Anybody played them? I’m hankering for some RPG action and I downloaded the Blue Dragon demo from XBox Live and was mildly impressed. Lost Odessey looks pretty cool though… so I’m looking for feedback.
Blue Dragon is an easy Dragon Quest clone. Simple characters, decent graphics, some of Uematsu’s best work in years and an old school stereotypical story. I liked it. I’d give the game a B.
I almost finished Lost Odyssey, I’m on the 4th disc and I just need to muster the will to finish it. The game is good. Its very FFX-like but the story isn’t as good as FFX. The game shines on the level of its characterization and the quality writing for the “dream” sequences. The music is more ambient than BD’s but its also a good piece of work from Uematsu. Graphics aren’t the best, but they get the job done. I would rank the game as very average with a couple interesting gimmicks. This game gets a B-.
If you want a REALLY good RPG, play Mass Effect. Whatever you do though, if you do play Mass Effect, do Noveria LAST. The one thing that’s annoying are the world exploration parts. They’re boring as fuck and all they do is serve as fodder for achievements and money. You roll around playing Mars explorer. The story bits are excellent though. ME gets an A.
My roommate is playing both games right now. Passing his room, it’s usually hard to tell by the music which game is which, the soundtracks are so similar. Similar as in fucking awesome-similar.
It’s what I’ve been hearing from his room for the past two weeks, and he’s hardcore as it comes, so I second-hand recommend it.
Thats cool. I’ll give them both a look.
Mass Effect is pretty sweet though. I was a little shocked by the learning curve. They give you an awful lot really early in the game (I had troubles with the magic system and using in battle to effect). I’ve played a little bit of it as I borrowed it from a friend. I don’t really know how long the game is though, as I don’t think I got very far but I remember hearing about and being able to go to Noveria.
if you don’t do any bonus quests, the game is fairly short. The learning curve IS brutal, but its worse if you go straight to Noveria. The game is pretty easy even on the highest difficulty level once you know how to handle the magic system. Spam your skills all the time. The game is all about crowd control. Once you learn that , it is clear sailing.
The biggest hurdle in playing both games is that they are very slow turn-based combat. Blue Dragon isn’t so bad, and even has some ways of speeding it up/superceding it entirely. On the other hand, Lost Odyssey’s biggest downfall is how painfully archaic and slow the combat feels. Both games have a lot of great things going for them if you can get past this, but be ready for a long, slow trek.
You can easily break the system in BD to attack all enemies twice per turn per character all the time. LO provides many disincentives from doing that so every fight, you have to take down your enemies 1 by 1, in addition to the slowdown you have from the ring system. Its why I haven’t finished it. I need to do all kinds of pointless loot fights before finishing the game and urgh. Not like the story makes it worth finishing.
blue dragon was pretty fun but lost odyssey was to boring for me,
the dream sequences in LO are very good and interesting to read,
but if i were you, dont get either and get Mass Effect