Xbox Is Offering A Free Backward Compatible Title In December

Part of the celebration of the backwards compatibility feature for the Xbox One has seen Microsoft offering gamers a free game throughout the remainder of December. The game is one of the early critically acclaimed hits for the Xbox 360 and after a lot of work and time invested into making it playable on the Xbox One, it's now free to download.

As mentioned on the Xbox Twitter account, Lost Odyssey is free as a digital download as part of the celebration for the Xbox One hitting 300 games that are now backwards compatible. The game will be available from now up until December 31st, 2016. So you have all of the remainder of December to get your hands on the title.

Lost Odyssey first released for the Xbox 360 back in 2008. It was part of an impressive two year line-up of huge blockbusters and awesome new IP that were coming out for Microsoft's home console. Back then, Microsoft was really rocking the market and Mistwalker Studios, headed up by the legendary Final Fantasy developer Hironobu Sakaguchi, managed to pump out the unique JRPG following the exploits of the immortal warrior Kaim.

Players followed Kaim through his journey to recover his lost memories and rekindle his innermost experiences, ranging from triumph to heartbreak to rage.

The game's story was told with the help of the incomparable Nobuo Uematsu, who composed the music for the game, which ranks as some of his best work yet. The original soundtrack for Lost Odyssey is a timeless masterpiece.

Gameplay wise, it was a visually improved version of the standard JRPG experience, offering gamers awesome looking combat animations with quality character and monster designs. In a way, it felt like the Final Fantasy game that Square never made (or the Final Fantasy game that Square should have made).

One of the reasons for the game's original delay in becoming backwards compatible, despite being a first-party title, is the fact that it's a multi-disc game. For a while Microsoft didn't allow multi-disc games to be played via backwards compatibility due to complications in the system. However, after some much-needed tweaks they were able to finally get it working the way it was intended to.

Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon were then announced as being available via backwards compatibility for the Xbox One. In fact, Blue Dragon only recently became backwards compatible in the early parts of November. The game was another companion JRPG to Lost Odyssey during the early days of the Xbox 360.

Microsoft was experimenting with some new ways to lure in the Japanese gaming audience back then, and Mistwalkers' JRPGs were some of the ways in which they tried to court that audience.

Nevertheless, gamers who missed out on the classic titles can now check them out on the Xbox One. This applies even more-so now than before thanks to the fact that Lost Odyssey is currently free from now up until the end of December. If you have an Xbox Live account simply log into the service, head to the game page from the dashboard and download it to your profile. It's just that easy.