User Reviews (11 - 21 of 36)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Holy Crap!!! A great side-scroller!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the best 2-D side scroller since Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Talk about a welcome relief. When you get tired of all those first person shooters or huge combo-centeric 3-D adventures, this is the game for you.

Graphically, there hasn't been a better game on the PS2. I play this on my HDTV through my PS3 and it looks stunning. The gameplay is easy to learn, but surprisingly deep. It has those RPG elements to it, but the game doesn't get bogged down by these. All of this provides for some very smoothe gameplay.

Throughout the game, you play as five different characters whose stories are divided into five separate books. They do play in the same levels with many of the same bosses. This isn't such a bad thing as each character is fundamentally diffeent and this keeps the gameplay active.

I spent about 30 hours playing this game and found this to be time well spent. Playing this will evoke imagery and feelings of the games that were played in the NES era, but on a beautiful, sweeping scale.

Odin Sphere gets it all right

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: June 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Odin Sphere is a triumph of game design, plain and simple. The hand-drawn art and character designs definitley take the cake, as every screen of Odin Sphere is lush and gorgeous. But add quality voice acting, beautiful music, intuitive gameplay, and 40+ hours of gameplay with 5 charming playable characters to an already impressive game and you've got an absolute classic.

Odin sphere is a unique sort of action-RPG which definitely requires tactical thinking. You aren't just going to mutton-mash your way through this game. As you enter a new level or approach a boss you've got to think about your inventory and how you can make what you've got work for you-- or go back to previous levels to gather more items (you can combine items to create healing as well as destructive potions; or plant seeds that grow into healing edibles). And since inventory space is limited, you've really got to pay attention.

The fighting is intuitive, each character with various strengths and weapons that require you to consider your style of attack. Also to be considered is whether to power up your weapons by conserving the energy used in special attacks, or whether to go all-out with powers like becoming immaterial for a short while (giving you time to heal and gather energy, or avoid your enemies), or releasing a surge of energy that delivers massive damage. Again, strategic thinking is required.

Odin Sphere is a sprawling story of nations at war, told from multiple perspectives (a total of 5+ hours of theatrical cut-scenes) and inhabited by characters struggling to make difficult choices in the face of adversity, making for a rich and complex experience that won't quit your imagination just because you've put down the controller.

A must-play for anyone who's a fan of either RPGs or great games.

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: August 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is one of my favorite games, especially to come out in the past few years. The gameplay is very similar to the old beat-em-up games, but with a lot of strategy needed to actually be any good. The art work is unique and very well done, with each character and background having large amounts of detail. The story is also unique and very well done, with a lot of Norse mythology thrown in for good measure.

If you've ever played and enjoyed Legend Of Mana for the PS1, you'll like this. Similar fighting system, several interwoven smaller plots, and an emphasis on hand drawn artwork. The only flaw with this game is the slowdown during one particular fight, it's irritating but easily overlooked.

Great game, just repetitive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Such a beautiful game, but such lousy game play

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: June 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really tried to make myself like this game but aside from the being quite pretty to look at, and listen to this game has nothing going for it other than its somewhat original approach to the RPG genre.

The inventory system is completely inane and does not allow you to stack the majority of items when given already very limited inventory space. The combat is fairly difficult but is made even worse by the fact that each area you enter typically consists of about 6-7 sections before it is complete, completely resets if you leave, and you can only heal by using food items that are quite expensive considering the small amount of money you may or may not receive after each section...or you can grow your own food in the middle of battle but if you let it grow too long it becomes over ripe and no good...and also it steals Phozons (which are basically like your experience points and Magic Points in one) to grow.

Monsters will sometimes drop treasure chests when you kill them but you have all of about 5 seconds to knock it open before it disappears.

You can equip ONE item at any time, but this item still takes up inventory space even when equiped for some odd reason...

A lot of people seem to honestly enjoy this game, you may be one of those people but I'm not. Rent it first and see for yourself before you drop 40 bucks.

Just one word, AWESOME!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played tons of RPG's, was getting tired of everything being pretty much the same old thing, but this was "fun". It's been awhile since i actually wasn't biting my nails off while playing a game and actually relaxed and enjoyed one. This was terrific, from graphics to the gameplay, even my two kids loved watching me play the game. It was like having a story book read to them, saved me the time of doing it..LOL...anyways, you will enjoy this game!!

Atlus Fails

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 40
Date: August 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Don't believe the naysayers...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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!!!

Repetative yet Rewarding

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

With the raving success of Disgaea, a score of similar RPG-infused action and tactics games were seen fit to localize by Atlus and other game developers. But success of these hand-drawn, anime-reminiscent, high-fantasy games has been spotty at best. Odin Sphere is a solid action-RPG release, hearkening back to classics like Valkyrie Profile. It's a beautiful, story-rich, side-scrolling crafting game disguised as a battle between fairies and demons.

I say it's a crafting game, since a good 50% of your time will be spent crafting food and potions and otherwise managing your inventory. Your character has two channels for character development: weapon level and hitpoint level. The monsters you kill yield phozons, which you can absorb to level up your weapon. Or you can leave the phozons floating around, and they will be absorbed by seeds you collect and plant. Your planted seeds become fruit (and sheep!) trees. Eating food is the only way to level up your hit points. Later in the game, you can collect different types of food and bring them to the pookas - a rabbit-like people. For a small fee, the pookas will make your food into delicious meals with better stats.

The battles are a little tough, and require some coordination to fight in every point of the 2-d plane. Monsters will come at you in enormous groups and they won't conveniently stop, split up, or take cover. You do have to manage your power - if you attack too frequently, you can run out and become exhausted, which renders you unable to fight or act for a short period of time (and those monsters won't stop coming at you while you're exhausted). Leveling up your weapon gives you new magic skills in addition to making your basic attacks more powerful. You must gather phozons to cast spells, so dedicating all your phozons to growing food isn't a great idea. Battle actions aren't instantaneous, so if you need to heal or gather in the middle of a battle while the monsters are coming at you, it's generally a good idea to run a good ways away first. How well you do in battles determines what treasures drop at the end of each level.

There are 5 main characters in Odin Sphere. All live within the same world and time period, and their stories meld together nicely. Each character has their own special weapon and different kinds of attacks. Every character moves differently, too: some characters have wings, some fight solely in melee range, and some have special jumps. The stories are compelling and grand, though a little humorless. I appreciate that the characters aren't always the most noble or heroic warriors. It's often the case that a boss you fight within one story becomes the next character you play.

The major criticism that can be leveled against Odin Sphere is repetition. For 5 characters and 5 story lines, you visit the same areas with the same monsters over and over again. New game mechanics are not introduced in subsequent characters - you learn them all with your first character. This is a great way to develop cheaply and focus your resources on the story and art. For Odin Sphere, it's pretty obvious that this is where all the time and care went into the game. However, your characters are different enough that the game remains fresh between the stories. You get new food and potion recipes all the time, and the recipes you learn don't vanish when you start playing through another character and story.

The result is that by your second or third character, you know how to control your character and the best way to defeat certain monsters, so the game becomes a kill-and-collect fest, regularly interrupted by stunning art and story. The combat may be a bit too shallow for some. The collection may be too tedious for others. But I appreciate eliminating a screen full of poisonous frogs with my fairy-gun in three seconds flat, and being rewarded with lamb chops and a story of treason, dragons, wizards, and intrigue.

Great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: June 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Let me add a little praise for this game as well. Since all the positive points have been hit on, let me say some of the little niggles that set the game back a bit.

For one, combat can get repetitive. You only have one "combo" that you can perform, and special moves take a while to fill up. Basically each map is the same, enemies "spawn", you defeat them and you're allowed to progress. I guess what elevates the game is the animation and characters, and the strategy involved in the big boss battles and regular enemy fights. The limited combos though sorely hurt the game and keep it from that true 5 star rating. Basically it boils down to how quickly you can tap the x button over and over.

Should you pass this game up? No, this is one of the few games in a while I actually purchased, and it was worth it. It's too bad it couldn't have been more though.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 Next 

Actions