Odin Sphere

I like to search for old games. I want to find that gem of a game that the mainstream overlooked, that special game that was shunned because it was either too different like Killer 7 or just had a bad release window like Zone of the Enders 2. I want to find a game that's only appreciated in the right circles of friends like Skies of Arcadia or Panzer Dragoon; a game that really stands out and has only its greatness to lean on without any hype. It was during this search I found and played Odin Sphere. Odin Sphere is not that type of game. It's terrible.

How terrible? Terrible. Terrible to the terribleith degree. Someone threw terrible in a blender and mixed it with more terrible, and then sprinkled it with bits of terrible... and I don't like it.

The reason I got this game because it seemed unique. The graphical approach is a hand-drawn anime style that is beautiful. Seriously, take a look at a screenshot, the game is like that but moving... so I guess just watch a YouTube video. Everything animates so well and the level of detail is excruciating.

Where everything falls apart pretty rapidly is the game play. Odin Sphere is one of those patient games, one of those strategy brawlers that is pretty much the contradiction is sounds to be. Don't get me wrong, its a brawler of the side-scrolling variety, but Odin Sphere decided to do something different. Instead of punching and kicking your way forward throw a legion of baddies, Odin Sphere asks you to be patient and calculate each move before striking each blow on an enemy. While an interesting concept, and we've seen it work with Demon's Souls and the RPG/Action genre, there are many problems.

Your attack and block button are the same. That's right, don't re-read what I just typed... because I'm about to repeat it. Your attack and block button are the same. Just tapping the button makes your character attack, holding it down for a few seconds makes them block. Can you tell what's wrong with this idea in a game where patience and strategy are heavily emphasized? I'll break it down for the video game illiterate. Because when you need to react with split-second timing, and that reaction needs to be a block... IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO MAKE SOMETHING TAKE A FEW SECONDS WHEN YOU NEED IT TO BE INSTANT. DO CAPLOCKS MAKE IT SEEM LIKE I'M SHOUTING THESE WORDS? BECAUSE I AM. Also, blocking doesn't nullify damage, it just takes some of the sting away, so really, your just a sitting duck still taking damage.

Attacking isn't all that great either. There's a significant delay between hitting the attack button and seeing your character attack, meaning your strategy better take place one second in the future, hope you're of Mayan decent. Also, to further cement this game's uniqueness, in a move that completely defies logic... enemies can attack through you attacking them. Meaning, you could be bashing down an enemy, and they'll act like its nothing and begin attacking you, and you'll be stopped in the middle of your combo, and take damage. I'll give you a moment to collect the fragments of your head, because I'm sure that just blew your mind.

There's also a stamina bar for your attacks. I'm not sure why. Your constant attacking of enemies doesn't seem overpowered or excessive in any way, this is just one more layer of terrible that is this onion of terribleness. In order to refill your stamina gauge, you have to run away... a brawler has mandatory moments where you have to run away from the fight, in order to fight some more. This is a concept that shouldn't have even made it to paper, it's so bad.

But there's more.

Let's step away from blocking and attacking and talk about the title, Odin Sphere. Odin, Norse god of appearing in Final Fantasy games and one-shotting things. Sphere, that thing that's almost a cube but not really. The game's plot centers around a rough understanding of Norse elements like Valkyries and such, and a war between kingdoms. It all feels very story-book...-y. And the game wants you to know this because every time you load up your game, you have to guide a little girl over to a book, pick it up and then sit on a chair to play the game. Normally I would rant how arbitrary this is, but there is so much bad here, I need to talk about other things. I can't comment on the plot anyways, I didn't make it passed the first character's story. And as for the sphere part, all the maps and levels in the game take place on an endless looping sphere connect by points to other spheres, except the levels aren't really spheres, they're circles. Like I said, the game is side-scrolling and has no illusion of 3D at any point, which is one of the requirements of a sphere. So I guess I don't know why sphere is in the title. Maybe you play as Dustin Hoffman later and he goes crazy in an underwater facility or something like that.

As you're running around in these circles, you'll notice that you run really fast. Too fast to really see where you're going because the camera is zoomed in too far. So you can't run around, but the game forces you to because there's no walking feature. So as you're running around, you'll probably run into the pointy end of an enemy's weapon without ever seeing it coming. This would be a problem if there wasn't a map in the upper right hand corner of the screen most of the time which shows you how far away you are from enemies before you see them. So you have to look at this map to judge the position of enemies so you don't die. So instead of looking at these beautifully rendered, hand-drawn graphics, you have to stare at a line drawing of a map. That's some great planning they had for this game. If only there were quick time events to further distract from what's going on the screen. I have a feeling the game decided to make everything so close up to the camera because the graphics could strain the processing power of a monolith. When battles get intense, or just having more than 2 enemies, the frame rate plummets. It's like someone activated bullet-time in a game that has no guns. And to make matters worse, the controls are on such a delay from when you press them, even without said frame rate suicide, slowing things down becomes exceptionally painful, especially when you can see the attack coming, and your character is just too slow to react.

But if you're not a fan of running, and I'm not, you can double jump and glide around, which makes you travel even faster, but you're also harder to control. So, there's no reason to ever do this except for dodging because there is no dodge button. There is no... dodge button... at all. There's a glide button, no dodge button.

The game does try to help you. Since this is an eastern game, you know there had to be leveling up somewhere. And there is, you can level up your magical attacks and your physical self. You do this through experience points (d'uh) which levels you and photons or souls or w/e those floating purple things are which level your magic. You get these souls, and don't freak about about this Dante and Kratos, through bashing enemies. But its okay, you also get them from planting trees. Sit down Amaterasu. During the game you will find seeds, and before or during each battle, you can plant them. And after they absorb a certain numbers of photons, they will blossom and release fruit or more photons. This would be great, but the game doesn't tell you how many photons will be released per battle. So you could plant a seed that needs 12, and the battle only gives you 11, and you're screwed. That seed is wasted, you can't replay the battlefield after you've beaten it unless you start the whole level all over again. But even that's ok, because you'll probably die enough to replay that battlefield over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Speaking of special attacks, absorbing photons also fills your magic bar, letting you cast different magic depending on how many times your bar is filled. But be careful when casting, because your own special attacks will hurt you. Because your own special attacks will hurt you... doesn't that sound swell? Here's another ellipse... But that's not all you can do to screw yourself over in the middle of a battle. Remember that fruit I told you about a paragraph ago? Eating it takes time. Because you can't rush a good meal, even if something or someone is trying to kill you. In fact, the first character is such a lady, she even takes the time to wipe her mouth before taking up arms again. I wonder how long it'll take her to wipe all the blood away when an enemy impales her FOR TAKING SO FRICKEN LONG TO EAT A GRAPE. I think table-side manners can be suspended when death is happening around you. That's like wiping your feet before entering your house while a murderer is running after you.

But that's not all. There's also a crafting system. Here's how they screwed that up: crafting is about as well-placed in this game as an elephant is in a compact car. I don't know how they did it, but it was probably too much work to get it out so they just left in there. Crafting can be done after a battle, or during if you want to die, and involves mixing just about anything with material. Material is an ambiguous item that is just differentiated through its various numbers. Material 5 will mix and make something different if it was Material 3. The problem is, crafting items rely mostly on the area you're in because certain items will never show up unless you're in the specific level that has it. It's just dumb.

Fruit and food act to give you experience and restore your HP. There's really nothing terrible about this, I just thought I should mention it.

But, and here's where circles come up again, Odin Circle has an inventory system, it's also printed on a disc, and other obvious things, but this inventory system actually is what Secret of Mana had. Its a wheel of items and you can spin through this wheel to get what you want. But while Secret of Mana had each item categorized by equipment, consumables, etc. this game just throws everything together all willy-nilly, and there's like 5 wheels to move through depending on how many bags you've bought. So if you're looking for a certain item, have fun digging around in this mess. How bad is it? There's a separate menu for using items, and another for sorting them. When you have design that, the menu system isn't working hint hint.

The voice acting and soundtrack are decent, but I don't want to tempt anyone to try this game. There are just some things in life that's shouldn't have a first time, like drinking gasoline or listening to Ke$ha, and Odin Dodecahedron is one of those things. By its nature, a brawler is a fast-action, quick-paced, fast-moving genre. So to take all that philosophy and slow it down to painful levels was not a good idea. Make a turn-based RPG if you want slow and calculating. There's a reason people don't play chess while driving a Formula One race car. If I had to compare this game to another game, it'd be Unlimited Saga easily. Beautiful to look at, atrocious to play.