Odin Sphere is freaking wonderful

What's so freaking wonderful? The Story, the artwork, the music, and the gameplay. What else is there? In short, this game is oh, so good and I enjoyed every aspect of it.

At first the gameplay did not appeal to me. The game is somewhat of a cross between a 2D brawler and an RPG. I didn't like the 2D brawler feel of the game; it was too repetitive. Adding the RPG elements took this feeling away and I immediately fell in love with one key aspect of combat: Every battle is repeatable. If you fail to beat a group of enemies or a boss, you get an infinite number of chances. The game is automatically restored to the beginning of the battle; no saving, quick-saving, or thinking involved! I wish this was true of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games. I think it would encourage more experimentation in battles if this was the case.



The story of Odin Sphere is what shocked and delighted me the most about playing. I wasn't aware at how forgiving I had become regarding tired plot lines in my games. The standard RPG plot goes something like this: A band of rebels teams up to save the world against all odds. The standard 2D brawler plot goes something like this: Those guys are bad; kill them. The mixture of the two genres has produced a storyline that is deeper than anything else I can remember. The characters are deep and have very real emotions.

The biggest failing of Odin Sphere is the repetition. You play as one of five characters in the game, not in a party, but as an individual with a unique story. All the characters inhabit the same world and travel down the same paths and explore the same maps and fight the same bosses. Every time you begin a new character you start at the ground level and have to work your way up. And the method for working up is exactly the same as it was before. There are five characters in the game, so you essentially play through the same game five times. They mix up the fighting mechanic, but nothing can cover up the fact that they really phoned it in when it comes to the number of levels and bosses.

However, the repetition CANNOT be too deep a criticism. Every single role playing game is repetitive; it practically defines the genre! I can't tell you how many wolves I killed in Final Fantasy XII, nor can I tell you how many slimes I killed in Dragon Quest VIII. Repetition is the name of the game. And the story of Odin Sphere pulls you through.

The artwork is beautiful. Everything has a hand-painted look to it, even the character designs and animations. This helps to create a fantastical world that becomes the perfect backdrop for the fairly-tale-like story. The outrageously huge king Odin is ridiculously masculine. The fairy kingdom is lit by fireflies and populated by gnomes, fairies and unicorns. The lava-filled fire realm glows with the light of bubbling lava and outlines the fiery vixens you must defeat. There are cities in the clouds inhabited by bird women, and cities underground inhabited by pooka. The world is so fantastical and rich that it really keeps you interested. I could spend an hour just watching the background pass; it's that beautiful. It's fun to get lost in the fantasy of this world.



There's another aspect of the artwork that appeals to me; let's call it fan-service. One of the characters, named Velvet, has a dark red riding-hood-like costume covering her head and not much else. She has dark stockings that come up to mid thigh, a revealing bikini-skirt, and a belly dancer's top, complete with gold ruffles. When she moves or changes direction, her chest jiggles. To top it off, her weapon of choice is a chain, that she holds wrapped around her wrists. The queen of the underworld has no flesh on her except on her face and gi-normous chest, which she keeps carassing. It's all fan service. It's so Japanese. I love it!

Bottom line, this game is fantastic. I can't imagine it keeping non-RPG fans happy, so it's not for them. But if you like the genre then you just might love this game, as I do.

Odin Sphere: Repitition in a great game, is still great gameplay

I played through as Gwendolyn, and that was fantastic; great story and gameplay. But the story was over after about 10 hours. I knew from the instruction booklet that I could control different characters so I guessed, correctly, that when I was done with the Gwendolyn story I would be in control of another character.

Cornelius was next, and the story, at first, was even more intriguing to me because it's begins before Gwendolyn's story and fills in some of the details. But, almost all the boss battles were the same bosses, who used the same tactics. And I only remember two levels that were different.

Now I'm on Mercedes' story. And the bosses are the same again.

I had intended to criticize the game when I began this post, but now that I've sat to think about it, I don't think I will. I was going to say that the repetition was getting old, and I do wish that they could throw in a few different bosses to fight. But, now that I think about it, how repetitive is Final Fantasy? The boss battles are unique, but everything else is just as repetitive, if not more so.

Aside from that, there are new recipes, but you can still use the recipes you collected before. Same goes for alchemy. You start fresh with each new character; they're at level 1 and they only have two bags for inventory, and they don't have access to the better ingredients you need to make the better recipes. Of course I won't know until I've finished more of the game (I'm at 20 hours and I don't think I'm even half way through) but it seems like they've come up with a unique way to force you to level all your characters. Instead of forming some kind of unlikely party they just tell the story of each character individually. And it works.

The latest character, Mercedes, is quite different in her combat style. She has a crossbow that controls more like at machine gun. It requires reloading, instead of recharging, and she can fly indefinitely. The first two characters controlled much the same, but Mercedes is quite different. Most enemies I kill are off screen; I rely on the radar much more.

And, best of all, the story continues to be engaging. It's taken a bit of a turn for the silly, with talking frogs and unicorn soldiers, but it's a refreshing break. The fairies are all very hot! They're all hips and legs, and they all wear bikini bottoms.

I hate for my first mention of the beauty of the artwork in this game to be a pervy one about how hot the fairies are, but there it is.

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!