Life is tough when you’re immortal. But such is the life of one Kaim Argonar, the hero of Mistwalker’s Lost Odyssey. While there are no plans for Kaim to do any time-hopping (you’ll remain rooted in one era throughout the game), you’ll traverse Odyssey’s fictional future-scape alongside various characters who join your plight.

During a demo, we witnessed two different battles: one with Kaim and a female magicslinging companion on a train, and another with three cohorts fighting a giant monstrosity at a space dock. During the first struggle, Odyssey’s concept of “range” was spotlighted. Both your party and the enemy contingent have different “rows” of positions. Hitting an opponent (in this case, a machine) in a back row requires you to either cast spells or have the right ranged weapon. No physical attacks can reach them otherwise — but the same goes for the bad guys. Keep your tank characters upfront, MMO-style.

The second fight showed off range in a different way — your party’s confronted by an enormous, unstoppable behemoth of a creature. You have no hope of taking it down with simple physical or magic attacks, so you need a re-think. In this case, the team members with ranged abilities moved some explosives above the beastie’s head, and then caused them to crash down, destroying the monster. Easy squeezy.

Subtle features like the “range” concept may sound small, but in a lengthy sprawl like Lost Odyssey, it’s nice to know that you won’t simply be blindly bashing orcs until the mutant cows come home. Now, if the developers would reveal a little more about that epic-sounding story…