Again I say: Next!

From what I gather, Lost Odyssey was considered to be a bit "old school" when it launched, and it really hasn't aged well since then.  Mechanically, it's pretty bog-standard JRPG, with smallish zones to run around in, where the camera is controlled by the game... while the mini-map doesn't track with the camera changes, making navigation more challenging than it needs to be.  Combat erupts seemingly at random, with no indication on the field that you're about to encounter anything first.  Combat itself is mostly standard turn-based fare as well, with the usual front-row back-row setup... but you have to set up commands for your whole party at the start of each round, and, due to the "ring system" they implemented for melee combat, you are effectively penalized if you're not waiting for your fighters' turns to come up with bated breath.  And then there's the whole "immortals" thing... it's a key part of the story line (I watched a recap video), but it has no real combat effect - that is to say, if you party wipe, it's still game over.  The story this is all in service to, well, it's fine in some of its details, but the overall arc is still "stop the big bad from taking over the world, you plucky upstarts you", so I'm glad to have watched the recap video rather than suffering through the whole game to see the story.

The one thing I'm a little sad to not experience further from this game (but honestly, not so much that I'm going to look for video or anything) is the "dreams" feature.  The main character is an immortal who's been kicking around the world for a thousand years, who currently suffers from memory loss. Encountering certain experiences unlocks a dream containing a memory from that thousand-year journey... but it's not presented as a video or anything like that.  Rather, it's told as a short story, in text, with various animated effects applied to the characters themselves in ways that evoke the atmosphere or environment of the story.  It's a pretty neat way to tell a short story... but I can also see why it doesn't show up in newer games as well, with so many reading-averse gamers out there.

Well, leaving Lost Odyssey behind, that makes the next game up Red Dead Redemption, a widely-loved game in a wild-west setting I generally have little use for, so it's a toss-up as to how this game will go.  That will also be the last of the XBox 360 games in my "give it a proper go" queue... but no worries, once I'm done with that, I've got a load of more-modern XBox One games to go through, followed by literal hundreds of Steam games to sift through as well.  Social distancing indeed!