Mistwalker Studios - Lost Odyssey & Blue Dragon

[bishopcruz]

We've talked about them before but there are now some trailers out and these games are looking fucking amazing.

 

For anyone who is just joining us the house of Gates scoreda bit of a coup by securing games from Mistwalker Studios, the new development house of Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man who created Final Fantasy. He has so far anno0unced 2 games for the 360, Blue Dragon, and Lost Odyssey. Blue Dragon is bringing together many of the same people who worked on Chrono Trigger, including designs by Akira Toriyama. Lost Odyssey seems to be Sakaguchi's baby, it was the game he wanted to make when he formed Mistwalker, and it has some heavy talent behind it also. Character Designs are done by Takehiko Inoue (Vagabond), and look great. He's also hit up a Naoki prize winning novelist, Kiyoshi Shigematsu, to help pen the story and make it more human. Nobuo Uematsu will b e doing the score for both games.

 

Both of them are looking very very next gen and I just have to say WOW! Honestly, I have seen some impressive trailers thus far, but these may take the cake. They are taken from a hidden camera at an event called JUMP Festa in Japan.

 

Here are some screens:

 

Lost Odyssey:

edit: Grr, not linkable wonky pics, here's another good one.

 

Blue Dragon:

 

 

Lost Odyssey trailer (hidden cam)

 

Uematsu's score during this trailer blows me away, he's back is true form. The Monsters look amazing. You can tell the game isn't too far into development, but the concept art is great, and the way they showed they can make it look just as good in real time wowed me.

 

Blue Dragon Trailer (Hidden cam)

 

Also looks great. THe impression I got from watching this trailer was that the game was going to be a lot like Chrono Trigger, one of my all time favs. The environments look incredible, and I just have to say, wow, those real time graphics do look damn like CG.

 

Blue Dragon TV ad 1

TV AD 2

 

These are only about 15 secs each but are of MUCH higher quality than the above vid. These ads are currently playing on Japanese TV, probably to get the word out that RPGs are coming. For those of you who don't know, that's Sakaguchi himself sitting next to Akira Toriyama saying basically "Toriyama-san, you're amazing!" to which he replies "Really?" the scribble says: "Toriyama Akira (The Real Thing)"

 

Edit: Also just found the below ling, it is the mistwalker webpage for LO, and it has some friggen great Uematsu music playing in the background. Also some very high quality screens.

 

Mistwalker.info

[bishopcruz]

Cry On (Mistwalker Studios, X360 Action-RPG)

 

http://www.xboxyde.com/news_2417_en.html

 

AQ Interactive today announced 3 new games for Xbox 360, 2 of them exclusive. The first one is named Cry On, and is developed by Cavia for Mistwalker. Sakaguchi is the game Producer, and Uematsu is doing the music. It's an Action-RPG, exclusive for Xbox 360. First artworks inside.

 

 

Looking pretty friggen sweet. Guess people won't be able to use the whole "Xbox doesn't have RPGs" line anymore. Between these three, the ones announced at TGS (Far East of Eden, and others) and [eM] Enchant Arm, things are looking very good for the 360 RPG wise.

 

Hell, the Dreamcast didn't have this much RPG love.

[bishopcruz]

Found a translation of a Japanese article talking about Cry On.

 

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessag...&topic=25269373

 

The last to appear was Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker. Sakaguchi is also an AQ Interactive stockholder. Also, his Microsoft-produced Xbox 360 "Lost Odyssey" is being developed by Feel Plus for example, so his ties to the company are strong. The new game announced here, "Cry On", is being made by Mistwalker and Cavia; the platform is Xbox 360. Release period undecided.

 

According to Sakaguchi, the theme is "tears", not only tears of sadness but also tears of joy or inspiration; the main character is a young woman named Sally, and in preparing the scenario he's taking care in portraying fluctuations in her feelings. The setting is a world where humans coexist with Earth Giants. A war has revived the Earth Giants, throwing the world of this action RPG into chaos (? this doesn't make sense to me either)

 

Character illustrations are by Kimihiko Fujisaka, who illustrated Drag-on Dragoon 2. The style of the movie shown at the conference felt closer to natural animation than typical toon-shaded graphics, with impressive soft coloring. Sakaguchi and coproducer Takuya Iwasaki (Drag-on Dragoon/Ace Combat series) referred to this style as "Fujisaka Shading"; a new graphic engine is being written from scratch to present an original worldview.

 

According to Iwasaki, "as an action RPG, there will be areas that have been raised or lowered due to some disturbance, and the Earth Giant can break things or dash through." He comments that the great difference between the perspectives of normal characters and the perspective of the Earth Giant is an important aspect of the game.

 

Sakaguchi said, "This is my first action RPG. In action RPGs I think it's really important to have vexing puzzles and a high level of freedom, where you can go wherever you like. But my own usual approach with RPGs is to have the scenario pull you along. We're trying to mix the two styles, and have the scenario pull you along a little bit but still make a game that gives you a lot of freedom and really forces you to think. I'd like it to feel fresh in this regard."

 

The scenario is currently about halfway done. "I love Mr. Fujisaka's illustrations, how they convey both loneliness and inner strength," Sakaguchi said. He's striving for a scenario that does justice to Fujisaka's characters.

 

Also, Nobuo Uematsu is in charge of the music. He was unable to appear at the conference, but in a video letter remarked that "Mr. Sakaguchi has recently taken to writing lyrics --- we'll probably record a song.

[bishopcruz]

Man, I'm amazed with all the FF love on these boards no one seems to care about these games. I have this odd feeling that if they were for PS3 people would be right now.

[The NZA]

Its a well-built franchise youre comparing to, with a lotta recognition. Im pretty hyped by what you told me - the names atteatched to it, ideas for Blue Dragon, etc - and the screenshots are gorgeous, but these ones'll either pick up love & respect once at least a demo's out & word gets around, or at worst, join the ranks of Shenmue and Suikoden as "amazing fucking RPG's youre not playing cause there's no moogles".

 

keep the info comin, tho - im readin.

[bishopcruz]

Some new Lost Odyssey screens have come out and they look in-fucking-credible.

 

[Newtype]

Fuck. The 360 is starting to look good to me but I'm still going to wait till next year anyway.

[bishopcruz]

From Xboxyde:

 

Surprise, the latest Famitsu 360 reveals that Cry On, known until now to be developed by Cavia, was now being developed by Artoon. The main graphical designer is now Manabu Kusunoki, of Panzer Dragoon/Panzer Dragoon Saga fame. The previous artworks won't be used anymore, but you can check the small and blurry scan to get a tiny idea of what the game art should look like. More informations in the next few weeks.

Also Sakaguchi seems happy with the sales of Blue Dragon, and if Microsoft greenlights a sequel he'll be happy to do it.

 

This news makes me happy in my pants as Panzer Dragoon Saga was amazing. Here's some of the new artwork.

 

[The NZA]

(for lack of a Lost Odyssey topic)....

 

just finally started this one...i'm all of an hour or so in, but man, anyone knocking FF XII as being too progressive should try this out, it plays/looks/feels like old-school Final Fantasy pretty hardcore. Not surprising given Sakaguchi at the helm, and Uematsu scoring the game (again, even this early in, the music's staunchly FF-esque...but some of this is sounding like more effort than ive heard from him since IX, good so far).

 

I dont know if anyone here played it through to completion, and i really gotta be in the mood for the JRPG grind, but again, so far so good. looking forward to the dream sequences ive heard much about.

 

ps this topic makes me kinda sad for Cry On.

[Jables]

I started this game at release last year, still haven't made it off the first disc because it requires slightly more attention than I can offer it.

[The NZA]

i forget you somehow dont hate J-RPGs.

 

watched the first batch of dream sequences...shit, i mayve undervalued this game. I mean, the presentation/music so far is great, the voice acting (in japanese) is solid, but these sequences are absolutely outstanding. if the game becomes the dull grindfest i fear it might, im thinking these'll keep me going.