Odin sphere is one of those games that comes in under the radar. It does not get much attention or press. Because of this though, Odin Sphere becomes almost like a buried treasure of sorts.
Odin Sphere tells multiple character specific stories through five different character perspectives. However, all these stories have an underlying main story about something called the crystallization cauldron, dragons, sorcerers, and the destruction of their world. You learn the entire story of the game from the perspective of the five characters starting with Gwendolyn. Gwen is the first character that you have to play in a specific order. This is probably one of the games weaker points. The story is told from many different perspectives already, even starting at different time intervals with most if not all of the characters, and as such they should probably give you a little more freedom in deciding which characters you get to play. Keeping Gwen as the first character is essential to introducing players to the story, setting, and the different locations, but afterwards there is no real point to putting a linear character progression in the game. It really forces you to play through characters that you might not want to at first so that you can get to the more interesting characters like Oswald the Shadow Knight, who is the 4 character in the progression and Velvet who is the last character.
Odin Sphere is a graphic masterpiece that really shows that the Ps2 can still handle some great games. The game levels always have multiple layers of 2-D backdrops all animating in real time, setting a great mood and really showing drastic differences in the different levels. You can really tell that the developers took great care in all the graphic models in this game. They animate well, and it just goes to show everyone that when great care is taken you can still make an “old-school” styled game and bring it to the future.
The levels are all “round-about” progressive style meaning each level consists of multiple areas that continue endlessly if you were to walk left or right. You progress through the levels by finding a transition spot where you simply press up and progress to the next area. In each area you have a set amount of enemies to dispose of before moving on, and depending on the speed in which you dispose of these enemies your reward for completing the area will increase or decrease and you will be given a rank. This system does strain on you by the time you’re on the 4 or 5 character, but at least you’re basic reward for the area stays the same, so if you come back to the level later and need a specific item for a recipe or alchemy, the games other features, then you’re going to have to fight back to that spot and clear the enemies again for the reward. So it can become a very repetitive thing. This actually brings me to the next point though. With all this grinding for items you won’t actually be gaining levels. Well, you will, but you won’t be gaining “health” levels by killing the actual monsters that the game throws at you. Instead you’ll be gaining you’re standard levels, but you’ll continually need to be finding seeds, growing fruit with phozons and mixing things with the alchemy system for the required food recipes. When you find a food recipe its automatically available to all your characters at the Pooka Kitchen. This is where you’ll spend the majority of you’re time gaining you’re Health levels.
The Alchemy system takes anything in your inventory and adds a multiplier or a basic number to you’re empty bottle. For example, if I put in an onionne (one of the many vegetables with a “play on words” approach to naming) into the empty bottle it will add +1 to my bottle, making it a bottle with 1, lets say I add another to make it 2, and then get another +2 bottle and then combine those, it will yield a +4 bottle. As you go through the game you will collect different recipes that require a specific number and plant products to produce different character enhancing potions, healing potions, and even luck potions. Creating these potions is essential unless you grind your character far above the levels necessary to beat some of the games bosses, and even then there are environmental effects that need opposing potions to be stopped. Every time you create a potion phonzons are released. Phozons are the sort of magic power force of the world. They level up you’re characters basic levels up, as well as charging a meter for special attacks, and they help you grow plants for food and for most of the games early health regenerating items.
Every game is without its flaws, and Odin Sphere has some. I’ve already mentioned that they should probably let you decide which character you want to play after Gwen, but there are a few more minor annoyances that can really hold the game back at times. For one, when you’re creating potions in the game it can sometimes become a chore. You initially have only a couple bags with spots for your items, and they generally fill up pretty fast. They have an organize button, but only for each separate bag, it would have been nice to have almost two separate inventories. A bag for your basic items and where you store your potions and an unlimited fruit/vegetable bag for your alchemy. Instead you have to deal with pressing the inventory button which brings up a radial menu, then pick a bottle, and combine it with something. After that the mixture is complete and it drops to the ground as a new item. So you have to pick up the item again after every mixture. It just makes the whole thing a hassle to deal with. You’ll find yourself more often then not filling up your inventory to the max, and then just neglecting to do alchemy and pick up new items. Secondly, the other annoyance of the game comes from the leveling system. After you collect phozons to level up your weapon, increasing your damage and special powers, you’ll still have to continually grind for the new items so that you can collect the necessary components for the kitchen recipes. It’s really a bad decision that elongates the time spent on one character exponentially. Part of the fun of the game is to try out the completely unique characters that play generally different (aside from their special moves which you just get in different orders). But it becomes a hassle when you need to get more HP or weapon levels on a character just so you can continue the story or get to a new character.
Odin Sphere will chew you up and spit you out unless you really know what you’re doing and use the alchemy system to the full extent. This is why I actually recommend turning the difficulty down to save yourself from some epic-sized frustration. But other than that Odin Spheres story is very in-depth with over 40+ hours of gameplay, the characters are all pretty interesting. It’s really a joy to see characters in multiple stories, or see events that took place in one story, and you get to see how it got to that point in another. It has a unique design graphically and in its alchemy system. It creates a nostalgic feeling for old games even though it’s new and I recommend that anyone who still plays their Ps2 should at least try this game. If you invest in it you will not be disappointed.