I can remember seeing trailers for Lost Odyssey and thinking "wow, that looks pretty cool, but I've never been able to dedicate myself to RPGs." After hearing so many people talk about it however, I finally broke down and bought it this Sunday. Holy cow! This game rocks! I realized I was in for a long road when I went up against the first boss and was down in less than two minutes, however. This isn't like any other RPG I've ever played in my life. There's no beating on early bosses and then moving on. Oh nooooo...that would be too easy! These guys are puzzles, and you are left to figure out what works, and what will get you stomped. Quickly.

Look, I'm an action/adventure gamer. I got into RPGs because I love story, and I heard that they were the best of the best. I'll admit, most of my RPG history has been relegated to typical Final Fantasy-esque games. I haven't played all the way through 99% of the RPGs I've played. I think that Crono Trigger and Suikoden III are the only two that I've ever actually beaten, and I went a little overboard on Crono Trigger, getting every possible ending (secret dev room FTW). The level grinding aspect and random encounters have just never been much fun to me, which is why I was attracted to games like Secret of Mana and Legend of Zelda (hey wait, I did beat Link to the Past!). When I heard that there is an exp. cap for each area in Lost Odyssey, I did a double take. "What? You mean I can actually run through an area, and not have to mindlessly battle for hours? Yes!"

The combat in this game is some of the toughest that I've ever experienced in an RPG. In every other RPG I've played, I never use my white mages. Healing magic? That's only if you take damage, and I only dish it out, baby! In Lost Odyssey, I find myself draining my healers' mana on a regular basis and eating mana herbs like they were candy...and I like it. I'm making new saves so that I can make sure and load up a previous save to try new techniques in an area, or see if I missed searching one square inch. I relish boss encounters. Yes, I almost always have to try more than once, but after taking a quick break to consider what I did wrong, and what could work again, I look forward to the challenge.

And the Thousand Years of Dreams? Wow. For a gamer with a good imagination who loves to read? These are wet dreams. I don't remember the last time I was so affected by story in a video game. I've had to put the controller down and take a few minutes to compose myself after several of the stories in the game. I'm really waiting for one of my non-gamer friends to show up so that I can show them a few of these stories and tell them "this, this my friend is the reason I play games." I agree with Collette that forcing the gamer to read the information and use their imagination was one of the best decisions that the developers could have made. And the music, sound effects, and text animation are perfect (in my opinion) in every story.

So, just call me an action/adventure/JRPG-curious gamer.