Lost Odyssey is a role-playing video game developed by Mistwalker and Feelplus and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It was released in 2007 in Japan and 2008 in western territories. The story follows Kaim, one of a select group of "immortals" who have lost their memories: while confronting threats generated by the world's approaching magical industrial revolution, he must also face the pain brought by his returning memories. The gameplay features many staples of the genre, such as navigation using a world map, random encounters, and a turn-based battle system.
First discussions surrounding Lost Odyssey began in 2003, with development beginning the following year as an internal Microsoft Game Studios Japan project. After running into difficulties, Feelplus was established as a dedicated studio to work on the game. The story was written by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu: Sakaguchi wanted to create a story focusing on evoking human emotions, and kept the gameplay within genre traditions so he could experiment with the story. The game went through a difficult development, with problems stemming from the chosen engine technology and the arrangement of development teams. The music was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, a veteran composer for the Final Fantasy series.
First hinted at in 2005, the game was officially revealed shortly before that year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. At the time it was released, it was Microsoft's largest console game, spanning four dual-layer DVDs. Upon its debut in Japan, it sold favourably, eventually selling nearly 110,000 units by April 2010. It also received strong sales overseas. Its critical reception has been generally positive: while praise has focused on its story, many journalists were critical of its traditional design and loading times.
Gameplay
left|thumb|230px|A standard battle from Lost Odyssey, showing main protagonist Kaim performing an attack with the "Aim Ring System" active
Lost Odyssey uses a traditional turn-based battle system seen in most Japanese role-playing games, similar to early Final Fantasy iterations. A world map allows the player to move the party between adjacent towns or fields on the map, while later in the game the player is given more freedom to explore the world through the use of ocean-going ships. Towns and cities provide inns for the player to read the thousand years of dreams, Mana/HP recovery orb for health and mana, stores for buying and selling of equipment, and save points for the game. While exploring certain areas, the player will randomly encounter monsters to fight.
The combat system incorporates aspects of battle initiative and length of actions to determine how events resolve each turn. Item usage is instantaneous, regular melee attacks are executed on the same turn, while casting spells or using special abilities may delay the player's action for one or more turns, depending on their speed. Actions can be delayed if the user is hit by an attack. The player has the option to cancel an action on a subsequent turn if necessary.
Melee attacks include an "Aim Ring System" using equippable rings with added effects. As the character launches the attack, two concentric targeting rings appear on screen. The player must time their button release in order to make the rings intersect.
In combat, both the player's party and enemies are arranged in two lines, front or back. Up to five party members can participate in battle at once. At the start of battle, the back line is protected by a special defensive "wall" which is based on the combined hit points of the front line. This wall reduces damage that the characters in the back experience, but as the front line takes damage, the wall weakens, and can only be recovered through the use of certain spells or skills. "Immortals" do not know any skills initially, but instead gain skills by "linking" with a mortal character that is currently part of the battle formation, earning skill points in battle towards complete learning of the skill. To cast spells, the player must first find spells to fill the spell book, and then must have characters that have learned the appropriate magic skill of the right level to cast that spell. While magic energy existed in all living creatures beforehand, it suddenly became far more powerful thirty years before the beginning of the game. Uhra is building Grand Staff, a gigantic magic engine, while the heavily industrialized Gohtza actively pursues magic research of their own. The queen allows the group to go free in Numara, where Kaim meets Cooke and Mack, his grandchildren, who join the group after the death of their mother.
News eventually arrives in Numara that Gongora has encouraged Tolten to reestablish the monarchy in Uhra and prepare for war. The general of Numara, Kakanas, uses the opportunity to usurp control of the country from Ming, forcing her to flee with Kaim and others as enemies of the state. The group travels towards the nation of Gohtza, hoping to seek help from its King. On the way, Sarah Sisulart, Kaim's wife, joins the party after she is recovered from the Old Sorceress Mansion.
Arriving in Gohtza, Kaim and Sarah arrange for a peace negotiation between the Gohtzan King, Queen Ming, and Tolten to take place on a train. However, Kaim and Sarah are forced to go after Cooke and Mack, who steal a train to again try to find the spirit of their departed mother, leaving Jansen and Seth to participate in the negotiation alone. During the meeting, Gongora activates Grand Staff and flash freezes the entire country. Kaim and Sarah locate Cooke and Mack but are forced to separate due to a vicious magic attack by Gongora. Kaim and Sarah's train crashes, while Cooke and Mack are stranded on the train tracks in the freezing cold. The children are later saved by Ming and Jansen. The four unite and rescue Kaim and Sarah. In Uhra, Tolten learns that Gongora has announced Tolten's death and has usurped the throne, thus he joins with Seth to help free her son Sed, who joins the party, and his pirate hydrofoil submarine, the Nautilus. The entire party reconvenes in Gohtza.
The immortals talk and begin to recover their memories, realizing that they are actually observers from a parallel universe. In Gongora's diary, he explains the difference in space-time, where 1000 years is equivalent to 1 year in the parallel universe. The diary also explains that the immortals' world has been affected by the emotions of people in the mortal realm.
After regaining their memories, the party heads for Grand Staff. They recognize that Gongora is attempting to use the Grand Staff to destroy the portal between the two worlds, killing the other immortals and making himself effectively invincible. The group confronts Gongora in the Hall of Mirrors, the only place where they are vulnerable to death. The mortals help to block the mirror's power while the immortals fight Gongora, but their powers are equally matched. When the mortals become trapped in their own barrier after absorbing too much power, Seth drags Gongora through the mirror, allowing Kaim to break it and prevent him from ever returning.
In the epilogue, the nations led by Ming and Tolten come together to rebuild society, and the monarchy is restored in Uhra. Ming and Jansen get married, while Kaim and Sarah settle down to help raise Cooke and Mack, all aware that Seth is able to observe their happy endings.
Development
thumb|left|Scenario writer and project supervisor [[Hironobu Sakaguchi at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show]]
The development of Lost Odyssey was first proposed to Microsoft Game Studios by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The first discussions began in 2003. It was a collaboration between Mistwalker, an independent game studio set up by Sakaguchi in 2004, and Microsoft. It was initially an internal project by Microsoft's Japanese studio with Sakaguchi, but development ran into difficulties. The video game company Feelplus, which formed one part of AQ Interactive was brought in to assist with the game's development. The staff of Feelplus included a large number of developers from the defunct Shadow Hearts developer Nautilus, and staff members from The Legend of Dragoon and Phantom Dust. Among the shared staff were art director Takamasa Ohsawa. They also included developers from Microsoft Game Studios Japan and Sega. Further freelance staff were also brought in. Development started in 2004 and lasted three and a half years. These story segments were presented in the game in a similar style to a visual novel, as the stories were intended to evoke emotion. The gameplay, such as the battle system, was kept deliberately traditional so that Sakaguchi had freedom to experiment with the story. One of the elements Sakaguchi checked was how story and gameplay were balanced: sometimes, he would ask for a cutscene to be removed or for a boss battle to be lengthened if the balance seemed off. Uematsu was contracted to Mistwalker to work on three of their games, with the first being Blue Dragon. He was highly excited for the title as it was Sakaguchi's first "serious" game since leaving Square Enix in 2003. As he was involved with Lost Odyssey from the early stages, receiving information on the characters and setting, he was able to create his first musical pieces while the game was in early stages. Most of the two hours worth of music was recorded with a live orchestra, as Uematsu felt that the emotion evoked by the game could only be communicated through live instruments. As with his previous work, Uematsu's music covered a lot of ground: the musical style varied from grand orchestral pieces, to hardcore rock, to ambient electronic music. In addition, he used unusual ethnic instruments to introduce unconventional sounds, including a sitar and a shakuhachi. The main theme was written in a minor key to express the burden of living for over a millennium: it was incorporated into the score in various forms. Two of the songs in the game, "What You Are" and "Eclipse of Time", were sung by award-winning vocalist Sheena Easton. The vocal track "Kaette Kuru, Kitto..." was sung by Japanese band Flip Flap. The lyrics for all the songs were written by Sakaguchi.
The game used Unreal Engine 3 as middleware due to it being at the forefront of engine technology at the time. It also allowed development to start before the console's release. Conversely, the design philosophy behind Unreal Engine clashed with the philosophies most often used in JRPG engines, resulting in difficulties with integration that repeated themselves four times during development. In addition, the team had trouble keeping up with the engine's regular updates and reading the requisite manuals. This in turn caused technical setbacks such as long loading times.
The main characters were designed by Takehiko Inoue, a noted manga artist who had developed a reputation for designing "people". Inoue made the initial character designs based on the material provided by Sakaguchi, then submitted them and adjusted them based on Sakaguchi's feedback. Characters sometimes needed to be completely redesigned, such as Tolten. The main characters' clothing was designed by Final Fantasy artist Hideo Minaba: the clothing was designed not to reflect any nationality or historical era. While they tried not to limit the designers' creative abilities within the game's hardware, Minaba was asked to limit fluffy or swinging clothing. The character models were hard to create, especially considering the surrounding environments. In contrast, the use of Unreal Engine 3 lessened the technical restrictions on the team. Inoue ran frequent checks on the character models as they went through multiple revisions, even down to their eyebrows. It was estimated that three hundred unique characters were created for the game.
Release
Mistwalker confirmed in February 2005 that it was working on two RPGs for the then-untitled Xbox 360. Lost Odyssey was officially revealed during a pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference. The game's content was large enough that it was shipped on four dual-layer DVD discs: this was one more than Mistwalker's other Xbox 360 RPG Blue Dragon, and at the time made it Microsoft's largest console game. A demo for Japan was released in 2006, featuring a basic build of its battle system. In hindsight, a demo release this early was seen as a mistake as it gave players a negative impression of the battle system. The game was made available digitally on December 14 and was a free download to all Xbox Live members until December 31.
Localization
The game was localized into multiple languages, but all the lip syncing was for the English dialogue: this was done partly to show western audiences appreciation for their support of the title, and also because Japanese audiences had grown used to out-of-sync dialogue with dubbed Western films. English voice recording was done in Los Angeles. Localization was handled by Microsoft: initially, different departments in each region handled localization for their region. The need to translate and then include the material at long distance proved problematic, so the main development team brought the localization team into the main production, introducing them to easy-to-use development tools so changes could be made easily without direct consultation with Feelplus.
Downloadable content
Downloadable content (DLC) for the game began release in Japan in January 2010: the content consisted of multiple additional chapters in "A Thousand Years of Dreams", powerful accessories, and an option to view cutscenes. The final DLC package included a late-game underwater dungeon. The DLC content received overseas releases between April and May 2008, but the first one was limited to a pre-order exclusive in North America.
Novel
On November 21, 2007 a book of short stories based on the main character of Kaim was released in Japan called . It is penned by Kiyoshi Shigematsu and features 31 out of the 33 stories found in the "A Thousand Years of Dreams" sequences throughout the game itself.