Lost Odyssey 2 not Hironobu Sakaguchi’s next project?

Lost Odyssey wallpaper
Originally Lost Odyssey was meant to be a series. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and made for a “competing platform” . . . it was to be Microsoft’s answer to Final Fantasy. Created by a company called Mistwalker that Sakaguchi founded.

This at a time when Final Fantasy was an exclusive asset to the PlayStation platforms. With spin-offs landing on Nintendo platforms but not the 360. This was key in Sakaguchi’s decision to release his RPGs for Microsoft’s console in order to fill that gap with some next-gen RPG goodness.

To quote the H&E Head of Microsoft,
“As you know, I was very complimentary of the game last week, and now some are speculating (or is it more like vain hoping) that LO could perhaps become the 360’s Final Fantasy. Lost Odyssey is very much a throw back to games like FF VII and X, which is why it was a hit with many gamers, but also took some heat from others. It’s a strong title, and I’m very interested in seeing a sequel, either in the Final Fantasy mold or as a direct follow up to the original, but the series would need a few more successful iterations under its belt to begin to touch the legacy that is embodied in the Square-Enix series. ”

However, Final Fantasy XIII has now gone multiplatform and is in development for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. So where does that leave Lost Odyssey 2?

Lost Odyssey was originally going to be just one of three Xbox 360-exclusive RPGs from Mistwalker. One of those games, Cry-On, was cancelled. The first game of the trio was Blue Dragon. That game was the only one to really make a name for itself, as the game spawned not only an anime but also a DS sequel.

Sadly though, Lost Odyssey wasn’t necessarily a financial success. It did do reasonably well though, selling over 100,000 copies in Japan and debuting with 203,000 copies during the first month in the U.S.

Sakaguchi didn’t forget about the game either, as fans got two Lost Odyssey downloadable content packs that added some extra purchasable content to the game.

However in May of 2009, Sakaguchi updated his Mistwalker blog page saying he was pondering his next project. But nothing really hinted at Lost Odyssey.

The last hint we got of this new project was just that . . . it is an ALL-NEW game and not related to any of his previous works. So it looks like we’ll have quite a bit more waiting to do before we hear from Lost Odyssey again. For shame!