Review: Odin SphereBy Locke on February 11th, 2009
So there’s this little RPG I picked up while I was working last summer, “Odin Sphere”. I was reluctant to try it because it was a recommendation who had Hit or Miss accuracy of what I would like. As it turned out, the game was pretty good in my opinion, and I’ll tell you why. Odin Sphere takes place in a storybook, or several storybooks to be exact. A fantasy kingdom in the brink of war awaits the first book you enter in from, “Valkyrie”. You start as Gwendolyn, the Princess of the Valkyries, and you are immediately placed on the battlefield. The combat is fairly simple. You have jump, double jump, attack, and a special move. You can use magic by collecting souls with your weapon. Collecting souls also gives your weapon experience, unlocking more spells the stronger it gets. Your character gains experience from eating food. Food can be bought, found or grown. Yes, that’s right, I said grown. One of the key parts of the game is growing fruits using seeds with…well, souls. Souls come from defeating your enemies and mixing up potions through the built in alchemy system. Figuring out the best means of creating souls is one of the main things that makes the game fun. It’s curious to see that the game is a side-scrolling RPG, whereas most RPG’s are 3D nowadays. You play in one of many interlocked rooms, or Stages. You basically kill everyone in the stage, and you are graded before you move to the next room. Based on your performance, you can get some pretty nifty items from randomly grinding, and it makes the game all the more enjoyable. It’s never really a hassle to grind, there’s enough balance of thinking and fighting to make sure that you are never really bored while playing. The art itself is beautiful. Odin Sphere is lush and colorful, with moving leaves and glowing lights, it’s a very pretty game altogether. The characters are almost instantly likable, and there’s not one charater design that I didn’t instantly appreciate when I saw it. Monsters in themselves look very cool. I suppose one of the best ways to describe it is a more mature Maple Story. The environments are charming, drawing, and haunting at the same time. The only flaw in the game, however is what kind of kills the moment. During combat, there are many things moving on the screen. One boss in general had so many lackeys in tow that it starting lagging…badly. It took three whole seconds for my character to respond to my pressing the jump button. This doesn’t happen that often though, so I can easily forgive it. Some players may be discouraged by the loading times, but I played through the 360 Sonic the Hedgehog which is Load-tastic. I’ve only finished the first story, there being around 5 if my hunches are correct, and I’ve played for around 4 hours on one character. The story, “The Pooka Prince”, features a new character with new moves to play with, although you do have to start back at level 1 on both your character and your weapon. However, the story and combat keep me playing. Odin Sphere is a fresh, original RPG with great presentation. It’s very hard to be mad at it’s gameplay when the dang thing looks so pretty in motion. The fighting is solid, the difficulty challenging but not maddening; all in all it’s a great game. Bottom Line _______________________________________________________________________ Odin Sphere gets…hell, I’ll give it 9/10. It’s an innovative RPG that will keep you entertained during that long wait for the summer game release season. Kudos on the story and art. -Locke |