Preview: Lost Odyssey

After a somewhat average debut for new developers on the block “Mistwalker” in the from of Blue Dragon, the experienced team of ex Square-Enix employees headed up by producer Hironobou Sakaguchi are lining up for their second attempt due for worldwide release early next year.

The result is Lost Odyssey, an Xbox 360 RPG that tells the story of Kaim Argonar; a man who has been sentenced to live for 1000 years. Preview trailers and demos so far have looked and sounded promising, this title seeming to have more depth in both gameplay and narrative than the disappointing Blue Dragon.

In terms of the gameplay the creator’s style really shines through. Anyone who has experienced a main Final Fantasy title before FFXII will be in familiar territory here. Battles are random and a party of three or more fights it out against their enemies in a conditional turn based system. On using certain attacks, there is a small button pressing and timing exercise similar to the Overdrives of Final Fantasy X which can increase the effectiveness of attack if executed properly.

The use of this system is a gamble. Turn based random battles are tried and tested in a myriad of games, but is the general public going to accept another one in an age where people are pressing for more and more believable real-time systems? Level designs that can be seen are of the enclosed, relatively linear experiences seen in games like Final Fantasy X so early indications are the focus will be on progressing along a very fixed path to experience the story rather than giving a lot of scope for exploration.

Lost Odyssey uses the Unreal 3 engine and so graphically the game is above par, if not quite up there with the hyper-realism of Gears of War and Call of Duty 4. Effects in-game are beautiful and so far there is no hint of slowdown, although some of the animations look a little stiff and artificial, perhaps due to Mistwalker-s insistence on using key frame animation as opposed to the ever increasing popularity of motion capture.

The sound seems very promising at this stage. Uematsu produced a disappointing soundtrack for Blue Dragon but the style is much more focused in Lost Odyssey, and the tracks sent out so far have been full of the emotion and melodic quality that Uematsu is famed for. Equally impressive is the voice acting, and noticeably absent are the lip-synching issues for the English release as Mistwalker have designed this particular JRPG with the western audience in mind, which is a refreshing break from poor localizations from Japan.

In short, Lost Odyssey looks set to be a game to please the traditional JRPG lover, but doesn’t attempt to break any new ground in terms of its play and features. If the story and mechanics can grasp the player as strongly as the Final Fantasy titles before it, though, Lost Odyssey could well become a revered classic. For those fans of the tradition Japanese RPG, this title is one of the most exciting prospects of 2008.