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Odin Sphere Review (continued)
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Manufacturer: Atlus
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ESRB Rating: Everyone
Platform(s): PlayStation2
Release Date: May 17, 2007
Average Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
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Retail Price: $19.99
Online Sale Price: $17.60
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More User Submitted Odin Sphere Reviews
Date: 2007-09-25
Spectacular!
The day of the boring, lackluster RPG is done. Atlus, a company with whom I have played with for quite a while, has usually given me mixed results. Their latest entry, Odin Sphere, bucks the standard by providing a racing soundtrack, intense graphics, and a wonderfully challenging and powerful interface. You command one of five heroes in an epic struggle to prevent Apocalypse from ravaging several warring nations. Just when you think you get the gist and succeed through several levels, the challenge ramps upward and onward. Aside from some technical quirks and a dreadful slowdown in frame rate, Odin is an action-packed and delightful title. If anything, whack some Unicorn Knights to get out your aggression. Well worth it!
Date: 2007-09-13
Great game, just repetitive
Before I review this I should say that I'm 27 as I play this for the first time, and most video games that receive great reviews don't earn or hold my interest on account of the fact that they are developed for a younger audience.
Odin Sphere is the first "Vanillawear" title I've played, and I must say that I was impressed with its polish. Right from the start it displays great 2-D graphics - the kind you don't really see on PS2. The title screen and opening intro are well done, the music is subtle and appropriate to the game.
You begin the game as a small girl in an attic. The only two interactive options are a cat and a large book that's on the floor. Right away I was struck by the sprite-based graphics - these are so wonderfully done that I would honestly say they have no parallel on any current system (at 480p resolution). Everything is rich and the sprites are actually "liquid", they move and contort slightly to indicate motion. It's really a unique effect, and its done so beautifully. The menus look very polished and clean.
The book turns out to be the story of the first character in a series of characters that you will play through the game with. Each character's viewpoint is unique, and its interesting to get all the varying sides of the story. The cinematics are superb even early on, with character voices actually rating the best I've ever heard in any video game. These people are clearly voice actors, not just a few people that auditioned right off the street like so many other game voiceovers. I actually looked them up on Wikipedia and most of them have quite an impressive resume of voice acting in either anime or other video games.
The story is good, and relatively engaging. What struck me about it is that it deals with themes that even adults can enjoy. The characters are not all 13-year-olds rebelling against some cause.
It's not a traditional RPG at all, instead favoring a more action style battle system. I would actually describe it to be VERY similar to the original Secret of Mana (referring to the SNES version), except you only have one character, and its all side-scrolling action. You attack physically with a weapon, but the system isn't overly complex - you don't have to worry about upgrading weapons and armor and all that, you have only a single "accessory" that you can equip for an effect. Many times this effect doesn't even have to do with combat. For example, one foof the accessories allows you to pick up objects dropped in combat or otherwise without kneeling down to pick them up. There is a magic element in the game that progresses rather slowly - your character (from what I can tell) only learns about 7 magic "spells" that you have at your disposal in battle. They are learned incrementally as you gain magic experience from "phozons" released from defeated enemies or other means, and are mostly battle-oriented.
The music is phenomenal in my opinion. As mentioned before, its subtle, but stirring and fits the environments you find yourself in quite well. Really some of the best video game music I can think of actually (and I've been playing video games since the pre-Nintendo days).
Most of the above could be considered praise, so now I'll discuss the negatives:
Load times - they aren't that bad when you're in new territory, taking your time with each battle to maximize the potential from seeds and plants grown. Unfortunately, later in the game they become quite cumbersome, ESPECIALLY when you start making food at the cafe and restaurant. Either location takes a FULL 45 seconds or so to load, and when you leave either one it has to load the cafe area of town, so if you are going to visit both from the main headquarters, it takes a good 5 mins +, even if you know exactly what you want made and have every ingredient necessary. This is ridiculously excessive.
Lag. In later battles, the number of enemies on screen gets to be quite large, and the game frequently lags (rather significantly) during the final battles of each character.
Repetitive - personally I enjoy RPGs partly because of the great feeling of accomplishment when you're at the end of the game. You've gained in ability and mastered many skills throughout the significant length of the game, and your characters reflect that in battles and achievements. With this game, it's really 5 games in 1. Each time you run through with a new character, you start over at "level 1" with the entire story ahead of you. You even have to defeat the same enemies multiple times, and most of the battle areas are reused multiple times. To me this wasn't that enjoyable, aside from the solid story and wonderful graphics. To be fair, each character has different modes of attack and unique strengths and weaknesses, but it just isn't fresh.
Difficulty - this is actually more of a positive than anything. I set the game to "easy" mode and still had some trouble with some of the bosses, which actually makes the game fun. They were never so difficult that I felt tremendously frustrated, and I defeated them all within 4-5 attempts. That said, I think the "normal" mode would have been too difficult, and forget "hard".
Overall the game is a lot of fun, and if you don't mind the repetitive nature, the other problems are forgivable and don't _significantly_ detract from the experience.
Date: 2007-08-30
Don't believe the naysayers...
I put over 50 hours into this game, and believe me, I would not spend that kind of time unless it was worth it. This game looks fantastic, is tons of fun, and very engrossing. I especially enjoyed the boss battles. Yes, it does get somewhat repetative at certain times, but it does not detract from the overall experience. I actually enjoy the in-game slowdown since you can stop and look at everything going on in the background and it also helps in the tough fights. As far as rpg's go, this one is right up my alley. It feels like a virtual comic or anime. Highly recommended!!!
Date: 2007-08-19
Disappointing
More than anything else, this game is a disappointment and part of that is due to everyone ranting about how perfect this game is (or how great it is despite its flaws). This game is about as redundant as it gets.
Gameplay boils around to this: mash the attack button to fight the enemies and hope that none of them ignore being hit and hit you back, eat food to increase your health while also trying to have enough food to heal you, kick and flail as you desperately try to get money (of which there is little) and then fight an obnoxious boss who basically just spams moves that stun and do extreme damage.
There is a difference between hard games and obnoxious, this game jumps very deeply into the obnoxious category.
Sure, the game looks pretty and the art design is to be praised, but that cant be all there is to a game. Amusingly enough, this game has some pretty good voice actors but even that cant help a bland story. Speaking of, the story in this game is stuck between wanting to be a childrens story and then trying to appeal to a more adult audience. It really just kind of flounders around not really getting anywhere interesting.
Date: 2007-08-11
Atlus Fails
I have a small pile of games awaiting review, so it is unusual for me to review on out of the order played. But Odin Sphere is kind of special. It's been the object of a media campaign, and a number of excited commercial reviews. So I think I'm doing a public service to alert potential buyers that this is one of the most over-rated games I've ever played. In plain language, it's not worth the money, even if it was free.
Those of us who have played Valkyrie Profile (1 or 2) will recognize that the ploy is borrowed. This is the story of the end of the world as told in the old Norse legends. Well, not quite as they were told. More like what would happen if you put some scraps of Norse legend, a dash of bible, and some other random tidbits in a blender. Think twisted fairytales without the glitter. But the problem isn't really the story line. I've enjoyed many games where the narrative was even more mindless. The problem is that the gameplay is horrendous.
There are five primary characters in the game, each playing under some form of curse. All with abusive parents, and dysfunctional enough to fill a library of self-help books. You get to play each one, one at a time, through the same exact settings with slightly different scenarios. There is a story section that shows how these paths interrelate, But from the player's viewpoint what you get is an unending supply of sameness. Add in a fairly simple minded set of attacks, stiff animation and balky controls and you have a pretty clear idea of the experience. In battle you also are likely to get hit with something out of the blue, so add arbitrary outcomes to the list.
Money is hard to find and desperately needed, since you level up by overeating. If you ever want to be more than a complete wimp you will find yourself gathering seeds, planting them, and feeding them by killing opponents. And you get to do this for five separate characters. All to the sound of a minimal music track and a slew of rude noises. Your greatest pleasure may turn out to be those accidentally humorous scenes where a character defeats a monster by repeatedly stabbing it in the crotch.
Atlus usually does a better job than this. I find it hard to believe some of the ratings I've seen in some of the gaming magazines. Curiously, fan boards are much more negative, noting the pretty graphics and the poor gameplay. Save your money, there are better games to play.
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