@Walshicus: While I haven't *played* Lost Odyssey, I have watched someone else play through the first hour or so of it when the final JP release came out, and that is where I'm basing this information off.

@RandomPoster: the lack or presence of a tactical battle system in FFXII is really down to personal opinion on how you decided to play the game. a) if ou turn on gambits for everyone the computer fights for you - however your'e the one that spent time organising and setting those gambits. nd the other option is to fight more manually, in which case it's like playing gambits on the fly.

As for the talk of FFXII's zone-loading; you switch zones a tenth of the times you fight enemies in LO.

aelfin

Reviewers say 30-60 second load times and then everyone starts complaining about 30-60 second load times.

Then you say that the load times are more like 12-16 seconds and then everyone starts complaining about 12-16 second load times.

Personally, having ACTUALLY played the game, I'd say that I don't even think the load times are that long. And if they are, I never noticed. I'd have never even thought about load times if the topic weren't already out there.

misterdna

@Soldrak:

I see, thanks for that. Man I've had some nightmarish times in the older FF games with random battles and being low on health.

ssjmichael

I noticed the load times for battles get a little longer once you get 5 members in your party. Also, it kind of starts to stutter at the beginning a bit sometimes. Maybe I need to clear my cache, idk. Jansen is definitely my favorite character so far. I lawl at everything he says too. :)

tinascry

@ssjmichael: Encounter rate is also very low in this game, keep that in mind when making an assessment on the random battle loading times. Honestly, it's not really as big an issue as people think. The number of random battles is nowhere near what you'd see in a DQ or FF game.

Soldrak

@ssjmichael:

I don't mind the people who think 12 seconds or so is long. It's the ones who keep saying load times are 30 seconds or more.

To me (and apparently everybody else who actually owns the game)it's not that bad. They probably could have reduced (maybe even gotten rid of) most of the load time if they had gone the route of Mass Effect by letting textures load on the fly. Personally I am glad they didn't simply because the texture pop in is rather distracting to me in Mass Effect.

RandomPoster

Um sorry but 12-16 seconds for each random battle is not acceptable to me either. Factor that with the loading of endless cutscenes and I'm pretty turned off by the game.

The main chracter designs also aren't appealing to me unfortunately. I do like the overall look of the game though, very cinematic.

ssjmichael

@Nauser:
THANK YOU.
For those who keep screaming OMG it's 30 seconds watch the damn video. The whole video is less than 22 seconds long and that INCLUDES 8 seconds of him running around trying to find a fight.

13 seconds from the time the battle is encountered to getting to the action screen.

RandomPoster

I never have had a problem at all with the loading times. I'd say 12-16 seconds sounds like way too much. They seem to be about 4-5 seconds to me. I don't count the camera panning and character animations as loading.

WrenixPhight

+ Watch video

TheHun

The reviewers who were complaining about the load times were probably running on debug consoles. The DVD drive in them is notorious for running at slower speeds. That's why MS included the whole DVD emulation software so devs could accurately calculate load times.

Nauser

12-15 is HEAVENLY SWORD STATUS... AKA not good. (man, after Ratchet and Drake, I can barely go back to heavenly sword because of the atrocious load times.)

I hope FFXIII and White Knight Story aren't like this...

bobtheduck

The load times really aren't as much of an issue as the press is making them out to be...

ThisCharmingMan

It sure would be nice if we had another JRPG from this gen that has graphics this advanced to compare this to. You know, just in case this THE NORM for RPG's this gen.

Seriously, when others come with comparable graphics and presentation and have similar load times, reviewers and gamers better rip them just as bad ...

DARTH_TIGRIS

To the people who think the load times are crazy - go watch a youtube of one of the battle loads. This is not 12 seconds of looking at the "loading" icon. This is maybe a 2 second splash screen follow by panning across your characters, then across the monsters. Never once am I left sitting there thinking "when the heck is the battle going to start." It is all very fluid.

ashaman16

I don't know about everybody else, but I don't sit in front of my TV with a stop watch. I judge load time based on how often I notice it.

In that regard, LO's loads are fairly quick. They don't leave me staring at a half-loaded environment thinking about how Mass Effect would be cool if I could play it. No, in LO there's a brief pause in action and/or dialogue and then you are returned to the game.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that LO's loads don't feel like a rude interruption, but just act as seams in the game.

BTW, any native english speakers not listening to the english audio are doin themselves a diservice. Some of the VO isn't stand-out-amazing, but some of it is phenominal.

RandalGraves

12-16 seconds of blank loading THEN another 15 seconds of "battle intro" which is really just more loading.

How is ANYBODY stupid enough to be fooled by that?

Amaryllis

@kw4k:

I've had no frame rate issues at all so far.

RandomPoster

@GhaleonUnlimited: read some of the comments.

TheHun

@7ucky: but the one they send you as a replacement may work better! I was actually relieved when mine broke down now it works fine.

TheHun

12-16 seconds per battle, loading?!?! I didn't know this was on SEGA CD.

WTF, that wasn't acceptable in 1992, so esp not now. Shit like this is what killed the SCD back then, and now people are like "it doesn't matter", hahahaha.

GhaleonUnlimited

@RandomPoster: Thanks for the response - hopefully I won't be 360less soon... :(

7ucky

With how visually stunning this game is, The loading time is no detraction from the game what so ever. Games with lower load times or no load times like Mass Effect piss me off more when the textures are loading as they are talking in the scene. I would prefer the several seconds for the whole scene to load to not have to watch textures load as it plays.

But either way, the game is amazing. If loading times piss you off that much, then miss this game. I dont care, lol.

justcrim

Oh NOES! If I sit still for 10 seconds my brain will asplode! My life is DOOOOOOMED!!!!! *kapow*

June

what about the framerates? they mostly had issues with the load times and framerates :\

kw4k

I'm glad to hear this. The load times were one of the main issues preventing me from wanting to purchase this game.

kylenalepa

I just bought mine yesterday, but Ive been playing jrpg forever. So we'll see. I hope it won't bother me even a bit. (i hope it won't be as bad as winning eleven 8 on psp)

Playstation

@7ucky:

Nope not a single issue with choppiness

@Smadubaku:

I noticed that to. I actually wrote a review on a Mechwarrior league forum I visit and specifically mentioned that I saw not one bit of texture pop in that I saw in ME or Gears of War.

The game isn't perfect, but some of the reviews just seem nitpicky and knocked more points off for something that doesn't seem to be an issue in a retail version of the game.

Oh and I just got to the point in the game where I can honestly say I got a lil choked up over a character dying in a game. As much as I loved FF VII I didn't even get like that over Aeris' death. Hers was more of an "Oh Shit" moment than it was emotional.

RandomPoster

Aren't you people who complain about long load times supposed to value your time? A 10s load time is unacceptable? NBut you can come here and waste that time typing a completely useless comment that has already been said 20 times? :P

Eastman

@Dumari: I agree about Jansen, he is a lot more fun in English than he was when I was listening in Japanese. You can't pop in sly comments about women nipping when it's cold outside in Japanese. I am usually a hardcore Japanese soundtrack kind of guy, but in the case of this game I actually like the English better. I HATE the general of the Numaran army. Whoever voiced him needs to die.

Sad part is that Kaim sounds like Neo.

Thassodar

@dubz: There are some great English dubbed characters (Jansen) and some not so great (the council). Jansen has made me laugh out loud quite a few times so far - and that's not normal for me. Very witty character - great voice acting. Asking Kaim for a foot massage? Classic.

Smadubaku

@StupidDufus: again, as has been pointed out, everyone who owns/plays the game says that loading is not a problem at all. Everyone who's got a problem with it has not played it. Maybe there's something to that?

And no, 7ucky, no framerate/chunking issues. In fact, it's the first UT3 engine game I've played that had ZERO texture pop-in - easily my biggest complaint with Mass Effect.

Smadubaku

I really want to play the game, but 12 - 16 second load times?! To those that say this is bearable, did you not grow up playing Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy pre-PlayStation? The load times for the battles were almost non-existant. I wish it could go back to that again.

StupidDufus

No one else is having frame rate and skipping / chunking issues with the cutscenes? Hmm, looks like my 360 is on the verge of crapping out. D':

7ucky

Mass Effect was completely bearable. Lost Odyssey even more so. There's a battle counter at the top of the screen that keeps up with your time and I've yet to spend more than 20 or so seconds in random encounters.

Don't let the haters fool you.

Zombie Attack!!

My load times so far have been 5-10 seconds, and there isn't much of a frame rate issue. Now if you want long ass load times and horrible frame rate issues - play Mass Effect. However, Mass Effect scored between 9-10 despite these issues, yet Lost Odyssey gets crucified. And you can't tell me ME scored so high because it was so innovative - ME used the same exact gameplay as KOTOR except the battle system was more gun oriented.

Too bad the developer wasn't allowed to put Final Fantasy before its name - then LO too would have scored between 9-10.

jrcbandit

So the english VO is actually good? I haven't even toyed with it yet. When I get home today I'll have to see what the fuss is all about. BTW best JRPG in a long while. $60 well spent.

dubz

the load times aren't even that long on mine, and i also haven't experienced any of the frame rate issues that some reviews mention.

oblivionatm

I loved Skies of arcadia on the dreamcast. You could tell a random battle was coming by the fact your console would start cheeping like a budgie.

ExceptionOE

A "next-gen" game still could possibly take 10-30 second to load?!!!, it a amazing how the wii is bashed for some shorcomming on pixels but the other consoles are tolerated stuff like this, also mario galazy has almost inexistent load times (maybe 1-2 secods max)...

TOCATL

@manjikengo: ;)

Smadubaku

@SuperPope: absolutely agreed 100%. People keep talking about it, but I'm about 10 hours into it and load times are completely reasonable and do not detact from the game experience whatsoever. Mass Effect's loading was FAR, FAR WORSE - and it was tolerable.

Also, I know it's popular these days to hammer JRPG's and Final Fantasy. That's great and everyone's entitled to their opinion, however, I will say that any true fan of FF will enjoy Lost Odyssey. I'm really liking it quite a bit. The reviews I've read for it, while the mojority positive, have been the most oddly nitpicking I have ever seen. Things like load times (where?) to the characters not being as visibly emotionally expressive as they should be. Not only do I disagree, but since when was that a basis for a rating?
So again, fans of turn-based JRPG's, don't get scared off this one by the negative hype. It's a quality game. Worthy of the creators of the game.

Smadubaku

@em0d: Thats exactly what i was thinking. Too many people trying to bring this game down... I'm looking you, well known FF/sony fanboys

TheHun

I've played Lost Odyssey for over 3 hours so far, and the load times would have never caught my attention if I hadn't been thinking, "What are all those reviewers complaining about? These load times are quite normal."

SuperPope

@RandomPoster: hehehehe

"Brrrr it's cold. Seth turn around"

manjikengo

@Seruza: oh wow, you mean the one from ff11?

manjikengo

Yea you remember those long ass load times whenever you entered an area? FFXII didn't magically get rid of it's loading it just moved all of it to the initial entry in to a zone.

RandomPoster

this game is amazing. people that let the load times bother them should get punched in the gooch.

manjikengo

Final Fantasy doesn't have those loads anymore. Remember XII and its amazing battle system? Yea.

Seruza

@Andy D.: Wow, thanks for proving you haven't ploayed the game. The 12-16 is the intro animations. there are NO loading screens for random encounters.

Seriously people, if you ever loved JRPGs, this game will be amazing for you. Small technical issues mean nothing compared to the amazing moments I've already experienced in this game and I'm only on Disc 2. (my god when you get Sarah! That gave me chills.)

This isn't fanboy talk. This is longtime JRPG gamer talk. You owe it to yourself as a fan of the genre to experience this game. You're just depriving yourself otherwise.

Bookburner

@Andy D

Not in my case from the first sound of entering a battle to the panning around your characters takes right at what these people have been saying which is around 12 seconds or so.

RandomPoster

After reading through these comments, it seems that everyone who has actually played it has no complaints about loading times. The general consensus seems to be that it's not even noticeable. The people complaining about loading times have not played it.

If you are on the fence for buying this game because of load times, BUY IT. You seriously do not wait on load screens. Those 10-12 seconds include the battle intro.

em0d

Its not just the load times, its the load times coupled with the intro animation to a fight and so forth. All together from starting encounter to actual control is more like 30-60 seconds.
Its like Mass Effect's elevators, just because it does not say Loading on a black screen, that does not mean its not a loading sequence that is devoid of gameplay.

Andy D.

12-16 seconds? my God, that's completely intolerable for me. It's one of the (many) reasons FF games have become a turnoff for me (and most JRPGs). They have become this flashy tech show off, where battles take forever to load and in order to throw a Fire spell, your character has to do a 5-second dance or whatever while the camera zooms and pans over it.

That's why I cherish the FFs in the GBA. Quick loading battles, swift attack animations, all fun.

@Infradead: it was indeed foul.

Hugoku

For classic JRPG gameplay I'll gladly put up with long load times. Anything to wash the foul blackness of FFXII off my thumbs.

Infradead

@aelfin

"This is NOT on. Especially when you compare it to the much more sensible FFXII battle system. See enemy, fight enemy, keep going. It takes away none of the strategy and depth fo the battle system whilst adding playtime."

Seeing the enemies was fine, but I the quasi real time sucked IMO. It took any "tactical" sense out of the combat since you basically let the computer do the fighting for you on everything but your lead. Plus it completely neutered the summons (seriously summon big bad looking dude, watch it die in one hit..ugh). And as has been mentioned numerous times it took forever for FFXII to load it's zones.

As for LO's use of random encounters they really aren't that frequent, i've actually run through several areas on my back to town without a single encounter /shrug

@soldrak
Those loading times between zones are even shorter than the battle loads. The longest load times do come to when they are preparing a cutscene though.

--------------

Oh and Jansen is by far the best VA character in the game. The English VA got his tone just right and almost everytime he has something to say I end up laughing because it's just damn funny.

I do wish the body animations during cutscenes where a bit more in line with the voices though, the movements are just way too exaggerated (kind of reminds me of some of the less serious anime out there).

RandomPoster

Just my 2c, but I don't think a 15 second load time is 'bearable' if it's frequent. I'm a huge fan of MH for the PSP and it has frequent load times of 10-15 seconds (a bit better now that the slim is out) and I hate playing anything on the psp for this reason. It's too short a time to say read a book or surf the web while you wait, and long enough to be really aggravating.

Slorg

I'm going to assume that reviewers that are receiving 60 second load times have never cleared the cache on their 360. I'm not going to say I know what happens, but I believe the cache becomes fragmented. I thought this would be normal for every 360 owner to know this by now, especially members of the gaming press. Clearing your cache done by going to the system blade, selecting memory, press Y while having your hard drive highlighted and press X, X, left bumper, right bumper, X, X then selecting "yes" when it asks if you want to perform maintenance. You also had to do this to Oblivion if load times were being wonky, and it's suggested by Microsoft support if your console is freezing..

bluesquareapple

@gaiking: This is as unspoilery a way as I can put it...

Squall, Cloud, Tidus, maybe even Zidane though I actually liked him, were all emo because they were going through puberty (17 average, UGH. Bad age for boys...) and needed to get laid (Squall took 4 discs to freaking reach FIRST BASE).

Kaim is 1000 years old. Do you really think that Kaim hasn't been busy in that time?

If there's one thing he's got one-upped on any and all JRPG heroes till now, it's the god-given fact that he's not a virgin and has a much better reason to be emo than any of them.

(Played Asian English version FYI).

Byakko

@Sniper_Zegai:
- I want a traditional JRPG!
- Here you go: Lost Odyssey, a traditional JRPG.
- Bu-bu-but, it feels like a classic JRPG.
- Hence why they're calling it 'traditional'.
- ... Uh, hold on, what's this word 'traditional' mean again?

All About Lily Chou-Chou

no, those load times AREN'T bearable. If people wanted to bitch about the loading difference between the 360's and the PS3's orange box, which was only a matter of one or two seconds of a three to six second load, then twelve to sixteen seconds is unbearable.

redfoxx

@Walshicus: You are of course not counting the loading times between gameplay and cutscene and in between zones, but whatever.

Soldrak

yeah, i don't see what all those reviews are talking about the loading times seem alright to me, about as much as DMC4, to be honest.

ChibiKyKiske

The load times havent even seemed 12-16 seconds for me, only like 4-6 seconds but then again ive only played the first area like an hour into it or so.

daddybojangles

Well Playing the game I don't think the loading is bad at all - my count has been the 5-10 sec range and it feels much shorter than Mass Effect or Oblivion when it loads.

Limafoxtrot

I take what I said earlier back. 10-2 sucked ass.

Sniper_Zegai

Same thing happened with Odin Sphere - reviewers complained about load times that weren't in the final version. Seems very unfair that a game gets branded for life, for something that's not actually there. I don't know how anyone puts up with it.

creid

10-15 second load times is NOT normal for JRPG's.

Kyle81

Its just unrealistic to expect instant load times for such a high level of detail. 10 to 15 seconds is'nt bad at all.

Im still amazed people are clinging on to the notion that FFXII came up with the "see monster, fight monster" encounter system when it was Grandia who pioneered the method.

Nobody had any problem with FF7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2's random encounters. It did'nt stop them from being great.

I seriously dont know why people were expecting this game in terms of complete originality. It was made clear before its release several times that it would be a traditional RPG and that has been delivered.

Think about how many 10's of seconds have passed in the time it took you to read this post, nay this page. Its not bad, not at all.

Sniper_Zegai

@AELFIN
You don't really know too much about LO's combat system I gather. Here's a rundown of a typical section:

30 to 50 seconds of walking and exploring.
10 seconds of combat transistion
Around three rounds of combat - unless you're at the level cap - usually lasting between a minute to three minutes.
30 to 50 seconds of walking and exploring.

The encounter rate is LOW in this game, and the battles are by and large LONG. The percentage of your time in the loading screen is very low.

Walshicus

I don't mind camera pans whilst loading, at least there's no black screens for it... but since each area re-uses the same background for every battle, and there's usually only 3-4 types of enemy per area, couldn't the machine keep all that data in a short-term-memory thingybob so it didn't have to load for every single battle? Once the data is loaded, why make it reload 10 or 15 times for the duration of the area?

Android18a

@aelfin: Except moving from one section of a town to another in FFXII takes 3 times as long, at least, as it does in LO. I'm not a fan of LO load times, although I've never found myself angry about while playing, but FFXII wasn't without it's issues in that department either.

Killtacular

No, really, 10-16 second "transition times" (sounds better than loading times, and is really more relevant :P) is completely unacceptable. And if we as gamers go on thinking that, game developers will go on thinking they can do that. To have a transition, then fight for say 60 seconds (in an average, not boss, battle), then walk for another 20 seconds (being generous there) means the game is taking control out of your hands for close to 20% of the playable part of the game.

This is NOT on. Especially when you compare it to the much more sensible FFXII battle system. See enemy, fight enemy, keep going. It takes away none of the strategy and depth fo the battle system whilst adding playtime. It does not need a silly transition that takes you as the gamer out of the equation for 15 seconds every 90 seconds or so.

aelfin

@Walshicus: Disagree to Agree on the Audio preference.

Agree 100% on the protganist and overall tone. This is not your happy go getter typical JRPG storlyine. When I saw the character with the single "bang", I thought "here we go again".

Trust me, this is my last comment on this game. Best 60 dollars I've spent in the longest time.

Fyren

12-16 seconds per batlle? I've played a game like that before on the PS2. It was called Ephemeral Fantasia. Now that wasn't exactly a good game overall, but the loading times totally killed it. To this day I still think of "EF" as the worst game of all time, so with that game in mind, I'm not sure I should be all psyched about this game.
If there's a chance there are even loading times of almost a minute long, well excuuuuuuuse me Mistwalker.

PBz0r

Do you still remember the time when consoles ridiculed the PC and CD-Rom based devices for their loading times?

Asbestos_Underwear

While I'm still intending to pick this up, all this talk about the load times is making me think there was simply some lazy programming in there somewhere, or perhaps Unreal Engine 3 dedicates too much resources to graphics and leaves little room for everything else (ie. the actual gameplay elements). I know sod all about programming though, so I can't elaborate anymore on that theory.

I can't shake the feeling though... especially after having played DMC4 a lot, a game that loads environments (and all the enemies and associated sounds and effects that your character and the enemy characters are going to do) really really quickly.

Maybe it'll be a lot clearly when I do play LO - perhaps those environments are that much bigger and varied with more characters at any one time. Hey, you guys should tell me :)

SeriousStu

I suppose the loading time is also dependent on how frequent the random battles are. I mean if you can only walk two steps before being dragged into another battle then a 16 second wait is annoying. If you only encounter a random battles every few minutes it's much more bearable.

photoboy

@Gaiking; Kaim isn't really that effeminate. his features have a certain sharpness to them, but I wouldn't class that as effeminate in of itself.

Seriously, buy the game - I've yet to see anyone disappointed with it. Kaim acts like a man who's seen 1,000 years of pain and suffering and love and joy... because he has.

@Evo; You honestly won't notice them for combat.

Walshicus

@Dumari:

No it's not. It's 10-12 exactly every time. Either way, he edited the article, so it doesn't matter anymore.

BD

The Gamespot review has an editor's note at the end stating that there might indeed be a discrepancy between review copies and retail copies when it comes to load times.

Shorter load times might be one of the technical tweaks that the US and PAL versions supposedly got. I still bought the Asian version - doesn't matter if the loading times turn out to be longer: the retail version in my country is literally twice as expensive (€35 import vs. €70 retail copy).

All About Lily Chou-Chou

Meh....I'll skip this one. I have lost all interest in Japanese RPGs. I have become sooooo tired of the effeminate girly boy "hero" types in Japanese games. Why can't any of these characters be even close to looking like a man? Dantefrom DMC even looks like a fem.

gaiking

Err, since when does 12-16 seconds is acceptable loading time? That reminds me of the very early GTA game. It'd drive me insane to have to relieve that again.

Evo

@Fyren
Um no. The Japanese voice acting isn't bad... but it pales in comparison to the goodness of the English voice acting. Jansen in English is a legend of gaming. Jansen in Japanese is just alright.

Walshicus

@Fyren: Sounds fine to me, I love random battles cos I can power level and it makes it hard to avoid fights which makes the difficulty higher. I also love RPG's especially JRPG's and long cutscenes etc. This game suits me perfectly.

-Sigil-

@quen:

I think lots of people are mistaking lots of the realtime ingame cutscenes as FMV's, and the loading from what I've experienced is the most when it has to load all the special data for ingame cutscenes, but usually when an FMV is showing, it streams it, any loading before an FMV is loading data for the realtime ingame cutscene that comes hand in hand with that FMV.

eld

This was the main thing putting me off, now the only thing stopping me from buying it is the English release date :(

hamandcheeseUK

@Fyren: Wait - it takes time to load FMV cutscenes? Video should stream from disk, so there should be no load times beyond disc seek (which is well under a second).

(If the video is lower quality then there should even be spare bitrate so that it can do loading of the next actual game part while playing a cutscene, if the data is interleaved. Obviously this would be extra work so I don't know how often it is done.)

So basically I'd expect possible load times for realtime cutscenes (it may need to load in textures etc before it can display anything) but not FMVs. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Also, again if it's FMV, then the number of language tracks doesn't make a difference (within reason) - video is much, much, much, much (and can we get some more much?) bigger than audio.

quen

@Rickster: maybe I should have read the whole thing before posting that :P

Rickster

Microsoft really shot themselves on the foot on this one, yet AGAIN. Giving reviewers debug versions of the game and telling them it's as good as final when loading times are 2-3 times longer than the retail copy? Somebody put this dumb company to sleep already!

Soldrak

@Jouten:
If it takes DMC4 20 minutes to install it would takes almost 2 hours based solely on file sizes.

The 'install' option isn't so much a great idea as much as it is a way around a perfectly good but new format pushed out in it's infancy.

The bottom line is if you've played jRPGs like this before you won't feel like you're waiting any longer than you did before. However, as it has been stated before, the cutscenes LOVE to jump from ingame to prerendered back to ingame back to prerendered so THOSE loading times can get really annoying.

Dumari

How is the difference in load times for harddisk/non harddisk systems? Maybe it's optimized for the Arcade unit.

El-Suave

Not sure I could put up with it, but if it's really that good I might have no choice. If this were on the PS3, at least they could 'install' it to the hard drive. Either way, I'm looking forward to some good (J)RPG's. I haven't had a good one since Oblivion and Folklore.

Jouten

Bring back cartridges!!!

NimbusTLD

12-16 seconds is old-gen time?? I guess its ok. FF XII is real time onscreen enemies and much quicker battle load. The sucky part is during the city & map section load...ughh!! I hate that part, put in 90 hours for that game. It gets to you in the long run those loading time. I wouldn't mind install if it is eliminated. If LO story is nice etc, is ok, just play it for the story. Well, there's nothing next gen in RPG to compare now...

ahmeng

ahh!! change the 30-60 seconds to 5-15 second before someone gets the wrong idea and uses it for troll material!!

Rickster

@-Sigil-: Trust me, I was on the same boat. Since detsu, trigger, and VII, I havent finished a single JRPG since then; yes that includes FFX and DQVIII and all your emblems, xenos, hack., which I quit usually third of the way.

I decided to pick this up and like I have said before. I couldn't skip a single cutscene or even miss a single townperson npc to talk to.

Its will MOST likely be up your alley if you grew up when Square-enix was Squaresoft. Its a trip in nostalgia road with current gen tech ^^.

Fyren

@Fyren:

While I'd normally agree about using the japanese audio track I actually prefer using the english on this game. There was a lot of effort put into the voice acting and it's actually a very good package (although nothing can distract from the main character being generically emo). Jansen just isn't the same fun to me in Japanese and he's the main draw for me as far as the characters go. I'm reminded of Golden Boy which I was a huge fan of the enthusiastic dub on VHS but when I got the DVD and listened to the native track I was bored to death by the characters average and unremarkable voice.

Dumari

@Dumari: Exactly. 12-16 seconds from the instant you trigger a random battle to the time you can actually make your first move is fine.

Luke Plunkett

Sounds great then, definitely getting Lost odyssey.

@BD: Yeah DUMARI is right, There's been tons of fights in FF8, FF7 and others that have taken a while (inclduing visual cue).

-Sigil-

The loading doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is that the amount of cutscenes which induces massive load times.

If it all went FMV-->realtime, most of the loads would be gone.

I am convinced its all those goddamn language options that makes the cutscenes take ass time to load since you can change the source of audio on the fly

Everyone should be playing this on Japanese audio anyways :/

Still, The best RPG since forever. It was exactly ten years ago that I lost sleep over an RPG.

Fyren

I find the load times to be tolerable, faster is better but games can never and should never be instant. This is my first JRPG and I find the load times to be fine.

KindGalaxy

Actually it is. This is also including the stupid 'visual load' where the game shows you the battlefield and some character models to distract you from the fact it's still loading

Dumari

No, I don't think 12-16 seconds is normal for a Final Fantasy game.

BD

All I know is this game is awesome and makes any load times bearable.

Padder

I've spent quite a bit of time after reading this article (with Lost Odyssey paused beside me) getting into battles and timing the time from the first audio queue to the moment my command bar comes up. For me, the average time is 8 seconds.

Eight.

Never twelve.

Also, as had been said numerous times, you can run across a combat area and get in 1-3 fights, none if you're lucky. The encounter rate is EXTREMELY low. I've actually become suspicious in my early plays that I had somehow killed all the monsters in an area, because I wasn't getting into fights.

The loading is NOT bad. Not the combat loading, nor the Screen-Screen loading.

arcthemonkey

I watched the first 30min and I like.. Its got the old school elements like the older final fantasy games had. and its cool how the sky just shat lava onto people

morganrate

ApocalypseVII
QFT. Having played the game myself, the battle 'loading/transition' sequence is no longer than any other Final Fantasy game I have played as well. I think once people actually play the game all this fussing will seem silly.

Wokisan

That load time is actually non-existant in my eyes. The loading that occurs which you aren't shown anything of interest is perhaps two MAYBE three seconds at times. This is the little sprogs and cogs that float about prior to jumping into battle. Then the quick battle overview shows what enemies are on the screen, your team does the usual "you're mine" or "let's get busy time" chit chat and then you are on your way.
I found it no less long than any Final Fantasy I've ever played and have most assuredly met longer load times where I found the game drudging.
On a side note, after playing it I want to read that book, "Thousand Years of Dreams" because some of those little shorts are either exceptionally contemplative or sorrowful for such a short bit.
Reminds me (in English anyway) of Bradbury.
-Adam

ApocalypseVII

I have never really had a problem with the load times. I wouldn't have even realized there was an "issue" without reading this post.

VendettaUF

12-16 totally bearable? I think not. Cut that in half and we'll talk.

DrunkRaba