Odin Sphere: bounded to prophecies

Odin Sphere was one of those games I had no plan on playing anytime soon, considering all the other games that had priority for various reasons. A friend suggested it because it was nice and short. And it was Atlus. Atlus seems to do no wrong nowadays huh.

Story - 5/5
I'm a sucker for mythologies and the such so the story was excellent. Basically a prophecy foretold the end of the world and all the nations were part of it (in saving or destroying). But then there were cute romantic relationships with all the main characters that made every couple so canon. The good ending was bittersweet, and the additional ending made it even sweeter. The game made it so you played through a particular character's point of view, and then had you play through another persons. At the end, you were able to put all the pieces together to form the big picture.

Characters - 5/5
I don't think there was a single character I came to dislike in this game (bad guys don't really count because you're supposed to hate them :b). At first you would hate a particular someone until you played through their story to find out their background and why the scene happened the way it did. Though I think my favourite character is Ingway and yet he's not a playable character. It seems as though he could've been a playable character too (just to balance off the guy vs girl ratio). I swear it's not because I'm entranced by his awesome Morikubo Shoutarou voice (<_<)... As I mentioned, the couples were all so fit for each other. When does that really ever happen eh...

Gameplay - 4.5/5
Everyone complains about this - LAG. It's the strangest thing to happen in this game, and yet it happens so frequently. The graphics and the mechanics seem so simple, you would've never imagined this game would lag at all. When it lags, it really LAGS. It becomes a nuisance when it starts interrupting your flow.

Besides the horrible lag of death, the actual gameplay is really unique to this game. It's a 2D side scroller (much like, say, Mario) and areas are a continuous loop until you jump to another area that's also another continuous loop. In this game, you had to eat. A LOT. You basically fought, ate, mixed some concoctions and ate some more. But it's consumptions that helped you raise levels and boosted stats. The whole ring menu reminded me much of Seiken Densetsu but because of the amount of items you had, organizing and finding items were a bit of a pain. It was also funny to see that not only were your characters fighters, they were also gardeners too. Before/after/during battles, you can do some gardening by planting fruits and whatnot. Then you can eat them. Or make more food with them and still eat them. The whole vegetable hiding under the ground aspect was also very cute. Vegetables are alive at first (run around or hurt you even) until you give them a good smack after you find them. Same goes for sheep that grow from plants.

Graphics - 4/5
When I first saw this game, I first thought - whoa flash animation. But now, I don't really think of it that way anymore. I've come to really like the animation and art style to the point that I don't know what to think of it anymore really. It's nice and pretty... and different.

Sound - 3.5/5
The music for Odin Sphere was decent. There weren't that many tracks to begin with (I guess also because the game wasn't very long either) and tracks for certain stages were the stage for all characters you played through. You basically ended up listening through the same few tracks again and again. I think the most annoying noise was the "electricity" sound effects you would hear when you popped an Unlimited POW/Painkiller/a potion that boosted your stats for a limited time. The noise would stick around until the potion itself wears off. It was also hard to tell whether the potion was still active or not if you had more than one active at the same time if you were in the midst of battle. The only other way to tell was the thin coloured spark that surrounded your weapon. I can't quite see it when I'm swinging around like mad now can I.

Voice acting. I kept it on Japanese audio the whole time and wow, there were nothing but big names doing the roles, even the minor ones like for the Halja(Shinigami). The voices fit well with their characters.

Overall - 4.5/5
Odin Sphere was an extremely satisfying and refreshing game. Though may I say it was a bit short, it still executed the story nicely and the pacing was good. I did not grind, unless I was farming, and the variety of challenges that were presented were all fun. There were a number of exploits that made the game easier, but overall, I did take a few tries at some bosses. I can't imagine how this game would be like in Heroic mode though... {No Thanks.}