly with Shining Force, you were sometimes rewarded for searching places without needing prompting - from amusing book titles on shelves to hidden stuff in barrels etc. Games now just spoon-feed you instead.

It's all in the way it's done, really. The overreaction of an 18 year old finally learning how to open a dorr.

Still enjoying this. On disc 3 now.

It comes on three discs?

Yep. Mostly cutscenes and 3 separate languages. Lost Odyssey is 4 discs.

Also, for lulz, "only when I take you from behind!" and so forth.

"Dimrill is posting on a forum,
Having reached disc 3.
DISC 3, the finale.
Disc 3, disc 3 yeahawoooo"

Try getting to sleep with that running through your Mind. It's hard.

"Dimrill is trying to go to sleep
But he keeps thinking of guitar masturbation.
He can't sleep, nooohoohoohoooo."

You know who's on Lead Guitar on that song...

They do far too much of that hand clenching stuff in this game. Also hand chopping in a diagonal direction thing.

I'm just going to drop this useful document here if any Other Gentleman is going for the achievements in this. It's a chronological list of missable stuff.

57 hours later, that was an odd ending

that's excellent. Almost makes me want to play it

Did you find a way to do this? As far as I could tell, after choosing the English dub the first time the game booted up, there was no way of going back. If you tell me there's a way of getting rid of those horrible dopey American voices without having to start the whole thing again, there's a good chance I might want to revisit this.

I didn't figure it out, no Like you say, you seem to be stuck with them once you've chosen.

Pah, that's rubbish. Thanks anyhow.

105 hours later, maxed.

Has anyone played lost odyssey?

Im on the 4th disc and some tanks keep pwning me, and I can't seem to beat them.
Would it just be a case of spending hours levelling up, im around level 45ish for my party at the moment

If it's a JRPG, then yes. Levelling is the answer to everything.

gah! I can't be bothered!

That's actually a tough fight. Concentrate on taking out the main tank's two special attacks, as they're the ones that will muller you. The more 'absorb attack' type skills you can have equipped, the better. Everyone needs persistance! Use the best all-shield/all-barricade/all-regen skills you have.

EDIT - you should be able to do it at L45 or so.

Yes



I really can't remember.

Actually... I think I can. That took me a few attempts. If you're stuck, you can always look on t'web for strategy advice, along with recommended level required.