New Artwork pop up at Mistwalker official website, is it Lost Odyssey 2?

If there is one thing the Xbox 360 isn’t missing, it’s JRPGs. This is a complete turn-around from the last generation, where the PlayStation brand seemed to have every JRPG under the sun while the Xbox only had a couple. This time around the 360 has more support from JRPG developers, while the PS3 only has a few of those games. Although some have been fairly average, there is one studio that has churned out two very good JRPGs. That studio is of course Mistwalker with titles Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey under its belt. Headed up by Final Fantasy guru Hironobu Sakaguchi, Mistwalker has plenty of experience creating fantasy role-playing games, and this shows through in their games. Both were great and both sold fairly well, but there hasn’t been any talk of sequels for either one since launch. Something has popped up recently on the official Mistwalker website, though, that could reveal what the developers have up their sleeves.

The official website has been updated recently with new artwork from character designer Kimihiko Fujisaka. As you can see from the picture, it resembles a fantasy character with mythical beasts floating around him. You can say they resemble dragons in some way but also have features of other mythical creatures. So what can we take from this new piece of artwork? There is a hint of Blue on the male character and with the resemblance of dragons around him, one would assume that this could be artwork for Blue Dragon. There is one big noticeable difference, though -- the art scheme is completely different from the cartoon look of the original. With DS games as well as an Anime in Japan all corresponding with the visual scheme of the original, it wouldn’t make sense to change that now. So where does that leave us? How about Lost Odyssey 2? The look and feel you get from this piece of artwork scream Lost Odyssey, and the fact that LO sold better than Blue Dragon would suggest that Mistwalker would continue that series before anything else.

Microsoft wants Lost Odyssey to be the 360’s Final Fantasy, so it would be no surprise if Mistwalker’s next game is in fact a sequel to its hit Lost Odyssey. Although if you ask me, both games deserve sequels and both games could become flagship franchises for MS in the land of the risen sun if they invest time and money into them. Mistwalker has been fairly quiet as of late and with GDC and E3 both coming up rather soon, expect an announcement regarding their game at either event.

TGR Rating: Likely