Lost Odyssey, the cult-classic JRPG that inspired Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, will soon be playable on PC as fans work on a recompilation effort for the brilliant Xbox 360 game.
Originally released on the Xbox 360 and playable on modern Xbox consoles via backward compatibility, Lost Odyssey did not sell particularly well when it launched on Microsoft’s console back in 2008.
Despite poor sales, those who actually played Lost Odyssey fell in love with the game with many labelling it the true successor to classic Final Fantasy while Square’s series jumped to the cinematic, corridor-simulator of the FFXIII trilogy.
The Lost Odyssey recompilation project is powered by a new tool dubbed RexGlue, a runtime and toolkit that popped up around three weeks ago. While only a few games are booting with the toolkit, Lost Odyssey and a few others (including Crackdown and Crackdown 2) are already in-game. Additionally, the gorgeous Akira Toriyama JRPG Blue Dragon, another Xbox exclusive, is bootable with the toolkit.
While Lost Odyssey has its own devout fanbase, the game also infamously inspired the development of Sandfall Interactive’s award-winning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Alongside other JRPGs, creative director Guillaume Broche named the game as one of his main inspirations, adding that it was the last game that made him cry.
“For me, Lost Odyssey was the last grand turn-based RPG adventure with realistic graphics,” the creative director said. “Its themes were very heavy and very well handled – it’s the last game that made me cry.
“Its linear structure, coupled with a world map, an amazing story, and fantastic music, made it one of the best games of its kind,” he continued.
In the same interview, Broche called for a remaster or a remake “now so more people can play it”. While an official remaster seems out of the question for Mistwalker – although the game is technically remastered if you play on an Xbox One X or Xbox Series X – this fan project will allow millions of players to jump into the JRPG when it’s finished.
Recombination projects have been a massive boon to PC gamers as of late with a large number of older exclusive games now becoming playable due to the efforts of fans. With Xbox 360 and PS3 era games now becoming viable for recompilation, many games that are exclusively locked to older hardware will soon become playable again after years of fans asking for proper remasters.
There are still a lot of games that have never been remastered that simply won’t be remastered. For whatever reason, rights holders or otherwise, Lost Odyssey is one of those games. Some games are simply impossible to remaster due to a complete loss of assets. With recompilation, this simply isn’t a barrier anymore for some games, and, honestly, that’s just great for all gamers.
