You may have heard a lot about Odin Sphere, and since I just finished it (100% complete) thought I'd give people my impressions! First, the positives:

*Graphics: some people have said the graphics in Odin Sphere are absolutely the most beautiful thing they've seen... To this I say, nope. They're not the most impressive nor the most beautiful, but they are certainly wonderful, and very artistic. A lot of love went into all aspects of this game, and the graphics are no exception.

*Music: one of the best soundtracks I've heard in years! Yes, I purchased the soundtrack because it's awesome. The soundtrack is very much on the classical side, but it's unique. It's definitely not your everyday run of the mill of the mill fantasy/RPG soundtrack. It's beautiful, haunting, and I encourage people to listen to some samples and decide. There's a review and samples on rpgfan:

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/odinsphere/index.html

the reviewer's bottom line is: "the Odin Sphere Original Soundtrack is a masterpiece." Yup, sounds like praise to me

*Storyline: This is Odin Sphere's strongest point! The story is SUPERB! The characters are not cookie-cutter pastries! (One exception, see below). Throughout the game you play as 5 different protagonists, each with a different point of view. Naturally, their stories intertwine, but who is evil? What are people fighting for? What are their motives? All these things become blurred, which is a good thing, because life is not black and white. That's not to say things don't get resolved, for they do, but the characters are complex, and really come alive! Even the supporting characters (those that you don't play) are really important and have personalities that truly shine!

*Voice Acting: "You were almost a Jill sandwich!" Yeah, we've come a long ways... and overall the voice acting in Odin Sphere is great! I haven't checked yet, but I believe the guy from Prince of Persia Sands of Time plays Cornelius. It's cool to hear him again, but the point is that the caliber of voice actors is high. Not to say that they're all great (see exception below), but for the most part it's excellent. If you want, you can also listen to the original Japanese! I stuck with the English, and I actually read that the Japanese voice acting is not any better than the English (Atlus does a great job)!

and now, for the bad:

-Oswald: talk about a boring character! All the other characters in the game are great, but Oswald seems to be the typical "bad-ass" character that appears in most Japanese RPGs. You know, he doesn't talk much, has a mysterious history, kills most anyone who gets in his way, etc... bottom line, he's BORING! and his voice actor sucks, but that might be because his lines suck. I heard that even in the original Japanese he sucks. So I'm guessing it's the pathetic lines he has. Still, that's what I consider a minor complaint.

-The game does have slowdowns when a lot of enemies are on the screen. Some people have had fits about this, but I think it's more a nuisance than anything else.

now the serious complaints:

-REPETITIVE: the first time you fight the dragon Wagner, you're like "cool, it's Wagner"! The 4th time you fight the dragon you'll mutter something along the lines of "cripes! couldn't they think of ANYTHING else!" Also, you'll fight through MANY of the same battles, just with different characters. So yeah, this does get old, but is not terrible. What's worse is that after "finishing" with a character, in order to level him/her up, you have to again go through the same battles (it will make sense if you play the game). So yeah, that's a big pain. Still, my biggest fault is below:

-BOSS FIGHTS: the boss fights tend to be really cool, but many of them tend to be hard. REALLY hard! STUPID hard! So hard, that you'll be swearing like a drunk sailor! This is on the "normal" difficulty as well! Granted, you can change difficulty at ANY time in the game, but if you do change to easy difficulty just to defeat a boss, it kinda makes you feel dirty. After all, who wants to say they got their ass handed to them by a PS2 game?  Anyway, some of the boss fights were over in about 5 seconds. You start, you get hit, can't move, hit again, and gain, and you're dead. So damn annoying... now the thing is you will NEVER be stuck in the game, because you can return to base at any time (even in the middle of boss fights), and level up. Of course you then have to fight your way back to the boss, but you keep all items and all experience.

So, complaints aside, is this a great game? I think so, in particular because of the storyline and music. The graphics are also great, but the story (which is a mix of fairy tales and mythology), is so good, you really want to know what happens next! If you unlock ALL the scenes, you get to see the final ending. It took a while, but it's not too difficult to unlock all the scenes. AND, what's cool (wish all games had this), you can view any of the scenes you unlocked, plus you can view just one scene, or watch them in sequence until the very end

BOTTOM LINE: If you want a game which isn't perfect, but has a spectacular story, an amazing soundtrack, and despite some faults is a hell of a lot of fun to play, then get Odin Sphere!

overall score: A-
(I grade harshly)

there is no such thing as perfect game you know.

Sorry, but this line just reminds me of all the pathetic attempts Capcom made in the Mega Man X series to blur the lines between Maverick and Maverick Hunter.

There were a lot of aspects of the game I admired (some of the music, the graphics) but ultimately, it was so repetitive and frustrating (difficulty, limited inventory, etc.) that I gave up after about two hours.

Glad you enjoyed it though.

if you guys like odin sphere, check princess crown on saturn, very similar.

The repetition of the stages really hurt this game.  With each new character, you had to start over from the beginning (stats ad items), and you had to run through the same stages as the previous character (although in a different order) to advance the story.  If you look at the cutscenes in the story review, that is pretty much the game right there.

The POW meter drained really quickly.  I used Code Breaker to give myself infinite POW and the game played faster like a typical action game, which suited my tastes.

There is a nice story, but it's surrounded by repetitive gameplay.

Isn't there a psuedo-sequel coming out for the Wii!?

Also very hard to find, apparently. I would love, like, a compliation disc full of Saturn treasures.

Avatar, I am surprised you didn't like Oswald. I found his motives to be surprisingly human.

I think Princess Crown was also re-released on the PSP, which should have better availability than the Saturn version.

All the characters had human traits and flaws, which is one reason why the game was so great. As for Oswald, he certainly had his reasons, but his character was so generic and dull. In my opinion he was the least developed of all the characters, and really the game would have been better had he been relegated to a supporting character.

cheers,

-avatar!

I agree. I don't mind starting with a new character with low stats, but it would have been great had each character had a unique stage or two, instead of the same stages with the same enemies. Still, that didn't bother me too much. I guess I found the story so compelling, and music so good, that I enjoyed it very much despite the obvious flaws

You can't blame the game on this one! The POW meter draining is part of the challenge! Besides, if you use a U potion, you get unlimited POW (a must for tough bosses)!

cheers,

-avatar!

Indeed, I too thought the repetition of the same stages was weak, but in the end, it still works out pretty well.

Otherwise, I thought Oswald was an awesome character. He's a badass on the outside, but on the inside, he really is a good guy; he's both rough, yet classy...kind of like someone else 'round here I know. Besides, every JRPG needs a badass who's secretly a good guy in disguise.

Those wizards in the Titanian sewers were difficult to defeat, when you had to hit their flying swords into them...

I'm still working on getting through Armageddon, though; who knew you had to level your characters up so much for it! Velvet's easy to work with, but that's because she's LV.40 ~ 50 somewhere 'bouts; some of my other characters haven't even topped LV. 30.

We will disagree on this matter then.  I think given that the game is very action-oriented, the POW meter really breaks the pacing of the action.  I didn't even know the U potion existed until I played the fourth character and got the recipe for it!

For most characters, even when I set the POW to infinite, the fighting is still pretty challenging, which makes me think the original limited POW raised the challenge unnecessarily.

Also, I have far less time to play game then when I was in school, so I am far less tolerant of gameplay aspects that raise the difficulty in a way that seems artificial to me.

Yes.

Man, Vanillaware must like Basiscape or something.  You could tell the music in the trailer was Sakimoto.

Wow, the art in there is damn goregous.  If Vanillaware can make the gameplay more accessible than Odin Sphere, I may become quite interested.

Fuckin' rights, brudder. Angela once stated that Okami makes it all right to be a graphics whore, and the same can be said about Vanilla's titles.

Ahaha..... words of wisdom I still hold true to as of today.  Especially after spending ample time gazing at the Wii version of Okami; the artistic style and execution still surpasses anything currently out today.

Oboro Muramasa Youtouden is looking spectacular.  I can only dream of developers creating more full-on action games in this vein.

Here are some hi-res screenshots.  They're pretty old, but show off the artwork and vibrant colors in much more detail:

screen 1
screen 2
screen 3

The game should be almost done.  Hopefully we'll get more info and a release date at E3 or, more likely, TGS '08.

NB, ebgames is having a huge sale on Odin Sphere. $19.99! If anyone has interest in the game, now is a good time to purchase it, because I doubt you'll ever find it for less.

cheers,

-avatar!

Damn, I hope Oboro Muramasa comes to the 'States...but why on the Wii?!

Fixed.

Just finished 100%. Late to the damn party, but oh my God . . . . Easily on my list of best games ever made, and I hope that Muramasa game is half as good as this.

If you liked Odin Sphere (obviously  you did), I highly recommend Folklore. Yeah, they're far from being the same game, and yet both have what I would consider the most important qualities in a game:

i)superb story!
ii)superb soundtrack!
iii)just plain fun (for the most part)
iv)clearly a lot of love went into the game

Folklore has it's issues, just like Odin Sphere, but it's WELL worth playing! Also, as in Odin Sphere you level up, gain more abilities, can go back and revisit levels... and it's  much shorter and the boss fights are actually quite easy. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts after trying it out.

cheers,

-avatar!

I would play this game, and gladly, but I am PS3-less. Like an animal or something. They got two Yakuza titles coming out, though. Might dip. Kojima, I beg on bended knee for a ZOE 3, then the sale is secured.