Odin Sphere has no qualms with challenging RPG traditions. Broadly, it still fits pretty well into the "JRPG" box, being a character-driven linear RPG, but it's a game that knows it's priorities well enough that it can work the fundamentals of the genre into something more comfortable for what it's trying to do. It has varying degrees of success, but on the whole it makes for a wonderful experience.
Screenshots nicked from Videogamer, which only had 3 screenshots, so not exactly a whole lot of variety, but still, cheers.
Odin Sphere is the absolute monarch of twists. That's the one thing that stood out to me the most from it's excellent story. It never seems to run out of surprises and revelations that turn everything on it's head. I can only imagine the lengths Vanillaware must have gone to in structuring this beast. The game's main hook is that it's structured around 5 campaigns with 5 different playable characters, each covering roughly the same events from different perspectives, and with that in mind, it's incredible how well paced the plot is across all of these campaigns. You're never JUST reliving the same story beats, even when you're in a place and time you've been in twice before, you can guarantee there will be something to shake up how you perceive that event, to leave you turning over what you saw as other characters with new information. I can only imagine the spreadsheets needed to plan that out. Must have been at least 2.
The 5 character approach does wonders for your investment in each of them, as characters you've already played as and wrapped up the stories of turn up in later chapters, while characters on the periphery of early parts get fleshed out in later. And that's to say nothing of the characters you DON'T play as, like Odin. Hoo boy. Odin. Despite having his name in the title, Odin isn't quite as important as that fact would suggest, but he does serve as one of the most important players in the local Game of Thrones, if you could call it that. He's also a wonderfully deep character, surrounded by moral ambiguity and conflicting emotions, coming across equally as an all-powerful Godlike entity and a man struggling to balance his personal feelings with his position of incredible power. And he's just one of my favourites.
The cast of amazing characters is all down to some genuinely excellent writing that wears it's fairytale inspirations on it's sleeve with pride. It's cheesy and dramatic in a Shakespeare kind of way, with at least 3 times the amount of monologueing, but it never feels forced, and manages to be quite grim in it's depiction of the world while retaining a sense of whimsy. Fairytale parallels are easily found(it does love to have Princesses guarded by Dragons, but we'll get to that later), and the whole thing is framed as a young girl reading books in an attic.
And of course there's the art style. Odin Sphere is gorgeous, that much you can probably tell. On the whole the presentation is impeccable. Gorgeously animated, with some stunning environment and character design, the art is another big contributor to the fairytale feel. In a very Japanese touch, the ancient mythology referances are basically just set-dressing, but nonetheless come together to form a wonderful consistency despite drawing from so many sources.
Well, mostly. There's no bad art to be found, but there are times when I question some of the animation decisions, mainly around the character Velvet. Her animations are at odds with her character quite dramatically. She's supposed to be a powerful character(obviously, she's playable after all), yet her animations have her slumped over in a very lax pose all the time, which looks especially out of place during dramatic scenes where you'd expect her to at least stand up straight and open her eyes properly. And this isn't about her outfit by the way, the Dancer-Mage getup is cool as hell, and fits with her fighting style, it's the animations that seem unfitting.
But I do like how, unlike other characters who release phozons from their cyphers with reverence to the importance of the task they're performing, Velvet, a master of the art who's been doing it for years, releases them with an expression reminiscent of a woman taking her morning piss.
And there are slip-ups in the writing too, like the aforementioned reliance on the "Damsel and the Dragon" trope, which turns up at least once in each of the 5 character stories. It gets a bit tiresome to see otherwise powerful female characters reduced to plot points for male characters on a regular basis. There are times when it feels earned, but they're few and far between. And the characterisation of Oswald and Velvet is slightly off in both of their stories, with Oswald coming across as much more generically Edgelord than he does in other arcs, and Velvet's story seems to like finding ways to make her seem pathetic. Their stories are still good, by virtue of the other characters, the events and the revelations, but their strange characterisation choices
Skip the next paragraph if you don't want minor structure spoilers, about the order you get to play as characters.
Oswald and Velvet are the last two you play as, and the writing slip-ups accentuate a problem that I can at least understand was always going to be hard to deal with. Each of the character stories starts with you at level 1 with no items or abilities, a hard reset, and while the stylish Devil May Cry meets Street Fighter combat is great fun, going through the same song and dance from the beginning becomes a less enticing prospect every time you do it. The repetition is staved off the first 2 times, as Cornelius and Mercedes both play very differently from Gwendolyn, but Oswald and Velvet both play a little too familiarly for the repetition to start wearing you down.
But despite all that, the final act is a truly epic affair, with a lovely little touch that I won't spoil, and I still came away having had an absolute joy of a time.
So yeah, a few slip ups around the middle, but not nearly enough to ruin an excellent game. Well worth your time.
Next week, who knows. I've been replaying Bloodborne lately because it's still the best game ever made(sharing the spot with Xenoblade X), though I've got quite a backlog to clean through, so I'll find something. Banner Saga has sat untouched for long enough I think, and like I said last week, Sunless Sea needs some love.
Screenshots nicked from Videogamer, which only had 3 screenshots, so not exactly a whole lot of variety, but still, cheers.
Odin Sphere is the absolute monarch of twists. That's the one thing that stood out to me the most from it's excellent story. It never seems to run out of surprises and revelations that turn everything on it's head. I can only imagine the lengths Vanillaware must have gone to in structuring this beast. The game's main hook is that it's structured around 5 campaigns with 5 different playable characters, each covering roughly the same events from different perspectives, and with that in mind, it's incredible how well paced the plot is across all of these campaigns. You're never JUST reliving the same story beats, even when you're in a place and time you've been in twice before, you can guarantee there will be something to shake up how you perceive that event, to leave you turning over what you saw as other characters with new information. I can only imagine the spreadsheets needed to plan that out. Must have been at least 2.
The 5 character approach does wonders for your investment in each of them, as characters you've already played as and wrapped up the stories of turn up in later chapters, while characters on the periphery of early parts get fleshed out in later. And that's to say nothing of the characters you DON'T play as, like Odin. Hoo boy. Odin. Despite having his name in the title, Odin isn't quite as important as that fact would suggest, but he does serve as one of the most important players in the local Game of Thrones, if you could call it that. He's also a wonderfully deep character, surrounded by moral ambiguity and conflicting emotions, coming across equally as an all-powerful Godlike entity and a man struggling to balance his personal feelings with his position of incredible power. And he's just one of my favourites.
And of course there's the art style. Odin Sphere is gorgeous, that much you can probably tell. On the whole the presentation is impeccable. Gorgeously animated, with some stunning environment and character design, the art is another big contributor to the fairytale feel. In a very Japanese touch, the ancient mythology referances are basically just set-dressing, but nonetheless come together to form a wonderful consistency despite drawing from so many sources.
Well, mostly. There's no bad art to be found, but there are times when I question some of the animation decisions, mainly around the character Velvet. Her animations are at odds with her character quite dramatically. She's supposed to be a powerful character(obviously, she's playable after all), yet her animations have her slumped over in a very lax pose all the time, which looks especially out of place during dramatic scenes where you'd expect her to at least stand up straight and open her eyes properly. And this isn't about her outfit by the way, the Dancer-Mage getup is cool as hell, and fits with her fighting style, it's the animations that seem unfitting.
But I do like how, unlike other characters who release phozons from their cyphers with reverence to the importance of the task they're performing, Velvet, a master of the art who's been doing it for years, releases them with an expression reminiscent of a woman taking her morning piss.
Skip the next paragraph if you don't want minor structure spoilers, about the order you get to play as characters.
Oswald and Velvet are the last two you play as, and the writing slip-ups accentuate a problem that I can at least understand was always going to be hard to deal with. Each of the character stories starts with you at level 1 with no items or abilities, a hard reset, and while the stylish Devil May Cry meets Street Fighter combat is great fun, going through the same song and dance from the beginning becomes a less enticing prospect every time you do it. The repetition is staved off the first 2 times, as Cornelius and Mercedes both play very differently from Gwendolyn, but Oswald and Velvet both play a little too familiarly for the repetition to start wearing you down.
But despite all that, the final act is a truly epic affair, with a lovely little touch that I won't spoil, and I still came away having had an absolute joy of a time.
So yeah, a few slip ups around the middle, but not nearly enough to ruin an excellent game. Well worth your time.
Next week, who knows. I've been replaying Bloodborne lately because it's still the best game ever made(sharing the spot with Xenoblade X), though I've got quite a backlog to clean through, so I'll find something. Banner Saga has sat untouched for long enough I think, and like I said last week, Sunless Sea needs some love.
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