Lost Odyssey

We finally got a chance to check out Mistwalker's much-hyped Lost Odyssey on the floor of TGS 2006. Studio boss Hironobu Sakaguchi had given us a glimpse at the first 10 mintues of the 40 minute demo, and it looked pretty good. With some extended hands-on time on the show floor, we were able to see what lay beyond where the previous presentation cut off.

The story follows a character named Kaim, sentenced to live for 1000 years. When we were playing through the demo, getting killed meant Kaim automatically revived with a small fraction of his health. No menus or mini maps were available in the demo we played, so the heads up display was pretty bare. In a press briefing a little while after the show floor opened, Sakaguchi said two major gameplay elements were not included in the demo. In other words, the Lost Odyssey demo apparently doesn't give a very good representation of the whole thing.

This would explain the rather basic battles we sliced through until we were told to stop playing. Starting off on the fiery field after the sky meteor thing burped lava everywhere, we went off in what we hoped was the correct direction. Running around the ashy plain felt a similar to Final Fantasy X, especially when we ran into our first random Battle. Honestly, running into a random battle was a disappointment. With Blue Dragon's system of putting enemies on screen, and actually letting you do damage and affect their status, it would have been great to see LO adopt a different type of system. Instead, it appears LO is headed down the well-trodden road of random enemy encounters. Hopefully one of the unrevealed gameplay devices changes this up.

This is something you want to look out for! I know it is going to have great hopes in Japan and hopefully it will do even better here in the United States!! Check it out and I will be bringing more information as soon it develops!