Odin Sphere

"Would you like me to read you a story?"

Have you ever played a game that had so many things you liked in it, but so many things you hated about it? Or a game you want to give a good score to, but you can't since there are many flaws that just can't be ignored? Introduce Odin Sphere a game with really good graphics, a fairly good soundtrack, and an interesting story with memorable characters. I wanted to give Odin Sphere a higher score, but I just couldn't since there are way too many things I have an issue with like the slowdown.

Odin Sphere is such a beauty to look at, but unfortunately, there are way too many problems in this game such as massive slowdown, constant inventory management, millions of load times, reusing the same bosses and dungeons over again, and weird button placements are some of the things that Odin Sphere fails at. Oh, I forgot to mention that for every new character you have to start all the way at level one again. Let's look on the bright side, so first let's mention all the good things about this game.

Odin Sphere. Gosh. Why are so pretty to look at? You'll see gorgeous 2D sprites and wonderful visuals when you first pop in this game. The characters are detailed to the last pixel and the bosses are usually really cool looking, especially the dragons. Pictures cannot phrase how beautiful this game is. The only way to really see the beauty is to actually play it, but playing the game and watching the game are two totally different things. The music in Odin Sphere is fairly good, but sometimes it's a little loud. Like I had problems hearing the squeaking sounds when I wanted to find a mandragora. The voice acting is top notch for the English vocals and the Japanese. So that was a huge plus for this game.

The story in Odin Sphere is told in such a different way from most RPGs. Odin Sphere follows the adventures of five characters. Gwendolyn, Cornelius, Mercedes, Oswald, and Velvet. You might hate them at first, but after hearing their story I bet you'll change your mind. First you meet Gwendolyn who is a princess and the daughter of Odin and you get to follow her journey through dense woods, hot volcanoes, and chilly mountains. And at the end you're satisfied with her journey, even though there are still a few things that don't make sense to you. But don't worry those things will be cleared up when you play the story from a different perspective or a different character.

The characters are mainly likeable and you'll enjoy uncovering the book that they have to share with you. Plus the character designs are really nice for the girls and the guys, but mostly Velvet, because she's so darn hot. Anyway, the problem with telling five different stories in five different perspectives is that you'll be redoing the same dungeons and the same bosses again and again and again. Like it didn't annoy me the first time or the second time. But by the third or even fourth time, I just felt like the producers were just too lazy to design more bosses and instead took the easy way out by making you fight Queen Odette for like the bazillionth time.

Fun at some parts, annoying at some parts, and boring at some parts. Is the way I can describe the gameplay of Odin Sphere. It's fun at the beginning from learning the basics of battle, defeating monsters, collecting phozons, and watching cut-scenes unfold. It's fairly entertaining and fun to play ...... kind of. But of course things get repetitive like redoing the same dungeon, fighting the same monster, and starting from level one again. It just gets kind of annoying and tedious. And once you finish a character's story then you play as another character, but of course you have to start back at level one again. *sigh* I wished they could have just stayed at the same level as the previous character and just continue to grow instead of doing it this method.

Now loading. Now loading. Now loading. You'll see this screen a lot. And yes I do mean a lot. Every time you transition from one map to the next, you'll have to watch your character run across the screen with the now loading words on the bottom right corner. I guess it's fairly interesting with the now loading words spinning around a book. No, I changed my mind. It's annoying and I wished that they would just put the game in two different discs to save time. The now loading screen isn't particularly long, but it just comes up way too frequent and it gets annoying to wait like five seconds every time.

Also the game suffers from slowdown when you're fighting mobs of monsters and that takes away the excitement of the gameplay. Instead everything is in 0.5 speed and things seems to take forever to finish. Stupid Queen Odette. She is the boss you'll dread, because there is massive slowdown whenever you fight her. DIE QUEEN ODETTE! Yes, I have a urge to throw her in a fire with her floating boob. YES! IT FLOATS! It's like it has a mind of its own.

Of course when you finish a map, you'll be reward with loot and monies. YAY! Unfortunately you can't carry that many items and you'll have to constantly rearrange your inventory and drop some items. At the beginning of the game you get sixteen slots to put sixteen items. Let's say you get three mulberry seeds. Instead of just taking up one slot and saying mulberry seed x3. It takes up three different slots causing for more nuisance and the sad things is that you have to share that sixteen slots with items, equipment, potions, and foods. I had to constantly throw away my good items to keep the items that I needed.

The button arrangement was really awkward for me compared to most games. The square button is the attack button and the jump button was the X button. I mean it took time to get used to, but I wished there was an option where you could change the key configuration. Boo. I thought that made Odin Sphere a little harder than it should be. Speaking of difficulty Odin Sphere is a pretty hard game. (Even though I played the game on easy mode) You'll constantly die on bosses if you're not prepared and then when you die you'll see the most evilest thing in the whole entire game. NO! Another NOW LOADING SCREEN! *dies*

Odin Sphere is a fun game with many good things about the gam, but with the package it also comes with a whole bunch of bad things as well. For good graphics you have to pay massive slowdown and frequent loading times. For a good story, you'll have to play the same levels over again and the same bosses over again. (STUPID QUEEN ODETTE and her slowdown) Good characters and a good soundtrack help the game while the inventory management and the starting back at level one again brings the game down. If you can look over the bad things about this game then you'll enjoy Odin Sphere for what it offers. If you can't then ....... that's too bad.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/08, Updated 03/16/09

Game Release: Odin Sphere (US, 05/22/07)