Lost Odyssey available for free all month through Xbox Live Marketplace

Mistwalker’s 2008 JRPG Lost Odyssey is available for free on the Xbox Live Marketplace all month as a special thank you from Microsoft. Both it and Mistwalker’s other Xbox 360 game, Blue Dragon, were finally added to the Xbox Live Marketplace overnight after nearly a decade of waiting.

This epic RPG is yours to enjoy as our way of saying thank you for being a fan of Xbox. The free digital copy of Lost Odyssey must be redeemed by 31st December, 2016 and may not be available in all regions.

Microsoft says it is giving away the game to celebrate 300 backwards compatible games on the Xbox One. That’s a very good statistic in my view, and I never expected the company to take it that far when it announced the initiative. I never thought Microsoft would outshine Sony on the retro front, but there you have it!

Does Lost Odyssey hold up? I wonder…

I’m not too familiar with Lost Odyssey. It came out during a brief time when I was burned out on JRPGs and was more into Western RPGs than anything else. I played it in sessions with a friend, and I found its story to be interesting but its design horribly aged.

But that was then, and this is now. My love for classic JRPGs is so strong that it’s bleeding through my skin. I think if I went back to Lost Odyssey, I would feel the same way about it like I do Breath of Fire III or Wild ARMs: it’s “good.” I remember it being solid with a few interesting ideas, but nothing outstanding.

The problem is, I’m not so sure if the classic menu-based combat system found in old JRPGs works in HD. It seems off-putting that such detailed character models just stand there in a fight, and unless it’s heavily stylized like Persona 5, I prefer a more action approach like Final Fantasy XV or The Witcher 3 these days. The line-fighting works better with games that actually look old, like the ones found on the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita.

If you have an Xbox Live account, be sure to download Lost Odyssey for free this month, and check out Blue Dragon as well.