[360] Lost Odyssey. CRYAN GAEMS WITH AVIATOR GLASSES

No Lost Odyssey thread?

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Lost Odyssey is one of three RPGs currently in development by Mistwalker for the Xbox 360. (For the others, see Blue Dragon and Cry On). The player takes control of Kaim, a man who has been sentenced to live for 1,000 years. Gameplay revolves around the many generations of which Kaim is a part of, his loves and losses and conflicts of a world nearing a "mystical industrial revolution". Odyssey's story is being penned by award winning Japanese novelist, Kiyoshi Shigematsu who is working directly with Hironobu Sakaguchi on the story sequences. Heading up the artistic demands of the title is famed Japanese comic artist, Takehiko Inoue, while famed composer Nobuo Uematsu has been recruited to create a more contemporary soundtrack. Mistwalker is developing the title, but code work has been outsourced to a studio name Feel Plus, a subsidiary of Microsoft created specifically to aid Mistwalker. Former Square employees at Microsoft are also involved.

From wikipedia.

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September 13, 2006 - In this week's Famitsu magazine, Hironobu Sakaguchi conducted an interview with the magazine about Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey, which is scheduled for release sometime in 2007. In the interview, Sakaguchi reveals many interesting tidbits about the game and the demo, which will be playable at next week's Tokyo Game Show. To start off the interview, Sakaguchi revealed that in the end, the team decided that the game will be running at 30fps, which is no doubt a disappointment to a lot of 360 owners.

However, Sakaguchi did make mention that the models that are being used in rendered movies will look nearly the same as the real time models, so transitions between the two will be seamless for the most part. There are some interesting pieces of information about the system that's being used in the game. From Sakaguchi's explanation, it seems that when an enemy dies in battle, then the ones who haven't died yet will be able to extract their power and use it for themselves. In addition to that, Sakaguchi explains that the game has a hero that can never die, so there's no possibility of getting a 'Game Over' screen.

Mr. Sakaguchi also informed the magazine about what the other members of his team are doing concerning the game. Character designer Takahiro Inoue is checking all of the model renders, while Kiyoshi Shigematsu has been hard at work at finalizing all of the text in the game. In fact, the final text message that will be in the playable demo is written by Shigematsu himself. Speaking of demos, Sakaguchi also made mention of a playable demo that will be available along with Famitsu magazine, sometime in November. From the screenshots that Famitsu has in their interview, we can tell that Lost Odyssey is going to be a more traditional RPG than most people would initially think. One screenshot shows off your main character Gaim with his cohorts Sesu and Yansen in a Final Fantasy-esque battle, complete with menus. It seems that there isn't any special system being used in the game just yet, since all of the commands listed in the screenshot are very basic (Attack, Item, Magic, Run). However, Sakaguchi informed Famitsu in the interview that only the basic system will be available in the TGS demo, with anything special being left out.

To finish off the interview, Famitsu and Sakaguchi touched on Mistwalker's other games, such as Blue Dragon, Cry On (the Mistwalker and Cavia DS game) and Archaic Sealed Heat (A.S.H.). Sakaguchi promised that Blue Dragon will definitely be released within this year, while ASH is expected to see the light of day in the first half of next year. As for Cry On, Sakaguchi admitted that he doesn't know when the game will be released. For more information on all of Mistwalker's titles, keep an eye out for our coverage of the Tokyo Game Show.

IGN

In-game screenshot
Official Website

Info and Scans thanks to Duckroll from GAF

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Famitsu this week has a scoop on the Lost Odyssey which has recently been completed. They also interviewed Sakaguchi about the game which provides some pretty interesting details.

Highlights from the Sakaguchi interview in Famitsu:

- 30 fps (dark10x cry cry)
- In the opening movie for Lost Odyssey you can seamlessly input commands for the battle scene.
- Combat is not action driven but command menu driven.
- The playable demo lasts for 40-60 minutes.
- The final game will have even higher quality than the demo.
- The modeling for the movies are almost identical to the realtime models.
- Inoue (the character designer) is personally checking all the models.
- The demo's battles will just the most basic part of the system. The more indepth systems will be excluded.
- The character growth systems and so on will be in the final game only.
- Surviving enemies inherit the powers of those who are killed.
- Since the main character cannot die either there will not be a possibility of game over.
- The final game will use a physics engine.
- The final text message on the playable demo was written by Shigematsu (scenario writer for the various short stories that make up the game).
- Lost Odyssey will be playable at TGS, with the demo disc being released with Famitsu in early November.
- Lost Odyssey will be out in 2007.
- Blue Dragon will DEFINITELY be released within 2006.
- ASH is being targeted for the first half of 2007.
- There will be more titles being announced from Mistwalker.

Translation of the Famitsu Interview Posted by Blimblim from GAF:

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Famitsu Lost Odyssey Interview

Hamamura(Famitsu Guy): It's been a long time, I heard you finally show us Lost Odyssey Demo, Right? Is it gone Gold?
Sakaguchi(Mistwalker): Yeah it's finalized at last. Let's start playing here.

- Sakaguchi start Lost Odyssey Demo. I can see its beautiful but really magnificent opening movie,
and it changed first ingame battle seamlessly.with Xbox360's power these gorgeous gameplay took our breath away.
His total playing time of this demo was almost 40min. He said it took you roughly 60min playing if first time.
We put some beautiful screens and some captions around pages. -


Hamamura : Wow..Now I can say the demo is finalized as you told.

Sakaguchi : Yup the demo is done.


Hamamura : I can be frankly to talk you this, but these goodness really approve the power of Next-Gen.

Sakaguchi : I've been to make these kind of things since early days of making plots.
For example, We couldn't put these crowds of soldiers in early developments.
But we made hard works and make its speed faster,then we can fill huge amounts of mobs in full of screen.


Hamamura : The first scene of opening reminds me LoTR movie. Massive amounts of mobs and soldiers were fighting like that.

Sakaguchi : Exactly,That's what I have been hoping to run real-time.


Hamamura : Yes, Actually I could understand if it was only a "Movie" though,
It didn't end as usual,but start gameplay seamlessly! I really thanks to Next-Gen to make these things possible.

Sakaguchi : It works and gets along somehow. But I think we can put more efforts in visuals for release day.
I can say it's only 80% done in visual aspects.


Hamamura : I also remembered that when you were SE employee, You showed us some of FF7 in development.
You still remember that??

Sakaguchi : Hey Hamamura. you changed your intonations in a Kansai accent. what's wrong with you (Laugh)


Hamamura : (Laugh) I'm sorry, yeah I know I'm really excited at this Demo.
Well,It was SNES era and we were very pleased it's visual quality. But we were really shocked at seeing FF7's pre-rendered CGIs
Cuz it showed us that we can play games in such a quality.

Sakaguchi : I can agree that.In LO we use almost same character model, texture's resolutions and artworks are almost same as well.
(I know they are different and) we can put lots of times in making "Movie" carefully, camera-works etc.
but we can make "real-times" looks almost same as "Movies", I think it's similar to Films.
We can check these 30 frames running and render them beautifully in real-time.


Hamamura : But, If you really want to make it Film-like, Only You should do was using real films.
But I can say there are lot of "feelings" from original artworks. It's really nice.

Sakaguchi : Kindly, Mr.Inoue did special efforts in these artworks, I want audiences also could "feel" his touch.
Actually, All of completed 3D model were checked by him. We send him 3D model datas which is rendered in several point of views.
He could correct some of them like "make this eyebrow little longer" then send us back. We had tons of these correction about details.
So, I believe Mr.Inoue is very satisfied as well.


Hamamura : Good thing that he's also satisfied.

Sakaguchi : And you can see that LO has low-color tones such as smokes, muddy water, dust etc.
I think you could feel that you were running in shallow muddy waters and jumping around.
Which is from Mr.Inoue's "Vagabond" manga, I wanted to make such atmospheres.
/* Vagabond : Inoue's VERY famous manga. one of his masterpieces.*/


Hamamura : I can admit it. I believe Next-Gen power really helps that, bringing originals to game as it is.

Sakaguchi : I believe Mr.Inoue's influence was really huge. Since hardware is Soo powerful,
we could make more eye-candy in monsters and visual effects. but we afraid them spoil Inoue's atmosphere.
Having been in Inoue's world, We could easily make a decision about LO's art directions.


Hamamura : Looks like its battle system is almost done as well.

Sakaguchi : No, this is pretty basic one. In this Demo version, we didn't implement two of key features,
character's "growing"(he didn't say LvLing) and "control-able".


Hamamura : Interesting. How it works?

Sakaguchi : Pardon?(Laugh)


Hamamura : c'mon

Sakaguchi : I can reveal only about "growing" though. Well there are some other guys who can't die like Kaim but will join your party.
In opposit there are "normal" people who can join your party as well.
When "normal" members are dying "abnormal" members have choice to merge their "ability" or not.


Hamamura : Ah, You told little about that at last interview we had.

Sakaguchi : Yeah.Who is able to "die" or not is depends on LO's game system, and it links to story.
I bet you will be WTF and hesitate to absorb some of their power.
It will knock your morals and make you dazzling. I wanna make LO's system like that.


Hamamura : It really sounds fun!

Sakaguchi : Yes, but I think LO will be really "unique" game,
main theme is "A man who can't die" and Kaim will be waking up even he is defeated.
I that terms there is no "game over" in this game. cuz you can't die.


Hamamura : It means never invincible but you "can't" die. In Demo, one soldier wondered and asked Kaim "why the hell you still alive?",
I got strong feeling at that scene.

Sakaguchi : That is main theme and make story driven. LO is so unique but It's gonna be new experience as well.


Hamamura : I noticed some fun factors, like you can kick a can and its movement is physically simulated.(Laugh)

Sakaguchi : Kicking is only you can do though.I think it's not proper way to use physics. much wastes of power.(Laugh)
I will implement physics into game systems as some secret or gimmicks or such.
But In Demo version, All you can do is Kicking a Can.


Hamamura : I also noticed that you can tear off posters. Kaim found it and gave a glance.

Sakaguchi : This kinds of fun is set as basic concept. LO has HUGE environments with LONG story.
So I wanted to put these "fun" much around to react your actions. But there are not enough in Demo.


Hamamura : I could find some amount of that though.

Sakaguchi : We will add them in final stage of development.
wanna put these useless fun factors, also wanna make NPC's extra stories as well.


Hamamura : When demo ended, there are short message appeared. What is this?

Sakaguchi : Mr.Shigematsu's work. yeah I know it's really short. The message tells you how the Demo ends.
it's not so loud but very meaningful. I like his choice of this word.


Hamamura : Yea. I was really moved.

Sakaguchi : You can check it out by playing Demo. You can see different massage in retail version.
It will be bit longer to tell about Story and its back-end.


Hamamura : I will. Speaking about Mr.Shigematsu, How much did he write up stories?

Sakaguchi : He is still working(Laugh) He has been busy on this since first day. He asked me "When is this finished???"(laugh)
I bet he already wrote up same amount of a novel. We implement it as Kaim's thousand year's dreams
and sometimes they appear as main scenario. there are tons of sad story.
Even most of them are shorter than normal "short story" it still makes me cry sometimes.


Hamamura : Everytime I can shed tears at his novels.


--

Hamamura : Let's go back to talk about Demo itself. How you willing to bring this Demo to customers?

Sakaguchi : You can play at TGS for sure. And we put Demo disc on Famitsu early November.
I think users can't play full of demo at TGS, So I hope them to check Famitsu and play everything.


Hamamura : I can't wait it as well. So when are you thinking final version will be released?

Sakaguchi : The release date should be 2007. I cant figure it though but we are trying to make it fast.
Since Demo is up. most of basic systems are already done.
So I need to work on map editing and some of event directions right now.


Hamamura : You're putting so much things to the last as you were.
Like last 20% of development takes same period of times of past 80%.

Sakaguchi : My staffs are already crying. They calls my corrections "Devil's Report" (Laugh)


Hamamura : (Laugh)Pls Do it more to make it better. Well Can I ask you about your other projects?

Sakaguchi : I'm pretty sure we can release Blue Dragon in this year. You can check it in TGS as well.
I can accept another interview about this.
If there are no problems in developing, I can say NDS game ASH will be out in 1st half of 2007.
Then Lost Odyssey and CryOn There are some of secret projects going on, but I can't tell atm.
Maybe We can talk about them near future.

Hamamura : Seems you are really gearing up so hard these days. Every your projects sounds fun!
I'm really looking forward them. Thanks.

Staff:

LOST ODYSSEY

Director
Daisuke Fukugawa :
Final Fantasy Tactics battle planner
Legend of Mana world map system design chief and sub system design

Takehiro Kaminagayoshi:
Legend of dragoon event script and event director
Magic Knight Rayearth assistant planner (Sega Saturn)

Producer
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Hiroshi Kawai:
Final Fantasy VII character programmer
Final Fantasy IX and Parasite Eve main programmer
Magatama programmer and producer

Movie Director
Katsuyuki Motohiro:
Bayside Shakedown, Space Travelers, Transparent: Tribute to a Sad Genius director

Art Director
Takamasa Ohsawa:
Shadow Heart:Covenant art director
Koudelka art director

Concept Artist
Eric Feng
Christian Lorenz Scheurer : FF9, FF the Spirit Within, Dark City, Titanic, etc.

Character Designer
Takehiko Inoue

Character Modeler
Hiroshi Arai
Tengai Makyou Zero game designer
Final Fantasy VII main character modeler
Final Fantasy IX character modeler
Parasite Eve 3D character director

Music
Nobuo Uematsu

Scenario
Kiyoshi Shigematsu (famous Japanese novelist)

Dammit, I know a friend witha 360, but they're region locked, so getting the demo off play asia or something is useless...

Still curious for this title. Its looking good so far.

Originally Posted by Kairi Li

Dammit, I know a friend witha 360, but they're region locked, so getting the demo off play asia or something is useless...

Still curious for this title. Its looking good so far.

Definitely, aside from FFXIII and Trusty Bell, this my most anticipated game.

TGS Videos

Lost Odyssey (Intro)
http://www.xboxyde.com/news_3480_en.html

Lost Odyssey (Gameplay)
http://www.xboxyde.com/news_3484_en.html

Blue Dragon (Trailer)
http://www.xboxyde.com/news_3479_en.html

Blue Dragon (Gameplay)
http://www.xboxyde.com/news_3483_en.html

Trusty Bell (Trailer)
http://www.xboxyde.com/news_3478_en.html

Really awesome stuff.

Nice, too bad it's coming out on 360. I may have to get one now

No one's posted in this in over a year? Heh.

Some new gameplay videos and a new Japanese trailer. The game comes out tomorrow in Japan.

The first 10 minutes: Lost Odyssey - Gamersyde

Gametrailers.com - Lost Odyssey - Winter 07 Japanese Trailer HD

This is actually looking good. It's too bad that it will probably suffer in recognition simply due to the platform it's being released on.

Edit I take it back after this quote from IGN:

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In the six hours that I've played so far, Lost Odyssey has been a technical mess, with framerate problems in just about every cinema and on most maps, an animation system that looks like it was ported straight from a PS2 engine, and frequent, inconsistent load times accompanied by visual stuttering as new data loads in.

IGN: Lost Odyssey Preview

I was kinda looking forward to it when the trailer was first released at E3 04 or was it 05? Anyways, I dont know I kinda stopped caring about the game now for some reason, but I read that it's going to be a long game so I might as well try it when ever it comes out in North America. It's been a while since I've played a good RPG game.

Any one else not so impressed with the graphics of the game?

Based on the trailer that is found on the Mass Effect LE disc, its graphical style is dated, to put it nicely. Looks like a PS2 game. Of course, things like story, gameplay, music, and such are more important than graphical style, so that is not a big deal. But then, I am doubting that they will deliver all of that. Based on the trailer I saw, it looks like the story is going to be a whiny emo-fest. "Omg I live long time, people I love die and stuff waaah." It looks like its going to be a 720p resolution version of a generic jap PS2 RPG from 2001.

Originally Posted by russ

It looks like its going to be a 720p resolution version of a generic jap SNES RPG from 1993.

Hi Blue Dragon; what's up?

Originally Posted by russ

Based on the trailer that is found on the Mass Effect LE disc, its graphical style is dated, to put it nicely.

Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey are both running on the same engine (Unreal Engine 3). However, the Lost Odyssey development team (FeelPlus) had mentioned that they were experiencing difficulty in receiving tech support from Epic Games, due to the language barrier.

I thought Blue Dragon looked fantastic, personally. Probably the first "real" next-gen looking RPG.

Originally Posted by Dagobert

Any one else not so impressed with the graphics of the game?

Sorry, but it seems you're the only one that thinks that. And considering the fact that famed FF composer; Nobuo Uematsu returns. And former Grease actor; Sheena Easton, which she does the theme for this game. This game's gonna be one heckuva cool adventure.

Because the people that have bought this game (in the Team Xbox site forums or the Xbox.com forums) pretty much like this game overal.

Originally Posted by Zeta26

Sorry, but it seems you're the only one that thinks that. And considering the fact that famed FF composer; Nobuo Uematsu returns. And former Grease actor; Sheena Easton, which she does the theme for this game. This game's gonna be one heckuva cool adventure.

Because the people that have bought this game (in the Team Xbox site forums or the Xbox.com forums) pretty much like this game overal.

I said I wasn't impressed with the graphics, not that I dont like the game, the soundtrack, artwork etc. I am interested in playing the game, just not impressed with the graphics, doesn't look as great as some of the games being released right now.

Well, even though this' a Hi-Def RPG. People wouldn't care about these "graphics". All they like nowadays is a great solid story. Which L.O. If all you cared for the visuals. Then this game like these would definitely not be for you. And besides, you do NOT buy a game simply by it's graphcis. But rather you buy them to enjoy the overal game's features + it's storyline.

So, what I said is true. Because afterall, it'd be a waste of your (or anybody)'s time who only cared for the in game visuals. Sure graphics may be nice and all. But really, that's not why gamers come to buy games like these. Is that they have great stories to tell, and great character development.

Originally Posted by Zeta26

Well, even though this' a Hi-Def RPG. People wouldn't care about these "graphics". All they like nowadays is a great solid story. Which L.O. If all you cared for the visuals. Then this game like these would definitely not be for you. And besides, you do NOT buy a game simply by it's graphcis. But rather you buy them to enjoy the overal game's features + it's storyline.

So, what I said is true. Because afterall, it'd be a waste of your (or anybody)'s time who only cared for the in game visuals. Sure graphics may be nice and all. But really, that's not why gamers come to buy games like these. Is that they have great stories to tell, and great character development.

I don't care so much about the quality of the graphics, but I do care about the massive technical issues being reported with the game. Poor load times, stuttering framerates and sound, and other similar technical issues can completely ruin the experience of a game even if the story and characters are good (which judging from the Japanese reviews, they aren't all that great either.)