Finally beat Lost Odyssey recently, and for the most part I really enjoyed my time with it. I started out doing all the optional stuff I could, but it did feel like it started to drag later on in the game (late disc 3 and disc 4), especially after I found and read all the dreams, and I ended up skipping some of the optional dungeons. Those short stories in the dreams were definitely the best part about the story, but I feel like they did complement the narrative overall. I read a lot of visual novels, and most tend to just be straight up reading, so it felt kinda cool having VN/sound novel sections interspersed into a JRPG.
The combat felt very Final Fantasy for better and worse, the better being that it was pretty fun, the worse being that, like a lot of FF combat for me, it ended up feeling like I had a few broken characters that were overpowered by the end of it, and it also got a tad repetitive/boring at times. I didn't have any issues at all with the final boss thanks largely to those OP characters, even though I felt a little under prepared and maybe a little under-leveled? (My characters were level 47-50).
The characters were generally pretty likeable, even found myself liking some characters that I initially didn't care much for (like Jansen) as the game progressed. I felt like some of them didn't have great development though.
The music was fantastic, a lot of the battle themes are going to stick in my head for a long time. Presentation-wise the game was also great, even if the graphics are definitely showing their age now. It still largely played like a modern game and I don't really have any QOL complaints, aside from what seemed like some weird emulation issues on the Series X (had some issues with the audio cutting out during battles or cutscenes on the first 2 discs, which strangely stopped happening from disc 3 onwards. Also had the game randomly freeze on me once, and I had to force close the game from the Xbox's menu). The random encounter rate also felt very reasonable for the most part.
Overall, it was a great game, though it definitely had its low. But the highs felt like they made up for them. I quite enjoyed Blue Dragon as well, which I played last year, and it kinda makes me regret largely ignoring Mistwalker's games back in the day. Never did get a copy of the Last Story, but it's definitely something I'm a lot more interested in now.