LTTP: Odin Sphere

LTTP or late to the party pieces are opportunities for us to catch up and write about games we missed out on the first time around. They may contain spoilers.

I toiled with VanillaWare’s Odin Sphere quite some time. It’s one of those games which I was skeptical of despite glowing reviews. Let me cut to the chase: Odin Sphere is not a good game. It’s a border line “okay” game with a handful of painful flaws. I picked up the game months after its North American release through a Boxing Day deal, but even then I don’t believe it’s worth the $29.99 CAD price tag. Well enough with the intro; let’s get down to it.

Phrases such as “beauty is only skin deep” and “don’t judge a book by its cover” come to mind when I look at Odin Sphere. The game is undeniably beautiful in appearances with lush and brilliant 2-D visuals filling the screen to its brim. If there’s any trait which sets Odin Sphere apart from the rest, it would be its visuals; you can’t find any games which look like this anymore. While other games may have visuals like this for their artwork, Odin Sphere uses it as its staple.

Unfortunately, despite being a 2-D game, Odin Sphere still manages to bring the PlayStation 2 to a crawl — an unacceptable ’snails on molasses’ type of crawl. Some may argue that these slowdowns are actually helpful during some of the huge boss battles where flying debris and enemies are gunning for you, but I just cannot tolerate such things. Odin Sphere bogs down and I cannot help, but wonder why VanillaWare would let it pass their quality assurance group in such a state.

Odin Sphere tries to pull off the side scrolling action RPG, however it’s nothing more than a side scrolling hack and slash with so called “RPG elements” needlessly tacked on. The game’s story is split into five long chapters which run through most (if not all) the levels Odin Sphere offers. In order to complete the story, you must tread through the same areas with each of the game’s five characters. The justification for the game’s repetitive nature is lame and does nothing, but reinforce the fact that the game was artificially extended with filler.

Each of the characters are distinct in appearance and fighting styles, but the novelty of each quickly subsides. The hack and slash system is rather simple. You can perform simple one button combos along with high and low attacks — that’s it. There are special moves which require ‘phozons’ (collected from enemies), but they didn’t add much. I was expecting a lot more out of Odin Sphere’s combat system which is a shame because the potential is there.

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• LTTP: Henry Hatsworth
• LTTP: Persona 3: FES
• Too Human Xbox 360 Demo Impressions
• LTTP: Persona 4

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