I have to admit that I am a Japanese RPG rookie considering I never played any of the Final Fantasy games and Eternal Sonata is the only other JRPG I've played.  I tend to enjoy western RPGs like Oblivion, Mass Effect and Fable but tended to stay away from Japanese RPGs.  Most likely because Japanese RPGs tended to not come to the Xbox last generation. 

So far Lost Odyssey has been enjoying to play.  The pace of the game is very slow and the music is calming.  Things do pick up in the random battles and music gets more upbeat during fights.  As I mentioned there are random battles in this game that pop out of nowhere.  As you walk through the outer world there are no people or beats running around that you can see.  You'll be walking down your path then WHAM you enter a random battle.   Honestly I don't mind this since it at least gives you something to do between walking from point to point.

Once in those battles the combat is all turn based where you get to pick what your party members will be doing.  Each member can either attach, use an item, cast a spell or defend.  Some members are better at magic than others and can cast spells to either attach, heal or protect.  When it comes to attack spells they all seem to be based around elements so it's important to know which elements your well against each other.  On normal attacks there is this idea of ring system where you equip a player with a ring for combat.  Then when you attack you need to time your attack with a ring on the screen to achieve maximum damage.  It's a nice variation to the combat but seems very random.  It's easy to get Goods but Perfects seem to come up and I don't see why.  Also damage from Perfect is not much more than from Good or Bad.

So far I'm a little over six hours in and I think I've read more text than in this one game than I have in all other games I've played this year.  Considering this games comes on four disks I'm a little surprised they couldn't make room for some more audio tracks.  Visually the game is definitely next gen but not amazing like DMC4 or Gears of War.  You will be watching a lot of video but for the most part none of it is crazy long like in Eternal Sonata.  The cut scenes in Lost Odyssey are doen well and do not create that disconnect between the player and game play like other games.

One word of advice for anyone looking to play this game: make sure you have a solid hour or two to sit down and play.  For some reason this game likes to line up a bunch of same points in meaningless areas then let you go a good 70 minutes without hitting a save point.  Thats 70 minutes of game play where I spent most of that time fighting a boss before having to fight another bunch of guys then got another dream to read (the main character lost his memory and they eventually come back in these dream where you read a small novelette).  So if you have maybe short periods of time to play games you might want to find a different game.

I think I'm getting close to the end of the first disk (of four) and i have to admit I am liking the game.  It is a calm enjoyable experience with a solid story that you unravel as you progress.  There is a lot of reading dialog boxes with is a bit annoying but is forgivable because the game is oddly compelling.  I was very hesitant to play this game just because I knew it would be a long time consuming game.  So far I'm enjoying the ride.