Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

And so, here I sit with Odin Sphere, Vanilla Ware's brand of stylish 2-D action RPG, finishing the final hours and reflecting on the experience as a whole, questioning which side of the fence I sit on. It ultimately should boil down to whether or not I'm satisfied with what I just played, but contradicting thoughts are cycling through my head and clashing like Greek gods. On one hand, I had a good time with the no-holds-barred, chaotic action and certainly feel my eyes digesting the sheer elegance of the visuals, looking quite simply to the fact that I played a good game. On the other hand, I have a sour taste in my mouth from all those moments of frustration beckoned by insidiously difficult enemies, cheap one-hit kills, and utter lack of freedom and binded gameplay. So you see where I'm coming from now, right? Do the positives outweigh the negatives at this point, or is Odin Sphere an old dog with too few new tricks?

Odin Sphere hearkens back to old school action RPG's like Zelda II and Castlevania, putting you in a mythological world of Scandinavian lore under the kingdom of Odin. The plot would have been more interesting to me if I cared about any of that, as the story doesn't seem to take any risks or set one foot outside of the boundaries it set for itself, seeming tried-and-true in essence. Voice acting accompanies all the game's chatter, and its done very well along with the medieval dialog, which sets up a solid mood for the game's world. Everything is aesthetically striking (even though the world at its core is pretty generic) and quite simply executes 2-D visuals beautifully in an era thats been 3-D for a while now; there's no deliberately pixelated, retro appeal here, and the visuals simply push the limits of 2-D graphics to their fullest, richest, and most vibrant. At first, the cartoony characters seem much too far-fetched and quirky to fit with the largely serious scripting, but it all ties in over time and you can see the game's presentation shine in the most charming way.

Visually, Odin Sphere successfully pushes the boundaries of the 2nd dimension up to todays technical standards, but how does the gameplay fare in comparison? One would want the gameplay to be as promising and rich as the art direction, but unfortunately, its quite the opposite. Most of the time in Odin Sphere you are fighting off slews of enemies, the other large percent of gameplay goes into inventory management, basically. Interesting mechanics come into play, such as planting and waiting for growing trees to release energy clusters into the air, hatching a chick so you can feed it, raise it, and finally kill it for food, or collecting ingredients for recipes that level up your max HP. Repetitive gameplay later exploits these ideas and mere novelty, as there's just not enough to do to keep you tied to the lengthy game.

Even worse, the game's 5 playable characters must be unlocked one at a time, beating the game with one so you can play as the next (and you can't even choose who you'll unlock next). This locks down the player's freedom and in a way, defeats the purpose of multiple characters, because you'll feel like your just playing through the game 5 times over. You won't be able to try out what you might discover to be your favorite character until you've beat it 3 or 4 times already. Games that have a story with intertwined character perspectives, like Sonic Adventure, should allow you to access all the characters relatively early in the game, so you can beat it with the characters you like first for accessibility's sake. Not only that, at the end of the day, gameplay is indistinguishable between each character, because the game is too long, and repetitiveness swirls with unfair enemy difficulties into a tornado of frustration.

It just doesn't flow as well as it should. There is a questionable amount of loading times within levels, which is odd considering how small each section of the level is. Combat, in its own right, is very fluent and dynamic, but it often gets interrupted by the need to manage items to plant a seed or cycle through for healing items. And considering how hard the enemies can get, cycling for healing items just happens more often than it should. Its a petty shame too, as not only are regular battles a lot of fun, but boss fights are pretty exhilarating as well. Sadly, its too often that a boss catches you in a string of claustrophobic attacks that are too hard to avoid or unnecessarily
relentless. The same can be said about regular battles too, though luckily you can change the difficulty of the gameplay at any time through the menu. Of course, its not very motivating when after shifting around the difficulties a bit, you begin to get your ass handed to you and then realize you're already playing on the easiest setting.

As said above, the game is too repetitive for how long and strict it is. This is a role-playing game, but you are given only 2 stats to tinker around with. This isn't really a bad thing though; the simplicity keeps you from having to learn another Junction System or Sphere Grid. Your magic spells and capacity to use them are measured in one statistic, called your Psypher Level, and your maximum health points are simply HP. Increasing your Psypher level is as easy as absorbing energy clusters that emerge from killing enemies and mixing items, which also works as an MP system for you to deplete on some of the games various spells, such as tornadoes or temporary invincibility. Your HP level is raised as you eat some of the game's various meals. You have your standard fruit and breads that help a lot early in the game, but later your HP will almost completely be at the mercy of the full sized feasts you compose in the hub town. The kitchen simply requires you to collect the needed ingredients and bring them back, and the food you consume there usually gives you a very large amount of HP experience points. These mechanics are simple, and occasionally innovative, but they won't prove to be enough of a diversion from the game's dragging pace for everyone.

Its sad then, that I look back at so many hours of gameplay with, for the most part, sour memories. Combat was great but I could find gameplay like that in many other places. The world that makes up Odin Sphere is certainly charming, and you can be assured that it will be one of the moments looked back at fondly. But there were too many moments of frustration that arose from the limited gameplay, strict progression of the story, and frightening difficulty. It just didn't have enough tricks to keep me interested all the way to the end, which is unfortunate, because this game had a lot going for it. Its certainly likable, and others could get more enjoyment out of this than I did, but this is one of those games that gamers should take caution before making a regrettable purchase, rent it fist before you buy it.