Lost Odyssey details found

Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has revealed a few more details of his forthcoming Xbox 360-exclusive title, Lost Odyssey.

In an interview with Canadian website Globe Technology, Sakaguchi said: "The gameplay experience is basically a traditional turn-based RPG, a bit like Final Fantasy.

"However, there are new ideas incorporated while playing: you can experience a little bit of real-time action."

The main character in Lost Odyssey is no less than 1000 years old, Sakaguchi revealed. "He never dies, and that's the biggest mystery. In this world, there are magical powers. The Industrial Revolution takes place, and because of the Revolution a lot of political and worldwide drama and big events happen. That's the main story."

But the game places more emphasis on human relationships than historical events, by all accounts. Sakaguchi said the main character "has lots of memories. Through his dreams he tells these memories, but they're not about big events.

"It's more of a human touch, like family and children. This is something that we never see in games: emotional stories."

When it comes to the battle of the next-gen consoles, Sakaguchi said it's too early to pick a winner just yet.

"Each [machine] has weaknesses as strengths... I think people buy [a console] because of the software they want to play," he commented.

"These are all considered next-generation hardware, so they all surpass certain levels, so it doesn't really matter for us as game producers.

"The performance and specifications are sufficient for us. We have use the technical advantages 100 percent, and put new ideas into the software. I think the software is the key."

Referring to Lost Odyssey and Mistwalker's other Xbox 360 title, Blue Dragon, Sakaguchi said: "With these titles, I put in all of my efforts and experience, so I think they'll be great games. That's why I want Japanese players to play on the Xbox 360."

So what kind of games will attract Japanese gamers to Microsoft's console? Pointing to Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon once again, Sakaguchi joked: "Like these!"

You can read the full interview here.