Lost Odyssey may finally be the JRPG that us JRPG fans have been looking for - that is Japanese RPG for the slow ones. I guess it wasn’t really until more recently that what to me has always been just simply RPG, got re-coined to JRPG. Probably due to the flood of “rpg” games like Oblivion, Morrowind, Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and whatever else you consider to be an RPG showing up in the last 10 years.
JRPGs are the likes of Final Fantasy 7, Wild Arms, Phantasy Star 4 (Not PSO/PSU), Chrono Trigger, Suikoden - you know, the good stuff! To some, JRPGs are repetitive annoying games where you take 2 steps in the world, then are forced to mash X in a slow paced battle that ends unchallengingly in your favour. To others, JRPGs are epic storylines that involve you in character development and storyline to a degree that could shed more tears than the day you learned that Star Trek: The Next Generation would be airing its final episode. Then to people like me, they are just fun.
It has been a long long while since I recall playing a worthy JRPG (For those interested my 3 favs are 1-3, Phantasy Star 4, Wild Arms, Suikoden 1). I have tested the waters with Blue Dragon for the 360, Wild Arms 3 for PS2, Final Fantasy 10 for PS2, and probably the best thus far, Eternal Sonata for 360. Briefly, Eternal Sonata was amazing, but I only put in 10 hours, it got too easy and repetitive. I’m going to give it a second short eventually.
Lost Odyssey is what we’ve (I’ve) been waiting for. Developed by Mistwalker, a new studio headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series. The 2nd game from Mistwalker in the past year, the first one Blue Dragon, was designed to mimic the Dragon Quest series - something I was never in to. Lost Odyssey is made as a Final Fantasy clone.
Great JRPGs for me require multiple components:
1. Intriguing Storyline
2. Interesting and Entertaining Characters
3. Fun and/or Challenging Gameplay
4. Good Music
All elements are present.
Intriguing Storyline
Well you already know about the Final Fantasy creator having his hand in the honey pot for this one. Well so did an award winning Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu. Together you get this story:
You are Kaim - an immortal that has lost his memory. All Kaim knows is that he has been wandering the planet as a mercenary for an eternity. Are there other Immortals or is Kaim the only one. As you work to discover who you are, your current military boss has sent you on a mission - discover what has happened at Grand Staff, a man made location that has been created to harvest a newly discovered magical essence (or simply magic in plain terms).
Interwoven in to the normal gameplay, are quite fantastic FMV sequences that tell a large portion of the story. I believe I read somewhere that there are over 12 hours of FMV in this.
Even more interesting are the unthoughtfully named “Thousand Years of Dreams”. How do Immortals suffering from Amnesia get back their memory? Through dreams of course… duh. These may very well be the most interesting and rewarding sections of Lost Odyssey. Rather than tell them through FMV or character interaction, each memory is a short story of text, told to specifically chosen music and background images. There are a ton of these dreams in the game, most of which are fantastically amazing. These are extremely creative and combined with well-composed music. I highly recommend you do not ruin these stories by reading their textual descriptions somewhere online. They can only really be experienced in order by playing through the game.
Interesting and Entertaining Characters
One word. Jansen. More words, an alcoholic womanizer combined with comic relief. Jansen keeps most interactions light hearted and funny. Besides him, you have your solemn lead character that continues to grow interesting as the game develops, as well as a party of unique characters to follow you around. My only complaint in this section is that the antagonist seems quite bland. Usually these games have massive evil entities with devious plans that span across thousands of years. This guy seems quite ordinary. It is entirely possible that he is just a figurehead frontman for the true evilness, I am about 30 hours in to the game and I have yet to find out otherwise.
Fun and/or Challenging Gameplay
Gameplay is standard for the JRPG without too much deviation - which to me is a good thing. You select your attacks before the round starts, then it plays out. Too keep it interesting is a ring system. As you kill monsters you gain crafting materials which can craft rings. Rings will change your melee attacks to include additional properties such as damage to mechanicals or higher crit chance. When using a ring you must time a mini-game to line up two rings on the screen. The closer you get to lining them up, the better your ring will perform. It is not the lining up the rings that is intriguing, but collecting and using the right rings for the right situations.
This game is also quite challenging. Without going in to too much detail, be prepared to take multiple attempts on bosses as early as the very first boss. Better plan yourself out properly!
Good Music
What can I say… I downloaded the soundtrack (legally of course…)
Overall Conclusions
If you like JRPGs like Final Fantasy, you absolutely cannot go wrong with Lost Odyssey. Ive heard the game is around 50 hours, but I’ve also seen people nearing the 60 hour mark before putting it down. It spans across 4 discs so it is sure to keep you interested for a good amount of time. The story continues to get better and better, and the characters and gameplay keep it exciting. I can’t wait to finish up this game, I just hope I can find the time before Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes out in 2 weeks!
Rating score for the TLDR’ers - first watch the videos above for entertainment, then read 9/10
Well I must say. I was pretty active for a while and then I realized that only 2-3 people were reading it and I thought - who cares I have all the time in the world.
Then I lost all the time in the world as I finally got a job. As time went on - the messages slowly started coming in…. Why no more posts on Peppercorn Nation? Hey - haven’t updated in a while huh? YOU STILL ALIVE???
As I got pestered - I responded with hey, only 2-3 people were reading it. Then I realized well… it seems a lot more than 2-3 were reading, and if I get juuuuust one more - I’ll return!
Voila! All thank yous can be forwarded directly to Kwong.
So a quick update on me before I get back in to the swing of things. I am working a real man’s job now, 8:30 - 5:00, so my game time is limited. Nonetheless, I have still found my way in to playing a decent amount of WoW, Burnout Paradise, Devil May Cry 4, and most recently Lost Odyssey. I will update people on these games, and more in the near future.
I can’t promise any more daily entries, but I can promise a couple a week.
Thank you IGN. Thank you for informing gamers with your extremely unthoughtful list of the most influential of all time. Of the 10 games, there are only 3 that you could argue as being influential. The other games are simply the very first game of their genre. Wow, big shocker.
Here’s an important tidbit of information. The Model T Ford was the most influential automobile. While we’re at it, The Wright Brothers made the most influential aircraft, Alexander Graham Bell made the most influential Telephone, and Pong was the most influential video game - wait where’s Pong on this list? Oh… it’s not.
IGN’s list ranks in as follows (with important key commentary by me in between):
10. Space Invaders
I honestly can’t criticize this choice too much. I mean, it did cause a coin shortage in Japan. While this might not have made my list, it probably should have. Space Invaders was the first game to spawn high scores. I guess MLG, WoW Ladders, and CAL all owe something to the spawning of Video Game competition from a vertical line shooting up the screen plowing in to a mix mash of rather large square pixels.
9. Ultima
Well hmm, the questionable choices begin. I know Ultima has a lil cult following, but I almost get the impression that someone just went and slammed the first RPG they remember on to the page. IGN claims that Ultima was a direct influence on Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate and well pretty much any RPG you like apparently has to thank Ultima. Final Fantasy 7 should be the most obvious choice in the RPG category, if you chose to go that route.
Final Fantasy 7 revolutionized the RPG genre. People will look back on FF7 to this day and still talk about how it was the best game RPG they’ve played. It was a basis for people to create games in the future, and brought tons of new players to a genre they may not have tried. Of course Final Fantasy 7 wasn’t a game out of the blue, and it was based on other elements. But no game had a bigger impact on the RPG market than FF7 - not Ultima.
Either way, I haven’t begun to get angry about this list yet. You could technically argue for one or the other.
8. Karate Champ
Karate Champ? WTF? Hey don’t get me wrong, I pumped a few quarters in to this odd game (there were no buttons, only two joysticks!). I had a little fun kicking in some face. Most influential? I have to see what IGN said about it…
Before Street Fighter was declared the ruler of fighting games, it spent some time training with Karate Champ. Technos’ martial arts cabinet established and popularized the one-on-one fighting game with a side perspective.While not the first game to utilize this scenario, it was the first to become popular and likely the first to be seen in the U.S. The two combatants sport white and red gis — the same worn by Street Fighter’s Ryu and Ken.
I get it. Fighting Games. This is the first one. Apparently that makes it the most influential. There is no way that Karate Champ had more influence over the video game industry than Street Fighter 2. There is also no way that Capcom created Ken and Ryu based on the 2 idiots in Karate Champ.
7. Tetris
Ok now I’m really starting to see a trend here. Someone came along and wrote down on the genres of Video Games, and then wrote down the first one. How long until we see Doom on this list? No wait… Wolfenstein 3d - it’s got to be soon.
Truthfully how can you argue with Tetris. It spawned 9 thousand sequels, and 9 hundred thousand near clones. I can’t tell you many times I’ve explained a puzzle game to someone and have them say “Oh, so it’s like Tetris?”.
6. Super Mario Brothers
Wolfenstein 3d? What was I thinking. Super Mario 1 should have been what I was thinking about. Super Mario 3? Pshhh, what is that. Mario 1 is the true influential game.
People bought NES’s for Mario 1. Mario 1 is considered one of the greatest games of all time right. Or no wait, was that Mario 3. Oh yeah it was Mario 3.
I think the people at IGN are confusing inventing and creating with influence. Just because it was first, doesn’t mean it was the most influential. Now let’s see whats up next.
5. Wolfenstein 3d
Damn I’m good! This wasn’t even on the first page! I actually predicted it - not because I thought it was more influential than Doom 2, or Half-Life… but because it was first. What about Maze War, or 3d Monster Maze? Weren’t those essentially the same game but came out first? Uh oh, no one tell the content editor at IGN.
What could possibly be next? Hmm.. it must be either Ultima Online or maybe Warcraft.
4. Dune 2
Oh damn I forgot about Dune 2. I would never make it as a writer for IGN. Imagine how silly I would look if I picked Warcraft as being more influential than Dune 2. I mean common, Dune 2 came out in 1992 while Warcraft came out in 1994. Man… I would never be able to live that down in the office! I would be a mockery!
Ultima Online are you next?
3. Super Mario 64
Hmmm. This has caught me off guard - partly because it wasn’t the first platform game, but more so because it might actually be a good choice. Something is wrong here, this list is looking somewhat proper.
2. Ultima Online? No… Half-Life
Now I’m really confused. I mentioned this earlier as a great choice and now it’s on the list. Half-Life was the most influential FPS of all time no question. The entire mod community spawned from this game. One could argue that map editors for Doom were truly the beginning - and they would be right. But were talking influence remember? Not inventors.
Number 1 has to be Ultima Online. I mean, I know its an inventor of the genre, but it was completely revolutionary. A game you have to pay monthly for? But why? A game that brought thousand of players together? I mean common, it spawned Lineage 2 and WoW, the most popular games of all time? You couldn’t just ignore this can you?
1. Grand Theft Auto III
Well I guess you can ignore it. GTA3 isn’t a bad choice by any means. But where is Ultima Online? Maybe since they put Ultima they figured that it covered all the games that followed it. I mean it’s not like they put in Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World, Mario 64 - oh wait. What the…
Well I supposed I could overlook GTA3 because it basically spawned the most controversy ever. It drew attention to violence in video games, it made it a hot topic, lawsuits, lawyers, politics - and on top of that it’s a very cool game!
Let’s see what they have to say:
Not many games can claim to have spawned entire genres, buzzwords, and cultural phenomena. Grand Theft Auto III threw gamers into the sandbox and gave them the keys to a living city.
Never before had we felt so much freedom in a game world. We could work our way through the non-linear story — or not. The game offered an unprecedented amount of side-missions, mini-games, and free play opportunities.
Many other “sandbox” games followed in the wake of GTAIII: Saint’s Row, Crackdown, True Crime, and Scarface, to name just a few. The driving aspects led to titles like The Getaway series and The Simpson’s Hit and Run. The term “GTA clone” is commonly used to describe the many titles that copy GTAIII’s open-ended gameplay and criminal scenario.
Apparently it is the most influential game because you can walk around and bust into any car you want. I don’t know if this is the exact reasoning behind why I would call it influential. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Now for the real list. The only list that matters. The 10 most influential games in Peppercorn Nation.
11. Lethal Enforcers (because I truly can’t figure out how to cut it, but I have 11 and it needs to stay)
10. Space Invaders
9. Warcraft
8. Street Fighter 2
7. Half-Life
6. Tetris
5. Final Fantasy 7
4. Super Mario Brothers 3
3. Dance Dance Revolution
2. Ultima Online
1. Grand Theft Auto 3 - for totally different reasons than IGN’s choice
Honourable mentions go out to Pac-Man for the Atari and E.T. for the Atari. Who ever said influential games had to be positive? These games showed devs what not to do. Pong should also be mentioned just being the first one… oh well.
The third trailer was released for the much anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV due sometime this coming Spring 08. While I prepare my thoughts and opinions on the next installment of the review corruption work (probably arriving Monday) - this time dealing with Bioshock, please do enjoy this trailer.
Also if you haven’t seen them already, I’m also including the first two trailers. Personally, I’m liking the 2nd trailer most so far.
In continuation from yesterday’s story about the recent firing of Jeff Gerstmann by Gamespot over a bad review, I am examining the most blatant act of game racism I have seen in the last year.
Back when I was playing Sega Dreamcast with the other 7 owners in the world, Sega Sports put out their own game to compete with Madden - NFL 2K. At the time I thought “Oh great, another crappy sports ripoff that no one will play”. I still do not know why I gave it a try. Perhaps there was no Madden on Dreamcast. Either way, I ended up buying a copy and I was immediately impressed. The game in essence was just another football game, but there was something about it that impressed me. I was instantly sold on the 2K franchise over the EA Sports counterpart.
It took a few years for the game to catch on, but to this day some people will still call NFL 2K5 the best football game to ever be created. Electronics Arts is not a big evil corporate monster for nothing, they realized that they were quickly losing market share to this new competitor. Great news for the consumer, as EA will be forced to make a superior product now thanks to the competition right? Wrong. Instead of improving their product, they bought the rights to the NFL so no other game company can make a football game except for them. I was so pissed off - as were many others.
Last spring I saw the light at the end of the tunnel (and no I hadn’t just eaten a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts). This was a light of hope. 2K Sports was finally making another football game! But wow, was the EA License over already? I did some investigating to find out that while 2K sports was putting out a football game, it was lacking the NFL license. They had independently contracted players no longer in the NFL to make a classic football game. Truthfully I was a little disappointed, but I still had high hopes.
There was not a lot of hype for All Pro Football outside of the real fans of the series, and in fact most people knew nothing about this game, the history, or why it existed. To many APF2K8 was just some rip-off boring uninteresting football game and to many more it would remain that way - thanks review industry.
Releasing a full month after APF, Madden had probably the largest advertising campaign and launch budget I have ever seen from the Video Game Industry. They had NFL Superstars at a midnight release in time square. Anything related to football would have the Madden 08 tag on it as well as the Xbox 360. Madden stories were being released in integrals preparing up to launch time generating a lot of hype. People were genuinely excited and APF fell by the wayside.
For me, there are 2 distinct types of sports games that are fun. First is a realistic sports sim game that I can play and think “WOW, this is just like the real sport”. Second, is the high scoring, hard hitting, extreme arcade sports games like NBA Jam or the newly revamped NBA Homecourt (from the NBA Street Series). Both styles have a place, as do the occasional game that doesn’t fit in to either category.
Football games generally fall in to the first category. Sure there is NFL Blitz, and sure these games can be fun from time to time. But football is a game deep with strategy - and so should reflect the video games. In real football if you do a weak side blitz with maybe 2 people, and the quarterback sees it coming and dumps a quick screen to a rolling out running back on the same side - the defense is in trouble. With the defenders from that side blitzing, the running back can usually pull out a quick 10 yards or more. In real football if you play a dime defense or a 4-3 man defense every single down, the offense is going to start picking you apart. In real football if you do a strong toss from I formation or a deep out pass from shotgun every single time - once again, you will get picked apart. This is the type of football that All-Pro Football tried to capture.
All-Pro Football makes you try to play football properly. You cannot run the same play over and over, just as you cannot succeed with a pass defense against the run. Play-calling is important in APF - but perhaps even more important is your overall strategy. 2K sports forces you to create a team to play with - there are no pre-made teams of legends. In this game you can pick 2 Gold players (Elway, Montana, Walter Payton), 3 silver players (Cunningham, Maynard, Bart Starr), and 6 bronze players (Bernie Kosar, and many many more). You have to strategically plan your team. If you want to lean on a passing game, you better select some receivers, qb, and maybe one or two offensive linemen - otherwise you’ll see Marino bouncing passes off receivers faces and then getting sacked. If you want to play defense, don’t expect your 1 gold corner to be the saving grace of your team - the offense just wont throw in his direction. You need a full out gameplan, and there just simply aren’t enough legends to make your team overly diverse.
This forces certain team matchups to perform well in some situations, but not others - which is a good thing. How many NFL teams do you know that win against any opponent (and shut your mouth about the Patriots, thats not common). There will always be one style of offense that counters another style of defense. Look how the Colts took down the amazing Bears defense in last years Superbowl. All-Pro Football does this to perfection. I went with a linebacker heavy defense running a 3-4 with 4 legend LBs. This was great for short game offenses. Unfortunately, anyone running 4WR sets with deep balls would just walk right over my defense as I was faced with a decision. I could continue with my 3-4 defense and force my LBs to cover WRs in the deepgame, or have to take them off the field and play nickel or dime defense - benching my legends. Either way you cut it, I would lose one of those games.
Another excellent thing that APF has is the amazing online section found in all 2K games. Without going in to too much detail, there is just a huge depth for tournaments, online seasons, stat tracking, and other features that are not found in EA Sports games. Joining a draft season where everyone is building unique teams of legends is some of the most fun I’ve had in an online game in a while - and you don’t have to deal with every single team running with Earl Campbell in the backfield!
These are the types of decisions and realistic football mechanics that are found in APF. It ends up with a much more rewarding gameplay experience. It is simply hands down the best and most realistic football game around. However, it also has some shortfalls. The graphics are sub-par to Madden - as are the overall offline game modes (it only has Season mode, Quick Play). I understand that this is a killer for some fans of the Dynasty or Franchise style modes of NCAA and Madden - we will deal with that later.
So what does the insanely over-hyped Madden 08 offer us? First of all, it has amazing presentation. The non gameplay graphics are very pretty, as are the general surroundings and sounds. It has the NFL license (its always fun to play your favourite team!). It has great depth to the single player mode.
Wow Peppercorn, Madden is pretty, has more game modes, and has my favourite NFL team… why the hell would I want some graphically inferior game that has players from before I was born? I’m buying Madden!!!
Oops, did I forget to mention that Madden’s gameplay is absolutely horrible? It is somewhere in between the arcade antics of Blitz, and the realism that is APF - essentially leaving it in limbo, with no real place to call home. The character animations in Madden are terrible, especially watching the QB move in the pocket. Have you ever played a game that feels so over-animated you feel like you are losing control of your character? That is what you will find in Madden. Slight motions, or contact with other players will send your character into pre-made extended motions that might look pretty, but end up with you losing responsiveness to your player. On some occasions I felt like I was simply playing Dragon’s Lair in the 80s. If you don’t know this reference, and you were born before 1990, you should probably just end your life now.
The bottom line is that while APF comes up short in the presentation category, it comes up huge in the gameplay. Madden is essentially the exact opposite. If that is the case, the games should have similar and comparable ratings. Any fan of true NFL gameplay should gravitate towards APF, while people looking for a pretty game with Franchise mode should be playing Madden.
My personal opinion? Gameplay wins over anything. In my reviews, I consider Gameplay to account for about 2/3’s of the games review. Anything else is just filler. The best looking game that plays like crap - is crap. If that is the case, All-Pro Football should have a higher review over Madden. Of course other people might equate gameplay as an even contributor to graphics, sound, presentation, and so on.
Let’s have a look at the reviews that Gamespot gave these two games. Keep in mind that EA is a major player in the Video Game Industry, and that Gamespot runs huge advertising campaigns for the EA Sports games just before they are released. All-Pro Football was barely known.
Madden 08: 8.5/10
The Good:
The new “weapons” feature is a terrific addition
A complex but fully manageable control scheme
Much deeper franchise mode with owner mode features
Excellent animations
Much more challenging game than last year.
The Bad:
Fumbles pop up more than they ought to
Audio design is lackluster
Still no significant additions to the online play.
First of all lets look at the Good section. The weapons feature that they are discussing is a great feature. But guess what? It was already in All-Pro Football. This feature is a way to separate 2 top tier’d players from one another by giving them special abilities. Everyone knows that Dan Marino and John Elway played the same position completely differently. These games separate them making Marino perform better in the pocket, and Elway being a better scrambler. Being a weapon also makes you stand out from a regular player and perform better. Hmmm… sounds amazingly similar to Gold vs Silver vs Bronze vs Nonamers.
Excellent animations. Yes they are - and I said they are excellent. But why no mention about how these animations cause you to essentially lose character responsiveness?
Much more challenging than last year. Ok fine, this is a genuine good thing - but still, the game is not even close to the level of challenge of APF. You still do not have to be strategic in your playcalling and picking the wrong plays will not burn you like they do in APF.
The bad specifically mentions a poor online play. What a game killer for something of this sort. Sports are naturally competitive and put you against other people. Should your game excel in this area? Apparently it should only excel in single player offline modes. For such a major fault, why is this game still rated an 8.5.
Also, Gamespot using a medal system in that they award medals for aspects of the game that stand out - for either being good or bad. Let’s take a look at the medals for this game.
Great Sequel. Huh? Great Sequel? Why? Because the graphics got spiffed up? Or because the game handles like a piece of junk. Maybe they accidentally meant to give it the medal for the same game as last year - with little improvement. Who knows.
Outstanding Gameplay. Wow… this one is completely unacceptable. The gameplay is the major fault in Madden. It looks like a cartoon. What game were they playing?
Sharp Control. Again… wow. A major contributor to the horrid gameplay is the equally as horrid controls.
Now a quick look at APF 2K8:
7.5/10 - 2K football returns with solid gameplay and a new focus on classic players, though the roster isn’t the only aspect of the game that feels old.
They were nice enough to give it 2 medals in the good category. Great Sound Effects and Strong Multiplayer. Thanks Gamespot.
The bad? Blatant in game advertising - just like in the real NFL. Actually the blatant advertising they are talking about seems to be when you put together a huge drive and the announcer says “and now the Stride Ridiculously Long Lasting Drive brought to you by Stride Gum” at which point they break down your drive play by play - which is actually pretty cool! So what if they mentioned some product. Big deal.
Disappointing. I’m sorry Gamespot, what was disappointing about this game? The fact that it had the best and most realistic football gameplay in years? Or the fact that it was better than the game that paid you a ton of money to advertise their products for them.
Stripped (Ever feel like you’re playing a half finished game?). So they are missing a Franchise mode. Fine, dock some marks. But why this award was given to APF and NOT given to Hellgate London is another massive article on its own. There is nothing half finished about APF. They again delivered the best gameplay in a football game. Id rather have every single aspect of APF removed from the, keeping the gameplay intact, than having extra modes, mini-games, and other bells and whistles.
Anyway. Noone here is claiming that APF deserves a 10/10, and Madden should be a 5/10. I do however believe that the Gamespot reviews should be swapped. If anything, they both should meet in the middle at an 8/10. Madden received endless praise for how great it was, and all I keep hearing is how disappointing APF is. Again, I play the games for the gameplay, and there is no questions that APF has superior gameplay to Madden.
If you need to see the comparison for yourself, have a look at this video. Yes - it is not Madden vs. APF. It is however NCAA vs APF, the EA Sports college game that came out at the exact same time. Both games NCAA and Madden are very comparable. Have a look and tell me what YOU think about the gameplay…
