Credit goes to plainoldsam for writing this info page originally posted at Gamespot 

Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey is now complete and has gone gold.
NORTH AMERICA RELEASE DATE: February 12 2008
ASIA RELEASE DATE: January 24 2008
EUROPE: February 29 2008

AUSTRAILIA: February 7 2008
OTHER: Late February 2008

Official website: http://lostodyssey.jp/
Pictures: http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z258/noahthe40th/
Videos: Lost Odyssey trailer, Lost Odyssey trailer 2, Lost Odyssey intro,
Sakaguchi's Lost Odyssey demonstration: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Note: There are some spoilers in the videos. Nothing too major. Do not discuss them.

Famitsu: 9/9/9/9 -> 36/40

Famitsu 360: 10/8/9/8 -> 35/40

(I would like to apologize for any possible future or present mistakes made in the Lost Odyssey info page.)

BACKGROUND INFO:

Lost Odyssey will be released on December 6th in Japan, January 2008 for Asia outside Japan, February 12th (2008) for America, and late February for Europe and other parts of the world. (Delays are possible.) Discussions of Lost Odyssey's production began in late 2003, but actual production started in early 2004. Lost Odyssey is using the Unreal Engine 3 for its graphics.

Lost Odyssey is a Japanese role-playing game produced by Mistwalker (Archaic Sealed Heat, Blue Dragon) and developed by several former Square employees, such as Katsuhisa Higuchi, Hiroshi Kawai, and Daisuke Fukigawa, and former Nautilus employees (Shadow Hearts) in Feel Plus.

Mistwalker founder and Lost Odyssey's story writer and director Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy, will be working with co-story writer Kiyoshi Shigematsu (an award winning Japanese novelist) on the story sequences. Chris Borders (casting director of Mass Effect) is also the casting director of Lost Odyssey.

Credit for the artistic look of Lost Odyssey goes to the lead artists Takehiko Inoue (known for his mangas Vagabond and Slam Dunk), and Takamasa Ohsawa (known for his work in Shadow Hearts 2), who has a hand in character artwork and full control in environmental design. In the music department, famed composer of many Square titles, Nobuo Uematsu, has been recruited to create Lost Odyssey's soundtrack that will reflect inner emotions.

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GENERAL INFO:

Lost Odyssey's protagonist is Kaim Argonar, an immortal man with no memories of his past and rediscovers his past through dreams. In this world, men have discovered magic that has infected the soil of the planet, and thirty years after this discovery, Kaim is caught up in a political upheaval between his world's three main kingdoms as they all proceed towards a magical and industrial revolution. 

A straight play-through of Lost Odyssey's main quest will last between 40-50 hours. Like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey will span over four DVD-9 disks due to the 20 hours worth of CG and real-time cut-scenes used to illustrate the storyline.

The game has many features in the game such as super bosses, a coliseum, and minigames to extend Lost Odyssey's 40-50 hour game. A number of Lost Odyssey's sidequests also revolve around the past lives of our characters and certain others.

Online capabilities have been said to be similar to Blue Dragon's. Mistwalker would like to expand Lost Odyssey's 40-50 hour game with downloadable content. One recently revealed downloadable content will consist of an additional mission and an unlockable weapon and will be released on XBOX Live Marketplace in the spring of 08.

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."

Lost Odyssey utilize vehicles to help you travel around the world map. You can select previously visited locations to jump to immediately. You can travel through vehicles to all locations, but once you’ve visited a place, the world map provides a shortcut for returning.

Lost Odyssey will have a fixed camera system, but will also have camera vibration and focus effects to help the players feel more into the game. Players are also able to zoom in and out while exploring on foot, and move the camera in all directions.

Lost Odyssey will be lip-synced with its original soundtrack, English, and will be dubbed in other languages such as Japanese, Korea, Chinese, simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French and German.

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."

Achievements will be earned through exploration away from the main quest (such as the super bosses), but there are achievements for the main quest as well.

There's also a unique feature in Lost Odyssey. When Kaim recalls his past through his dreams, they are presented in the form of short penned stories (which are written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu) with 5-10 minute segments of text with only background music. These can be skipped when you encounter them in-game but once unlocked are available to read at any time under the "A Thousand Years of Dreams" option at the menu. There are a total of 34 short story episodes.

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CHARACTERS:

Kaim Argonar:
Kaim Argonar is a man who has lived for 1,000 years and has no memories of his past. 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. Kaim Argonar will serve as Lost Odyssey's main protagonist.

Seth Balmore:
Seth Balmore 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.

Sed:
Sed is the old man in red who's been seen using the gun.

Ming Numara:
Ming is the female magician in blue. Ming is also the queen of one of the kingdoms.

Jansen Friedh:
Jansen is the male magician with the pony-tail hair. Jansen serves as the comic relief of Lost Odyssey.

Tolten:
Tolten is the man in gold and is also the King Of Ura.

Sarah Sisulart:
Sarah is the woman in the yellow dress with the librarian glasses. Sarah seems to have a connection with Kaim.

Mack:
Mack is the male child in green.

Cooke:
Cooke is the female child in red.

There are a total of 9 playable characters: Kaim, Seth, Sed, Ming, Jansen, Tolten, Sarah, Mack, and Cooke. Out of these 9 characters, four are mortal and five are immortal.

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BATTLE SYSTEM:

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 putting more depth in each battle instead. You can also run in the game by holding the X button, and walk slowly but holding the B button. 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 will have you choose the actions of each individual character in your party first, and after all the commands of each character have been set, their moves will be executed. Turns are organized according to the actions given to your party members. Defend -> Item -> Attack -> Skill/Magic -> Escape -> Row Change. Meaning that defending actions will be executed before any item, attack, or magic actions. Item actions will be executed before any attack and magic actions. And so on and so forth. These rules will also apply to your enemies.

(Note that regular attacks against spell casters [which will always occur before casting] can delay or cancel such spells and skills.)

Lost Odyssey's battle system is, at its core, turn based, but with some real time elements. Lost Odyssey operates on the same turn-based principles as Final Fantasy. The menu consists the options of Attack, Defend, Magic, Item, Escape, and Row Change. 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 Sarah prepared a fiery magical assault.

When a melee attack is executed, a contracting ring onscreen will appear, and letting go of the right trigger at the right moment will give the damage dealt a boost. During combat, you can use these rings by holding the right trigger while attacking. If you do so, you'll see two large rings appear on the screen, the larger of which will quickly shrink to overlap with the smaller. If you let go of the switch just as the two rings overlap, you'll be able to execute a more powerful attack than you normally would.

In the game's menu, you can equip one of around 150 combat rings that you'll be able to find around the game world. These rings may also be crafted using materials you get from beating enemies.

When you equip these rings, they can add special attributes to your attacks. These will be triggered when you get a "Perfect" on the combat ring timing. There are a variety of rings to choose from. From adding damage and elemental attacks, to defense and stealing attributes.

Lost Odyssey will also 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-right corner of the battle sequences that represents how much protection the front row gives to the back row with their wall system, which goes up as the characters in front deal and receive damage, and drops as the rear characters take damage. The higher the meter goes, the more effective the protection is, and the less damage characters in the back take. Enemies will also use these formations and will rely on melee attacks, spells, and items to breech those walls.

Note that healing the member of the front lines with spells or items will not restore the wall. Instead, you'll have to restore the wall through other means. But do not worry, once you encounter another enemy, the wall will be restored according to the amount of HP your front line has. 

(From duckroll: More interesting, because spells always come -after- regular attacks (and probably most attack skills), this means that for your back row casters, you'll definitely want to keep your Guard Condition high. If enemies can cancel your spells with certain attacks, that would be bad.)

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.

Kaim won't actually be learning new skills. The skills and moves Kaim "recalls" throughout the course of the game will depend on what accessories he has equipped. He also "recalls" skills through the dreams of his memories. (Regarding equipment in Lost Odyssey, there's only weapon, ring and accessory, and these will all be visible in scenes except in CGI cutscenes.)

In Lost Odyssey, immortal characters have the ability to gain new skills by absorbing powers from mortal characters. Only mortal characters gain new skills as they can level up, and the immortal characters must rely on a "skill link" system to gain the skills of the mortal characters. You only have 6 skill slots to customize each character.

For example, you have your basic type of elemental magic but you can also combine them to create spells with different attributes. And the only way to give these spells to your immortal comrades is by first leveling up the spell in a mortal and then passing it on.

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 and damaged the beast. You can defeat the enemy the old fashion way by throwing spells and melee attacks.

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.

Kaim won't be with you throughout the entire game. You'll also play the roles of other characters as well, sometimes alone.

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