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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.

Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 19
Date: August 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Total garbage

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: April 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

What idiot decided to label this abomination an RPG? Because it isn't. It's a mediocre 2-D sidescrolling beat-em-up with some RPG elements poorly integrated into the game engine. And by 2-D, I mean really 2-D. You can move forward and backwards, and jump. You can't move up and down, something that has been standard in beat-em-ups since the NES.

Sure, the graphics are good, but that doesn't mean anything when the game is monotonous and annoying. The game engine is hardwired for contradictory goals. To get more HP, you need to use healing items. But to get good items from a level, you must win fights without getting hurt, which obviates the need for healing items. I also never saw any results from levelling up my weapon.

The game was also shipped with what I consider a showstopper bug. Neat trick: Go into a tutorial that involves picking items up with a full inventory. Since your inventory is full, you can't pick anything up, so you can't progress in the tutorial. And since you're in a tutorial, you can't drop anything. You're stuck.

I played this game once, put it on a shelf, and traded it for store credit against Growlanser: Heritage of War a month later. I find the fact that Sony refused to publish Ys I & II Eternal in America because it was 2-D when it allows 2-D games like this, which are inherently inferior, to be an insult.

Overrated

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: January 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

"Odin Sphere" has garnered a LOT of acclaim. Indeed, it's graphical design has made for a unique game, as the colorful 2-D images come to life like no other I (or anyone else, judging by the stellar reviews) have ever seen. The game has a deep story.

Unfortunately, it's not very fun to play. Moreover, it is incredibly difficult. Now, difficulty isn't a bad thing in a game, but this one really takes the cake in that regard. Some bosses are absolutely murderous, forcing the player to power up incessantly (both to increase strength as well as garner funds for powerful items). Moreover, running back and forth on a 2-D plain, slashing at enemies attacking in the air and on the ground, isn't exactly an original idea.

I don't want to spoil any of the story, as it was strong and often helped an otherwise poor offering. But all in all, I would wait for this game to hit the twenty dollar bin. At fifty bucks, it just doesn't deliver.

Beautifully Clumsy and Overrated

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: February 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

While I give this game points for the absolutely beautiful -and unique- graphics, I just can't bear to slug my way through the entire game.

Let's take a moment to talk about the game's most distinguished merit: Graphics. Now, just because the graphics are my favourite part of this game doesn't mean that you should expect the most "advanced" visuals. What is great about what you will see is that you probably haven't seen anything quite like it.

Sure, you've played sidescrollers and seen Japanese-style cartoon characters but screenshots just don't tell the whole story here. The characters have a motion that somehow allows a 2D cartoon character to come alive. Beyond that, there is just an enormous amount of detail poured into the environments that you just don't see in other 2D realms.

That said, there are just a number of flaws that bring this would-be giant to its knees. I'll only focus on the most important: Gameplay. Be prepared to be frustrated. When you first start out, you will be puzzled by seemingly unresponsive button presses. As you play you will learn that presses just don't register while the character is carrying out the current action. What this amounts to is slowly and carefully timing your buttons with the animations, which is incredibly counter intuitive and clumsy- especially when you have five to ten bad guys bum-rushing you at high speed. Your natural tendency is to mash away, which will ultimately result in your demise.

In the end, this game may be worth the bargain price, but only as a whimsical (and short) diversion for those dry spells between major new releases.

Summary:
Beautiful art meets clumsy controls

Pros:
-Absolutely wonderful art and animations
-Unique concept of combining action and RPG elements (albeit not masterfully executed)

Cons:
-Frustratingly clumsy controls
-Repetitive level design

Wanting is better than having...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: June 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I first saw advertisements for this game, I went over to my local GameStop and immediately pre-ordered it. Fellow gamers waited with bated breath for it to come out, magazines like Play and GamePro were practically crapping themselves with anticipation, constantly running articles about how beautiful the graphics are, etc.

You know what? Now that I've actually played the game, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Now before you all come after me with your torches and pitchforks, let me first state that it isn't bad, and in fact has many good points. The graphics, for one. The visuals are absolutely stunning. The music was also phenomenal. It was very beautiful and fit the game perfectly. The voice acting was great, and could probably be the best I've ever encountered in a game. I know all you super nerdy otaku out there will probably lynch me for this, but I really enjoyed the English voiceacting, and thought it fit the game better than the Japanese voices. I also thought the story was pretty interesting. A tad cliched perhaps, but I liked how each of the characters was affected by the events in their own way, and how they all fit in together. I thought it was cool how it was told out of chronological order as well, and you had to finish each character's story to get the full picture (kinda like Pulp Fiction.) All-in-all, Odinsphere is a feast for the senses.

Now on to the bad parts. *puts on riot gear*

The gameplay can get pretty repetitive after a while. All the characters go to the same places, fight the same enemies and bosses, etc. It got pretty tiresome after awhile. Also, the game is pretty hard. Sure, there's a difficulty setting, but I'm pretty sure it's for decorative purposes only. I'm telling you, never have I wanted to hurl my controller through the t.v. screen more than while playing this game. Money is hard to come by, health items are hard to come by...oh, since we are on the topic of health items, let me voice some concern about those godforsaken seeds you are constanly getting. See, alot of the time you have to actually grow your own health items. You plant a seed, and these sparkly orbs called phozons that are released when you defeat an enemy go into the seed and make it grow. When the seed grows to fruition, you have a nice, sparkly health item. But not only do these items restore hp, they also give you exp. The problem is, you also need those phozons yourself to perform powerful magical attacks. I found myself having to choose between magic and hp/exp. VERY irksome. Also annoying was the lag. When battling against a large group or just one particularly huge boss, the entire game slows to a crawl. It's like fighting while completely mired in molasses.

So to summarize my long, rambling tirade, Odinsphere is a very beautiful game, but is severely lacking in the gameplay department. If you really want to play it, I strongly suggest you rent it first.

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.

Uneven

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: July 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got this game at launch (before all the hype) and really wanted to wait until I finished it to write a review. I really love the graphics, voices and style. I also like the idea of growing your own food (or buying if you just want to go that route). Almost EVERYTHING was working, until, I realized that you have to trudge through the AWFUL slowdown (yes, everyone has mentioned this) but it really does hamper the game at times when you need spot on controls in the heat of a large battle. I then really thought that using 5 different characters was a great idea until I saw that you have to go through the WHOLE game over again with each character fighting through the same levels and even fighting most of the same bosses. Then there is the easy to hard thing. One boss is insanely easy while another is truly difficult. It is a very uneven game to say the least. The only thing I could get from it is that you have to (grind) to level up going through beaten levels over and over to get more money and level ups etc. This is typical of RPGs and I was used to that but honestly, the game just got old fast. Minus the uneven difficulty and ridiculous slowdown the game could have been the game to end all games toward the end of the PS2's life. Nope.

This game (with most games) will garner its fanbase but for me? I LOVE side scrolling games and even difficult games. But this game just kind of trudges along and really they should have either given each character their own levels and balanced the difficulty a bit more. Deleting a few characters wouldn't have hurt either as a few seem kind of a waste.

In the beginning I did enjoy this game quite a bit and played it for the longest time trying to level up Gwendolyn in the first chapter but doing the same levels over and over again I finally lost interest towards the end of Oswald's story.
The game has some very interesting and cool ideas and was worth a try but at best Id recommend renting before buying. Its not for everyone but I LOVE Atlus and most of what they put out and had to try this.

Surprisingly good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 36 / 44
Date: May 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For some reason, Atlus' Odin Sphere had some hype surrounding it as it makes it's way to the states on the good 'ol PS2, and it's surprisingly good too. Taking place in a children's storybook, Odin Sphere is basically a beat 'em up disguised as a beautiful looking RPG-ish game. And when I say beautiful, I mean beautiful. For a late in life PS2 game, Odin Sphere looks great. The graphics, animation, and colors are vibrant and detailed despite some glitches and stiffness, but the game also suffers from some slowdown when there is a lot of on-screen action. Not to mention that there are some annoyingly frequent load times as well. That's all pretty much it for the flaws of Odin Sphere, but the good really does outweigh the bad thanks to the game's long quest and engaging story above all else, while the game also features some great voice acting, music and sound effects, and an item system that adds a bit of depth to the gameplay. All in all, Odin Sphere really doesn't offer anything you haven't seen before, but the game is a surprisingly good and worthwhile pickup for those who aren't ready to let their PS2's ride off into the sunset just yet.

The End of the World Times Five

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: June 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Lately, I've been really disappointed with the PS2's RPG offerings. Final Fantasy XII was the logical evolution of the graphics over gameplay mentality, a game that basically played itself. Valkyrie Profile 2 had some neat ideas but completely dropped the ball with its unbalanced difficulty and messy battle system. Almost six months after the console has become obsolete along comes Odin Sphere, the RPG swan song I've been waiting for.

The story of Odin Sphere tells the tale of a war between the Odin and his Aesir against the Vanir, the fairy people, to control a device known as the cauldron. It follows the journey of five different characters over the course of roughly the same time period as the events that herald the end of the world come to pass. Their paths all converge at the end when they take part in one last, futile battle against the beasts of the apocalypse. Even if the individual stories of the characters do lean a bit towards the melodramatic, they are excellent, interesting, and develop the characters well. All five stories fit together nicely like pieces of a puzzle.

Its story alone is enough to cover quite a few worts that gameplay has as far as I'm concerned. For one thing, Odin Sphere is a throw-back to older games in difficulty as well as its visual design. Odin Sphere is a 2D side-strolling action game primarily with RPG elements thrown in. Watching it is like a seeing a gorgeous painting come to life. It is almost mind-blowingly difficult at times. At first, the difficulty level almost had me hating this game. Odin Sphere has a terrible learning curve that has to be overcome to find the gameing goodness within. For one thing, the player must learn that mindlessly attacking will get you killed quickly. Secondly, you must learn that given the limited space in your inventory, items are meant to be used, not stockpiled. Dropped items are plentiful so you can easily find or make another one. Thirdly, the character must use the food cultivation system to gain levels and healing items. The food you grow at first doesn't heal you up very much and you are open to enemy attack should you need to consume it in the heat of battle which makes it nearly useless. A bit later on you'll gain a healing potion alchemy mix which you can synthesize at any time and at last the game becomes bearable. Also I don't think it helps that the starting character, Gwendolyn, tends to get stuck in long combo animations that leave her open to attack. I found it to be a ton of fun after I learned the ropes because, rather than being a mindless hack and slash you can just plow through, Odin Sphere requires some smart thinking and quick reflexes. I also don't think that it helps Odin Sphere's case at the beginning that the first character's story arc takes place the latest in the time line and feels like it has large gaps in it, which are actually covered in other characters' scenarios.

In the end, Odin Sphere is a wonderful game, but its only going to appeal to a select audience. If you love RPGs and hard action games, your ship has come in because this blends the best of both into one package. If not, its probably only going to make you frustrated.

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