Lost Odyssey
Lost Odyssey is currently 80% done.
Pictures: http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z258/noahthe40th/
Videos: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v788965RTsPeErx
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v7888127rzNpyRE
Lost Odyssey background info:
Discussions about Lost Odyssey's production began in late 2003, but actual production started in early 2004. Lost Odyssey is slated for a simultaneous world-wide release this holiday season (2007).
Lost Odyssey is a Japanese role-playing game being developed by Mistwalker, the company behind Blue Dragon, with help from several former Square employees and studio Feel Plus, a subsidiary of Microsoft. The story is being written by Kiyoshi Sigematsu, an award winning Japanese novelist, and is working on the story sequences directly with the game's director and Mistwalker founder, Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy.
The man responsible for the artistic look of Lost Odyssey is Takehiko Inoue, the artist of famous mangas such as Vagabond and Slam Dunk. In the music department, famed composer of many Square titles, Nobuo Uematsu, has been recruited to create a soundtrack that will reflect inner emotions.
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General Lost Odyssey info:
Lost Odyssey's story is about Kaim, an immortal man with no memories of his pat, but as the game progresses, begins to rediscover his past through dreams. He is currently living in a time when the world discovered magic, is on the verge of a magical power industrial revolution, and the magic infects the earth. Obviously, the theme of Lost Odyssey will be a big change from Mistwalker's first game, Blue Dragon. In this deep and dark sounding story, Sakaguchi promised that some humor will be added as well. A straight play-through of Lost Odyssey's main quest is said to last between 40 and 50 hours.
When Kaim is recalls his past through his dreams, these memories are presented in the form of short stories penned by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and once unlocked are available to read at any time under the "A Thousand Years of Dreams" menu option.
Lost Odyssey is being lip synced in English, but will also be dubbed in other languages.
Quoted from Hironobu Sakaguchi:
"Not only will you have the Japanese voices but there are also other languages such as English, French, German and Spanish. So you can decide to play with the Japanese voices and then choose the subtitles in your own language."
Quoted from Ray Nakazato:
"We had 400 [locations] we had to make, so some had to be cut to make others better. We've got about 300 characters. There's a little more than seven hours of real-time cutscenes.
Out of those seven hours, one hour is pre-rendered, and six hours are real-time. The pre-rendered scenes are for better lighting and for more visual effects like explosions or when a tower falls down. We need pre-rendering for those scenes, but the characters look almost the same."
Achievements will be based on exploration away from the main quest, but there could also be achievements for that as well.
Online capabilities have been said to be similar to Blue Dragon's. They plan on releasing downloadable content to expand Lost Odyssey's 40-50 hour game.
Lost Odyssey will have a fixed camera system, but it will move to provide realism through camera vibration and focus effects. You are able to use the triggers to zoom in and out while exploring on foot. Airships and huge vehicles have been seen in the game.
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Lost Odyssey characters:
Kaim is a man who has lived for 1,000 years. Even with the ferocity of the battles he encounters, his body will not perish. Though tormented with 1,000 years of memories, he goes about the land as a mercenary of war.
Seth is a woman who, like Kaim, has lived for 1,000 years. Undaunted by life, she has a strong will to not give in to the memories of the past, and faces the mystery of her own immortality.
Sarah is the woman with the librarian glasses you saw in the trailer. She is mortal.
Jensen is the young male with the pony-tail hair and the staff.
There are a total of 9 playable characters: Kaim, Sarah, Seth, Tolten, Sed, two children, Jensen, and Ming. Out of these 9 characters, four are mortal and five are immortal.
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Battle system: (updated like, alot)
Lost Odyssey relies on random enemy encounters, but since there are many event-based battles, Mistwalker is reducing the number of redundant combat encounters and put more depth in each battle instead. Though there are a total of nine playable characters, you may only take a maximum of five party members into battle with you.
Lost Odyssey's battle system is turn based with some real time elements. Lost Odyssey operates on the same turn-based principles as Final Fantasy. A turn indicator in the lower left-hand corner of the screen shows the order in which the characters will attack. Certain attacks, such as a powerful magic spell, will take a bit longer to charge than a standard physical attack. During a battle, for example, Kaim was able to attack with his sword multiple times while the Sarah prepared a fiery magical assault.
There is another element in this game when a melee attack is executed, a contracting circle onscreen will appear, and pulling the right trigger at the right moment will give the damage dealt a boost.
Lost Odyssey will employ a wall system, which will require players to ensure that the front guards protect the rear. The invisible wall reduces the amount of damage your party takes, but it can be broken down. There is a gauge on the top of the battle sequences that represents how much protection the front row gives to the back row with their wall system. Enemies will also use these formations and will rely on the timing based physical attack system (mentioned above), spells, and items to breech those walls.
Magical attacks in Lost Odyssey are much more powerful than physical attacks, so sorcerers must be protected with the front line while they do their own thing. Spells are divided into White Magic, Black Magic, Spirit Magic and Composite Magic.
There are certain battles where you are able to use the objects in the area during battle. An example is shown where a crane holding a number of explosives was conveniently suspended above a mammoth black monster. After damaging the crane, the crane released its payload damaged the beast.
The Microsoft representative stated that these types of battles would occur about once an hour during normal gameplay.
It was asked if it was possible to beat the boss monsters the old fashioned way by just hacking away at the beast with swords and spells. You can, but your party must be strong enough to do so.
Another feature in Lost Odyssey's combat is during boss battles, your party members will discuss tactics "manga ****" like a pre-battle cutscene.
Sakaguchi hinted that acquired skills will be needed to equip accessories and that obtainable skills will vary between mortals and immortals in the game.
He also said that item synthesis would be in the game and would work through combining items infused with magical powers along with a basic weapon. If you look closely at the E3 07 trailer, you can see Kaim's sword glow green. This could be an example of item synthesis.
Another element in Lost Odyssey is the ability for immortal characters to gain new skills by absorbing powers from mortal characters.
In Lost Odyssey, immortal characters don't die during fights. If Kaim or another immortal character falls in battle, he is automatically revived after a few turns. Mortal characters, however, will still need to be revived via spell or item. If the entire party is passed out at the same time, you lose the game and restart from a save point.
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Still unknown:
No information about whether or not Lost Odyssey will have summons or limit breaks has been released.
No information about whether or not Lost Odyssey will be on multiple disks has been released.
Sources:
http://www.gwn.com/previews/gamepreview.php/id/193/p/1/title/Lost_Odyssey.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070507/sheffield_05.shtml
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070507/sheffield_06.shtml
http://www.squarehaven.com/news/?id=1327
http://videogames.yahoo.com/newsarticle?eid=509355&page=0
http://ps3forums.com/showthread.php?s=05681c2e90cae9fdf9aa9a33b8e5e457&t=82396&page=2
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6269&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=1
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_4539_en.html
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_4539_en.html
http://www.siliconera.com/2007/07/23/looking-at-combat-in-lost-odyssey/
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=480
http://www.lost-odyssey.net/
http://www.forumeye.it/invision/index.php?act=Print&client=printer&f=13&t=375881
http://www.360-gamer.com/preview.asp?id=583
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/06/blue-dragon-in-us-this-august-lost-odyssey-worldwide-by-x-mas/
http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=857 (careful there is a spoiler at the end of this page)
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