When Majesco announced last month that it would dedicate the bulk of its 2008 lineup to the Nintendo DS, we took this to mean that the company would do its part keeping store shelves stocked with casual games and cooking sims aplenty. We were unprepared, however, for the Cooking Mama evangelist to take up publishing duties for Away Shuffle Dungeon, the oddly named DS "roguelike" RPG from Mistwalker and AQ Interactive.

Offering a mix of both 2D and 3D gameplay, Away Shuffle Dungeon promises to cast players in the role of a lone hero branded with the unfortunate name, Sword, as he races to collect treasure and rescue prisoners caught in dungeons before they "reconfigure," hurting anyone left inside. The game also boasts some impressive credits, which include such luminaries as Final Fantasy sire Hironobu Sakaguchi and esteemed composer Nobuo Uematsu, as well as character designs by Sonic creator, Naoto Oshima.

Even so, we're still having a hard time getting over that title, and even now have simply begun referring to Away Shuffle Dungeon by a label more fitting its newly-named publisher. Readers, we give you Dungeon Mama.

Will the epic Japanese RPG Lost Odyssey be a one-off piece of gaming history, or is the title destined for franchising and perennial iterations? As much as we wish it were the former, a brief quote from a Microsoft exec suggests that the "odyssey" may only be getting started.

Speaking with the executive officer for Microsoft Japan's Home & Entertainment division, Nikkei Trendy reports that the company is pleased with the sales of Lost Odyssey, and expects the popularity of the "series" to grow over time. While this could very well be a miscommunication, it's certainly logical to assume that Microsoft would want to extend the life of one the 360's few JRPGs.

[Via ALLRPG]

Judging from what we had seen of Lost Odyssey before its release, we pretty much figured we had it pegged, and the reviews that have popped up since have only cemented our first impressions. By all accounts, it seems to be a competent, well-polished effort that is extremely traditional, if not derivative of games in the genre before it. But for those who are fans of that genre, it seems to be a solid choice.

• 1UP (80/100): "While Lost Odyssey's overarching tale is effective enough as a generic RPG plot filled with political intrigue, it really only serves to get the player from Point A to Point B. The storytelling is most compelling when dealing with the interaction between characters, whether it's Kaim and Sarah's intriguing relationship, Seth's pirate past, or the sexual tension (?) between Jansen and Queen Ming."
• Eurogamer (80/100): "Given the involvement of hotshot RPG superstars like Final Fantasy creators Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, it should come as no surprise that Lost Odyssey is utterly, utterly traditional. ... Given the involvement of Mistwalker's hotshot superstars, it should come as no surprise to find that it's superbly polished."
• Gamespy (50/100):"While it's certainly playable, it feels like more of a relic than perhaps its creators intended. Basic features and dungeon design are handled with the graceful hand of a master designer, but that doesn't compensate for numerous gameplay, storytelling and technical issues. Fans of old-fashioned Japanese-style RPGs will doubtlessly find aspects to enjoy, but this is not the title that will vault Mistwalker to the triple-A status the studio's hype might suggest."

Last month, publisher AQ Interactive confirmed that Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS had been delayed, but that it would be coming this summer. Translations from the publisher's official BDP site (via NeoGAF) indicate the game is set to be a "simulation RPG." The description and subsequent new screenshots remind us of Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (not a bad comparison, mind you).

The site also seems to indicate that BDP takes place just after the events of the first Blue Dragon. So with a bold-faced spoiler alert we caution you against clicking on the main website as, once it loads, it gives away a big part of the Xbox 360 version's storyline. Same warning goes for the gallery below.



[Via DS Fanboy]

MTV's Stephen Totilo describes himself as a guy "who played Fire Emblem with the battle animations turned off." This is just so we're clear on his impressions of a pre-release build of 360 epic RPG Lost Odyssey. According to Totilo, it's a slow-moving game which suffers from long load-times, but benefits from its "Thousand-Year Dream" sequences, well-written short stories which appear as on-screen text throughout the game.

That's right. Like the recent Harvey Birdman game, you'll definitely need the ability to read to play through Mistwalker's epic tale (gamers read, right?). For Totilo, it's these text sequences that set Lost Odyssey apart from the Final Fantasy series, to which he draws many comparisons.

Ultimately, however, it seems Lost Odyssey will require a lot of patience, with the first non-tutorial fighting sequence not occurring until two hours in to the game. We'll have to see come February 12 whether gamers have the attention span for the four-disc, 50-hour adventure.

[Via X3F]

French gaming site Jeux-France is reporting that the Nintendo DS adaptation of Mistwalker's Blue Dragon has been delayed without a future release window. The title was planned for a March release, although given its original September revelation, we thought the date was a bit suspect.

Despite the indefinite loss of a portable Blue Dragon, fans of Hironobu Sakaguchi's work can look forward to other DS releases from the studio, including ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat (already out in Japan) and Away: Shuffle Dungeon.

[Via DS Fanboy]

Microsoft has officially confirmed the North American release date of Lost Odyssey -- Mistwalker's Xbox 360-exclusive RPG -- as February 12, Shacknews reports today. The massive, 4-disc, 50-hour RPG follows the amnesiac immortal Kaim, and tells the thousand-year story of his life, all penned by award-winning novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu.

Pre-orders for Lost Odyssey from participating retailers will include a special download code, giving players access to a new mission and unlockable weapon. The downloadable content will eventually be made available to everyone, but will remain exclusive to pre-orders for a short while.

Are the Blue Dragon developers working on a "roguelike" action RPG for the Nintendo DS? And more importantly, what the hell is a roguelike?

Siliconera has deciphered the Japanese press release for Mistwalker's DS title Away, which has been renamed Away: Shuffle Dungeon. Using the Socratic method common sense, Siliconera has deduced that since the Blue Dragon random dungeon generator DLC for Xbox 360 has been titled "Shuffle Dungeon Maker," Away must be using the same term to describe its primary gameplay mechanic: randomly-generated dungeons that the player has to traverse.

Roguelike is a special term reserved for dungeon-crawling action games that utilize randomly-generated level design. The term comes from the game Rogue, and the genre includes titles like Nethack and Tales of Middle Earth. Away could potentially be the first game in this genre to appear on the DS (although homebrew efforts have previously been made). Roguelike or not, Away: Shuffle Dungeon is is due out in Japan on February 28 (which just happens to be someone's birthday...).

The Xbox 360 exclusive Lost Odyssey may be a beacon of hope for the console's anemic Japanese user base, but that success will come at a price -- your eyes. According to Lost Odyssey architect Hironobu Sakaguchi, the upcoming plot-heavy RPG will feature several "1000 Year Dream" sequences, 34 to be precise, each designed to flesh out the narrative penned by Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu; and each told not through cut scenes, but rather with pop-up text, taking upwards of 5 to 10 minutes to read.

Sakaguchi admits that he once entertained the idea of using voice overs for the sequences, but opted instead to make the player experience Shigematsu's work in its 'purest form', namely written word. You mean, we have to read?! The idea of spending 4 or more hours scrolling through text on the screen is not our idea of fun, and we immediately feel sympathy for those players without bionic vision, or just those playing on smaller than average sets.

We'd like to think that there's a method to Sakaguchi's madness, though his admission that Lost Odyssey will clock in at 40 hours, with 20 of these devoted to non-interactive story sequences, seems to stretch the boundaries of what can be considered a game, rather than just an interactive storybook. Nevertheless, Japanese Xbox 360 owners can pick up Lost Odyssey on December 6, while those in North America and Europe will have to wait until February to go blind.

For those out there who thought Mistwalker's Blue Dragon was too easy for your tastes, Microsoft has just released new content aimed at upping the ante for the RPG's difficulty. Best of all? It's free.

Dubbed the Ultra Hard Mod, the new content has three aspects. The first is Game Plus, which allows you to start a new game using a saved file from near the end. The other two are specifically for the masochistic: Hard Mode, reportedly twice as challenging as normal, and Impossible, which is meant to play with characters starting at level 50 or higher. (If you want to do the Impossible at level 10, however, by all means go for it. Let us know how that works out.)

Japanese developer Mistwalker apparently looks at larger storage capacities as some sort of challenge. Unsatisfied by the three discs of DVD content filled with their previous RPG Blue Dragon, Mistwalker has announced that the upcoming epic Lost Odyssey will span four DVDs, reminding us that razor blades aren't the only medium that benefits from a steady increase in quantity.

The four discs are stuffed with a 40-to-50-hour RPG adventure, told using a mixture of CG and real-time cutscenes. Also contributing to the bloating are separate audio tracks for Japanese and English voices, allowing us to switch to the Japanese languages when we inevitably grow tired of the awful anglicized voice-acting (see also: Soul Calibur). Lost Odyssey is due out in Japan in early December, with the North American and European releases pushed to February 2008.

[Via AMN]

One secret that Microsoft left out of the press conference: a demo for Mistwalker's Blue Dragon is now available on Xbox Live. The enthusiastic description for the 1.1GB download reads as follows: "The Blue Dragon Demo is available! Play the grand adventure in two dungeons filled with Mecha Robos and Ancient Monsters!" Enjoy.

Can't wait until August 28th to play the Xbox 360-exclusive JPRG Blue Dragon? You could always import the Japanese release and stumble your way through three discs of inscrutable Japanese text or, if you can settle for a slightly smaller experience, just download the demo on Xbox Live Marketplace July 20th. The Japanese language Dengeki Online claims a 1.1GB demo will be released overseas (that's over here, folks) on July 20th, containing roughly 120 minutes of playtime. But you'd best make sure you download it in that 2-week window, since the demo will fly away on August 3rd. Now let's see, if we only play for about three and a quarter minutes a day, this demo should just last us until the retail release. Just ...

[Via X3F]

We knew Microsoft's Blue Dragon -- the Japanese RPG by famed Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi -- would be barreling into American shores in August, but we didn't know the specific date. Good news for fans of the month of August then, the much anticipated RPG will get in just under the cutoff making an August 28th touchdown for $59.99.

More interesting for European gamers is the August 24th European release date. Originally scheduled for September in that part of the globe, the title has managed to leapfrog the North American release date by four days; however, at £44.99, they're paying nearly $90 for the privilege. We don't think Americans mind waiting. Now, if we only knew when Mass Effect was coming out ...



Read - Japanese RPG "Blue Dragon" Lifts Its Wings and Flies To Europe