Odin Sphere makes the hours fly

Purchased Odin Sphere on Friday and I've been playing it this weekend.

Hour 1: "Sure is pretty..."
Hour 2: "This controls like a fighter; I want an RPG."
Hour 3: "Normal is too hard. I'm moving to easy."
Hour 4: "More fighting, more fighting. This is a fighter. I want an RPG. I want to grind!"
Hour 5: "There, finally I can grind and level-up."
Hour 6: "Wow, what a story! I am shocked with the depth of this story."
Hour 7: "This game is awesome!"

My first impression was that I wouldn't like this game. Around hour 3 I was starting to look for the receipt so I could take it back. Now that I'm at hour 7 I'm not even thinking of taking it back. The battle system, which at first seemed like a 2D-brawler, is growing on me. I've have never felt bored in a battle yet; even when grinding! And, if you are defeated, you start that battle over again until you are successful. It's the best aspects of a 2D brawler with RPG aspects tacked onto it.

Suddenly at abour hour 6 a world of RPG-ness is opened up as well. By RPG-ness I mean things to do/collect/experience/defeat/master that I will put on a checklist and continue playing until I've checked off all the items on the list. There's recipes, alchemy, growing plants, hatching eggs, stomping mandragoras out of the ground, attack levels, magic levels, spells, etc. I'm sure I've left something out, but there's a ton of stuff to do. And, I've already created my first checklist: recipes.

At this point I'm thinking that my first impression was totally wrong. I'm loving the game. Aside from the depth of story and beautiful graphics you can choose the Japanese spoken language or English. That's a big plus, if you ask me! You can also change difficulty settings on the fly. It's a great game that was obviously loved by it's creators. I'm going to really enjoy playing it.

One thing I've noticed is that hour-and-a-half chunks of my life seem to escape while I'm playing this game. I'll start playing and think that about 20 minutes have gone by. Then, when I look at my game-save I'll notice that, in fact, an hour-and-a-half has gone by. It's that good, folks!