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Hey guys, I’m the new editor on the block, but I’m not really a new guy. I’ve been regularly hanging around Destructoid under the moniker of TheGoldenDonut since late 2006. My name started getting attached to posts when I began sending in tips last summer, and a few months later I was officially added to the site’s staff as a News Contributor. So yeah, I’m not exactly someone new, exciting, and mysterious, but I do know you guys and the community vibe pretty well.

Starting today I’ll be filling the role of Destructoid’s PC Editor, hopefully doing to PC game coverage what Samit did with sports. I’ve been a long-time enjoyer of PC games (especially of the strategy variety) and I’m happy to be giving them a louder voice on the frontpage.

I’ll do my best not to suck. :)

...And I need to get around to changing that header image at some point.

Lost Odyssey is Mistwalker's second Xbox 360 exclusive Role Playing Game. Mistwalker's first game, last year's Blue Dragon, was met with mixed receptions. Microsoft was eager to give them another chance, not only to increase the amount of genres available on their console - it has gained something of a reputation for being heavily populated by shooters - but to also gain ground in the Japanese market, which is notoriously fond of RPGs. It's fortunate, then, that Mistwalker took the experience gained from Blue Dragon to heart; as Lost Odyssey is not only better optimized for the hardware, but also in possession of a more emotionally satisfying story that should have no problem attracting both Eastern and Western audiences.

Lost Odyssey is set in a world that has just undergone an industrial revolution - although powered by magic, rather than steam - and follows a man by the name of Kaim Argonar. As is quickly discovered during a cataclysmic event at the beginning of the game, Kaim is actually immortal, and though he looks young has been alive for at least 1000 years. It's also quickly discovered that Kaim has no memory of those past 1000 years. Yeah, a main character with amnesia -- the overused fantasy clich -- rears its ugly head yet again. But while this implementation of memory loss may at first seem contrived, how Mistwalker uses it as a springboard for excellent storytelling and character development makes its inclusion more than forgivable.



You see, every now and then, Kaim will come across sights and sounds that bring up a previously obscured memory. Taking the form of a waking dream, these memories are displayed to the player in the form of a short story -- with subtle backgrounds, music and sound effects helping to set the tone. While not directly related to the goings-on of the main storyline, these memory-stories -- the collective whole of which is referred to as "A Thousand Years of Dreams" -- written by acclaimed Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, are expertly crafted, and compliment the rest of the game by being very, very sad. While the story and events of Lost Odyssey are plenty emotional on their own, the inclusion of "A Thousand Years of Dreams" not only helps to keep players in a tear-induced state, but also serves to flesh out Kaim's personality.

Though Kaim may at first come off as the archetypical gruff and brooding swordsman in the first few hours of play, these memories of tragedy, loss, constant displays of humanity's capacity for wickedness, and the realization that Kaim, with his immortal body, will forever be forced to continue his lonely journey without ever being granted an eventual and final rest, really helps endear him to the player. Likewise, moments of hope, friendship and happiness -- however fleeting or bittersweet -- brings the player feelings of reassurance and inspiration with the notion that one's life, no matter how sad or lonely, isn't comprised solely of negative occurrences, and that there is a reason to keep marching forward.



The gameplay of Lost Odyssey is very traditional, and should feel familiar to anyone that has played an RPG within the last 20 years. This shouldn't be too surprising, as it was headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the Final Fantasy series. In fact, the entire game contains very little in the way of bold new innovations, but because its tried-and-true formula is implemented so well -- and tweaked just enough to feel different -- it manages to avoid feeling rehashed or stale.

Battles are random-encounter based, but thankfully avoid the frustrating convention of occurring every few steps during exploration. Battles are also strictly turn-based affairs, with the usual Attack, Magic, Defend and Hopefully Run Away Really Quickly Before That Big Thing Eats Me commands making their respective reappearances. One way Mistwalker attempted to spice things up was with the inclusion of the Ring System.

When out of battle the player can buy or construct various rings that bestow some sort of additional effect -- such as a slight damage boost, a chance to inflict an enemy with a negative status effect, gaining an elemental attribute, etc. -- to the equipped character's melee attacks. When a character begins an attack two rings will surround the targeted enemy; the outermost will quickly begin shrinking and if it's stopped -- performed by holding down and releasing the left trigger button -- exactly as it overlays the stationary ring, then the granted effect will get a slight power boost, becoming even more effective. While not particularly deep, the Ring System does encourage the player to figure out which rings work best in which environments and also serves to give them something to do between turns.



Grinding is another familiar RPG convention that Lost Odyssey alters. This is achieved by each area having a maximum level cap. While this may frustrate some - grinding is a pastime that some players take great enjoyment in - it ultimately helps the story to flow better, due to a lack of long interruptions, and serves to promote good strategy. And not just good strategy during boss fights, but during regular encounters as well. This causes every fight to feel far more engaging and tense then they otherwise might have.

Another area where Lost Odyssey forces some planning is the skill system. While mortal party members will gain skills as they level up, immortals won't learn any new skills on their own. By going into battle and earning skill points, however, immortals can eventually learn any skill a mortal they're fighting alongside knows, but only one at a time. The temporary skills granted by accessories can likewise be learned, so long as they're equipped. While it's certainly possible for a given immortal to learn every skill in the game, there are a limited number of skill slots to equip them to, requiring the player to customize them based on what is needed at the moment. While there are items that can increase the number of skill slots they tend to be few and far between.

Speaking of the party in general; while the entire cast of characters that will come to comprise the group are all around solid, enjoyable and have great voice actors, one character in particular deserves special attention. Jansen Friedh, a smart-mouthed mage that joins you early on, takes the role of the requisite smooth-talking ladies man to new heights. An early scene where he shows up late, completely drunk, with three giggling girls in tow shows what kind of companion he'll end up being -- the totally awesome kind! The way Mistwalker handled Jansen showcases a common design theme running throughout the game: taking an iconic or familiar element and then polishing it really well.



Graphically, Lost Odyssey looks wonderful. Environments and backgrounds are well detailed and character models look pretty good, although they feel a bit stiff at times, and convey emotions well enough. All these impressive graphics do come with a drawback in the form of numerous loading times. And while they don't tend to last too long, they appear with enough frequency to risk damaging the player's immersion.

Audibly, Lost Odyssey is very pleasant to listen to, which is to be expected considering veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu was put in charge of soundtrack composition. While it might not be Uemetsu's best or most memorable score, the music does a wonderful job of setting the game's tone.

While Lost Odyssey's lack of innovative or complex gameplay may be initially off-putting to RPG veterans, the emotional story and polished gameplay elements should more than make up for it. This ease of access is also what makes Lost Odyssey a perfect game for RPG newbies to cut their teeth on, serving as an excellent introduction to the genre.

Score: 8.5 (Very fun -- its essential gameplay aspects are cool and interesting, but may not be implemented in the best way.)

So I recently finished Final Fantasy X. As the first Final Fantasy game I�ve played in several years it left me feeling impressed, overall. While FFX made use of far more cutscenes than previous entries in the franchise they never became tedious � unlike in other games that have tried the same tactic, such as Xenosaga � and really helped the characters and story to grow on me. Shortly after �The End� had graced my TV, however, a nagging feeling started to develop. Something about the ending just didn�t sit quite right, although at first I wasn�t sure what felt off.

Shrugging my shoulders I decided to start on the next game in my queue, Lost Odyssey, since no answers to my vexation seemed immediately forthcoming. After getting about eight hours into the game realization finally struck: Final Fantasy X�s ending bothered me because it was too happy. That�s right, for the first time ever after finishing an RPG I was bothered that the characters I�d been aiding over the past forty hours had been successful in their world-saving quest.

Let me try to explain what I mean by that.



During the course of Final Fantasy X, when I first learned that summoning the final aeon would actually result in Yuna�s death, I was met with a moment of indecision. This quest I was trying so hard to finish would end with Yuna dying along with Sin, with the kicker being that Sin might just come back ten or so years down the line. This hesitation lasted only a moment, though. �There�s no way that Square would let a character sacrifice them self for such a hollow victory,� I immediately realized. Sure, main and supporting characters had died in past Final Fantasy games, but they either came back to life or died in the assistance of an absolute victory. And Final Fantasy X�s �victory� would be anything but absolute if the scenario were to play out this way.

Sure enough, Tidus quickly bolstered my suspicions by declaring that somehow, he�d find another way to defeat Sin even though no other options were readily available � and of course I believed him. He is the main character after all, and if anyone can make good on a promise to change a 1000 year-long cycle of death surely that would be the person to do it. But what if he hadn�t? What if, in the end, there was no alternative presented, thereby forcing a very surprised player to press the X button and resign two characters � Yuna and whomever would become the final aeon � to death? It would have floored me. Having such long running expectations shattered at the last moment would have made for an incredibly potent moment. The fact that Final Fantasy X establishes these expectations in the player so early on, and establishes the theme of sacrifice as such an important part of the narrative, is what makes this game so perfectly suited to having them used in the creation of a truly impactful ending. Of course the game�s scenario would need to have been altered for this sort of ending to be set up correctly.



The simplest ways to change it would probably be the following: Yunalesca would instead say that there was a very small chance for Sin to be permanently destroyed by the final aeon, rather than none whatsoever. This would mean Yuna would go ahead and acquire the final aeon since there was some hope of it working, while Tidus would probably volunteer to become it since he (and the player) would still be sure that some alternative could be found. Seymor would just stay dead after the third time he was killed and the idea of Yu Yevon being behind everything could just be nixed altogether -- keeping some of the mystery around Sin�s origin intact and maintaining that there is a small chance for success. The assault on Sin could then proceed as normal; hitting the weak points on the sides and top of his body, but after he becomes Overdrive Sin things would go a bit differently.

The battle would begin as normal, with the party trying to defeat him as he approaches and begins charging up his overdrive bar. In this version, however, no matter how much damage is dealt Sin can�t be stopped from delivering his overdrive and knocking everyone to within an inch of death. It wouldn�t be game over, though, as the battle would start up again with Tidus and Yuna each at 1 hp and only having one option open to them: Either they use the final aeon or Sin finishes everyone off on the next turn. By being presented in this fashion the player, still reeling from their first defeat, suddenly realizes that there is no other option, and that they�ll need to initiate the finishing blow on their own � thereby making this twist all the more engaging than if only a cutscene were used.



As if being forced to sacrifice the two main characters to defeat Sin wasn�t enough, the player would then be shocked once they realized that their victory might not even be very long-lasting. While there is a small chance that Sin could be gone forever there is also a much greater chance that Tidus and Yuna had given their lives only so that Tidus could become the next Sin after a short period of Calm. Along with trepidation another important (and very underutilized) emotion would be instilled into the player: doubt. This doubt wouldn�t only serve to make the ending more memorable due to the uncertainty over how things in Spira will ultimately turn out, but also during the play of future games. This worry that maybe not every fantasy world can be saved � regardless of the player-lead characters giving their best effort � would serve to make future games all the more suspenseful, or at the very least, keep players from taking all their other epic victories for granted.

This story direction probably wasn�t even considered by Square, however, since it would mean they couldn�t cash in on Final Fantasy X-2 (which negates what sacrifice FFX had in the first place), which is a shame, because it would have resulted in an even more surprising, emotional and memorable ending. I do enjoy the happy endings that games tend to contain, but they would mean so much more if every now and then, there was an ending that wasn�t so happy.

After being pleasantly surprised by Persona 3 last fall I immediately felt the need to go back and do a little research on the Persona series as a whole, to see what had come before. One interesting fact I discovered was that there were actually two Persona 2’s, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Unfortunately, for the large amount of un-modded PlayStation owners that don’t speak Japanese, Innocent Sin was never brought stateside by Atlus, presumably due to the amount of censoring that would have been necessary at the game’s time of release (ex: The characters kill their principal, Hitler and an army of Nazi’s invade the city towards the end of the game, homosexual party members, etc.).

Luckily, someone going by the moniker of Gemini is currently working on a fan translation for those of us that only speak the King’s English. Updates on his (her?) blog track the current level of progress and some of the problems he (she?) has experienced. Who would have thought translating a game script could cause so many bugs?

While there isn’t an official release date yet Gemini expects the patch to come out sometime around Christmas. As an added bonus for modded PlayStation and PlayStation 2 owners it seems the translated game will be runnable on those consoles. The rest of us will just have to not download a not ROM and not play it on our PCs.

[Via Siliconera]

While browsing through Sony’s GDC pics I happened to come across this picture of Chad enjoying a game that may or may not be Echochrome while Dale, Hamza and Husky watched. At first glance the scene seems innocent enough, but once a closer look is taken one fact becomes unmistakably clear: Dale and Chad didn’t discuss their outfits ahead of time.

It also seems Niero’s absence was noticed by the Sony employees at the event. “Big shout out to those who have stopped by on Day 1, like bloggers from Level Up, IGN, Gamervision, 1up, MTV Multiplayer, EuroGamer, Gametrailers, Ars Technica, Destructoid (minus the Robot, regrettably), PC World, GameDaily, TotalPlayStation.com, Gamervision, and many more.”