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[Macintosh360]

Lost Odyssey by far is the best J-RPG on the Xbox 360 right now, a couple good ones coming out in the future but this or Blue Dragon (very anime like) are the cream of the crop!

 

[gregor7777]

Lost Odyssey by far is the best J-RPG on the Xbox 360 right now, a couple good ones coming out in the future but this or Blue Dragon (very anime like) are the cream of the crop!

Have you played Vesperia? As polished as it is, it's hard to not include it among the 360's best. It's an amazing RPG no matter the system.

 

[2DMention]

I hope a bad plot twist won't ruin Star Ocean 4 like it did 3.

 

[reilo]

Quick: Infinite Undiscovery or Last Remnant? Or is TOV that much better than both?

 

[Flakster99]

Quick: Infinite Undiscovery or Last Remnant? Or is TOV that much better than both?

I have not played Last Remnant, but I have completed IU, and having completed ToV, I found ToV to be a more enjoyable, tight, fun jrpg experience.
Give each a rent if you're undecided.

 

[Blackjack]

Quick: Infinite Undiscovery or Last Remnant? Or is TOV that much better than both?

It's between ToV and LR. I probably enjoyed LR a bit more personally.

 

[commariodore64]

I'd go with Lost Oddessy over Tales based on HOW much 'J' you want in your RPG...

 

[Zoso]

I hope a bad plot twist won't ruin Star Ocean 4 like it did 3.

Did the plot twist really ruin SO3? No offense, but SO3 didn't really have a great plot going for it before the twist. The twist just kind of made it official that they were joking all along with the story - Or at least that's how I took it.

SO3 was much more about the gameplay, not the story.

 

[0 HP]

lost odyssey pretty much rules, load times aside (which is probably fixed if you install idk)

tales...ehh the combat is good, but the characters and shit are so lame/cringy it makes the game not worth it imo. people here are going to try to tell you that this kind of stuff doesn't matter, but you spend too much time out of combat for me to agree with that

 

[FoeHammer]

So far for me, both of Mistwalker's games are at the top of the list as far as JRPG's go. You really can't go wrong with either.

Although to be fair the rest are are pretty damn good as well.

 

[Stoney Mason]

It's interesting. I've put in about 5 or 6 hours into both Tales and Vesperia now. And Vesperia seems like to better game content wise, production wise, even fun wise but oddly enougly I've become quite attached to Lost Odyssey and will concentrate on that for the time being and it first.

It's weird and hard to explain. Lost Odyssey sort of feels like a b grade Final Fantasy. The production values are mixed. It has a lot of the cliches of jrpgs like rampant amnesia and easily duped characters but it somehow intrigues me a bit. Its also seemingly more difficult than a lot of the mainstream Rpg's I've played in the past. In Final Fantasy and many games you could sort of get away with not having a strategy to defeat a boss and just rain down the damage mixed with healing positions and get away with winning pretty easily but the boss battles legit sort of make you come to the table with a strategy in this one. And while the story may not be mindblowing so far I do kind of like that it seems somewhat adult-ish tone wise. Anyway just thought I would give a report.

I also like Tales. As expected the story seems light and airy but fun like your more typical anime fare and the combat system is of course pretty damn cool. I probably prefer a more gritty tone which is why Lost Odyssey drew me in but there is nothing wrong with Tales and its tone is of course more fitting with its game and graphics.

 

[Vorador]

The only problem with Tales of Vesperia is that isn't released on Europe and it won't be until june 09.


Sometimes being European sucks. Even Star Ocean 4 and FFXIII are scheduled AHEAD of ToV.

 

[yellowjacket]

I havent played TOV yet but between Lost Odyssey and The Last Remnant, I like the Last Remnant more.

 

[Diablos]

Blue Dragon. <3

The only problem with Tales of Vesperia is that isn't released on Europe and it won't be until june 09.

WTF, this makes NO SENSE.

But yeah. Blue Dragon, Vesperia, and TLR are the best right now.

Lost Odyssey is okay, but I think it's a bit overrated among 360 RPG fans.

 

[FateBreaker]

Lost Odyssey is okay, but I think it's a bit overrated among 360 RPG fans.

overrated? underrated.

 

[Rimshot]

overrated? underrated.

OVERrated. Freaking thing has a kitchen appliances fetish...

 

[Stoney Mason]

Finished the first Disc of LO.

The game is more enjoyable now with a full party as it gets a bit easier and you are able to try out more stratagies. At first I was kind of annoyed that you don't buy full body armor pieces for your characers but the skill system is pretty neat now that I have more opportunity to use it along with understanding that immortals can learn new skills from equipment which I didn't really understand before until embarrasingly pretty far into the game.

I like most of the characters so far except the Queen. Kaim is decent but not great so far. The rest I like.

 

[Error]

I hope a bad plot twist won't ruin Star Ocean 4 like it did 3.

funny, the awesomeness of SO3 comes AFTER the main quest. the post-game in that game is ridiculously awesome.

It'll be disappointing if SO4 doesn't come close to SO3 in that aspect.

 

[reilo]

It's interesting. I've put in about 5 or 6 hours into both Tales and Vesperia now. And Vesperia seems like to better game content wise, production wise, even fun wise but oddly enougly I've become quite attached to Lost Odyssey and will concentrate on that for the time being and it first.

It's weird and hard to explain. Lost Odyssey sort of feels like a b grade Final Fantasy. The production values are mixed. It has a lot of the cliches of jrpgs like rampant amnesia and easily duped characters but it somehow intrigues me a bit. Its also seemingly more difficult than a lot of the mainstream Rpg's I've played in the past. In Final Fantasy and many games you could sort of get away with not having a strategy to defeat a boss and just rain down the damage mixed with healing positions and get away with winning pretty easily but the boss battles legit sort of make you come to the table with a strategy in this one. And while the story may not be mindblowing so far I do kind of like that it seems somewhat adult-ish tone wise. Anyway just thought I would give a report.

I also like Tales. As expected the story seems light and airy but fun like your more typical anime fare and the combat system is of course pretty damn cool. I probably prefer a more gritty tone which is why Lost Odyssey drew me in but there is nothing wrong with Tales and its tone is of course more fitting with its game and graphics.

I haven't tried ToV yet, but your impressions about LO are spot-on with mine.

The beach area in Sea of Baus looks so incredibly pretty, but then when you get to the Grand Staff itself, it lacks the same quality and feel. It's weird, but I'm hoping it gets better as it has some damn intriguing moments.

 

[cuib]

Lost Odyssey made me struggle to hold back tears at times. Only videogame ever that had that effect on me. Well it wasn't the game, it was the short stories. The one about the girl who lies all the time...

Gameplay wise though LO = BD = FF7 = every turn based jrpg I've ever played. Probably someone will say "yeah but in LO sometimes you don't get a turn in a given round so it's TOTALLY different." Not to me it ain't.

Gameplay wise, Vesperia rocked all sorts. Fast, furious, tons of stuff to do, looks great provided you don't mind the 2d look. Gameplay wise, among rpgs, ToV > Oblivion or Mass Effect or Fallout 3 or Fable 2, imho.

 

[reilo]

EDIT: Nm, I'll ask in the official thread

 

[Stoney Mason]

Gameplay wise though LO = BD = FF7 = every turn based jrpg I've ever played. Probably someone will say "yeah but in LO sometimes you don't get a turn in a given round so it's TOTALLY different." Not to me it ain't.

It's definitely pretty traditional although sometimes I just like to settle down with a traditional jrpg because the conventions are so familiar I don't have to re-learn some whole new system.

That being said I'm stuck at the moment in LO at the Sorcerer's mansion. Why oh why Rpg makers do you create puzzle sections in areas with random encounters. So frustrating

Some traditions need to go.

 

[Diablos]

overrated? underrated.

BD is the most underrated of the two. It gets no love because of what, its art style? Pff. It's a great RPG. I had a much better time playing it than Lost Odyssey.

 

[Stoney Mason]

Put about 35 hours into LO so far. Enjoyable but I'm starting to burn out on it a bit so I'm going to switch over to Tales for awhile now and come back to LO.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

So far I am 20 hours in Vesperia and I can say that it is one of the best RPG's.

Of course, after playing Tales of tha Abyss I am a little spoiled because of Abyss's immaculate cast. Vesperia easily has one of the best leads in an RPG and the female cast is great, but Carol is a whiny little bitch, and I don't like the "old" Raven.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Tales does seem to be the general champ, but man, snag Last Remnant if you want something you can put a little bit of time into here and there. It will be a long term investment of your time, but as you can pretty much jump in and out at any point, (save anywhere!) it's pretty damn sweet.

Gameplay wise though LO = BD = FF7 = every turn based jrpg I've ever played. Probably someone will say "yeah but in LO sometimes you don't get a turn in a given round so it's TOTALLY different." Not to me it ain't.

Well, that's because you have no idea what you're talking about. But that's okay! No one is perfect.

 

[Llyranor]

My gripe with LO's system isn't that it's "like every other turn-based RPG ever made", but rather the poor pacing within the battles. Everything just took so long. Part of it is due to UE3 (loading, etc), but the meat of the problem stems from actual design. Too much time spent on animations, camera angles and so on. Every single random encounter would end up overstaying its welcome. They just took so long. I'm fine with long battles when they're full of content and keep up on your toes, not when they just drag on for no good gameplay reason.

It had enough good elements that I finished the game, but it's probably not something I'd want to revisit, particularly since some of the dungeons also had pretty bad pacing. The game ended up being too tedious for me and ended up really testing my patience.

That being said, I did enjoy some of gameplay mechanics. The turn order being determined by type of action was nice on paper (defend --> attack --> magic, etc). While in execution it probably didn't affect the game as much as it could have, I did like how your defending characters would actually defend before the enemies would hit them. I did enjoy the wall system as well. It did provide for some interesting battles here and there, but again, overall I didn't find it changed too much about the gameplay. The ring system was nice, and provided some good variety to the regular attack. However, when it came to enemy weaknesses, it just amounted to picking the proper ring type. It was good in some battles, while in orders it was just connecting the dots.

I don't dislike the actual battle system. It's probably the design of the actual battles that I don't like that much. That's probably how I feel about a good number of RPGs. While innovation is a very good thing (really looking forward to TLR when they actually ship it to me), oftentimes it's less about needing to change the core battle system, and more about spending time improving and refining the design of the actual combat scenarios.

 

[KaosAngel]

If you are just going to buy one, you might as well make that very one Final Fantasy XIII.

 

[Stoney Mason]

My gripe with LO's system isn't that it's "like every other turn-based RPG ever made", but rather the poor pacing within the battles. Everything just took so long. Part of it is due to UE3 (loading, etc), but the meat of the problem stems from actual design. Too much time spent on animations, camera angles and so on. Every single random encounter would end up overstaying its welcome. They just took so long. I'm fine with long battles when they're full of content and keep up on your toes, not when they just drag on for no good gameplay reason.

It had enough good elements that I finished the game, but it's probably not something I'd want to revisit, particularly since some of the dungeons also had pretty bad pacing. The game ended up being too tedious for me and ended up really testing my patience.

That being said, I did enjoy some of gameplay mechanics. The turn order being determined by type of action was nice on paper (defend --> attack --> magic, etc). While in execution it probably didn't affect the game as much as it could have, I did like how your defending characters would actually defend before the enemies would hit them. I did enjoy the wall system as well. It did provide for some interesting battles here and there, but again, overall I didn't find it changed too much about the gameplay. The ring system was nice, and provided some good variety to the regular attack. However, when it came to enemy weaknesses, it just amounted to picking the proper ring type. It was good in some battles, while in orders it was just connecting the dots.

I don't dislike the actual battle system. It's probably the design of the actual battles that I don't like that much.

When you install the discs the battle loading is much quicker. I tried it on the disc versus the hard drive and there really is a big difference.

Outside of that I don't think the battles are crazy long although as with any game with random encounters there is a lot more combat than anybody would wish which soaks up a lot of time and tends to grind on you.

The length of the animations and none of that stuff bothers me either. 35 hours in so far the major thing I've noticed is that unlike a lot of Rpg's the monsters while beatable tend to have a lot of hit points and there is a fair good number of them so it takes a while to dispatch them versus other Rpg's where you meet you three rabbits with 5 hit points apiece early on which can be dispatched quite quickly. Also the combat system itself tends to extend the battle slightly since it has that concept where you have to damage the front line before you can damage the back line.

 

[Llyranor]

If you are just going to buy one, you might as well make that very one Final Fantasy XIII.

Now you just sound like one of those 'professional reviewers' puppets.

The length of the animations and none of that stuff bothers me either. 35 hours in so far the major thing I've noticed is that unlike a lot of Rpg's the monsters while beatable tend to have a lot of hit points and there is a fair good number of them so it takes a while to dispatch them versus other Rpg's where you meet you three rabbits with 5 hit points apiece early on which can be dispatched quite quickly. Also the combat system itself tends to extend the battle slightly since it has that concept where you have to damage the front line before you can damage the back line.

I guess installing would make a difference. Don't think I'd want to go through it again, though! I can just load up the dreams when I feel like it.

You have a point that the wall system can make some of the regular battles last longer. It's a very nice system conceptually. They should have built on it and make fewer tougher encounters, and make each battle particularly worthwhile and satisfying to fight.

I finished the game at about 60 hrs. I didn't feel it really had 60 hrs worth of content, from both a story and gameplay perspective. The pacing would have been a lot better if it was 20-30 hrs shorter. I'm fine with long RPGs, but they need the content to support the length.