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Odin Sphere


SwordBreaker
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Been playing this game for a week. I'm REALLY impressed by it, especially the sprite-based graphics. Never in my life have I seen sprites look and animate THIS good...you can literally see some of the big characters' chests heaving in and out. I can definitely say that this game has the best 2D graphics in history. The backgrounds are really colorful and full of life, too.

As for the gameplay, it's a bit on the repetitive side, yet addictive. It's similar to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, with less exploration and more action. It's really fun to level-up your character, too. Feed him/her different types of food and/or cooked meals to update HP, and draw souls to update your magical attacks. The item creation system is really unique, too. Always keeps you on your toes to make items...I think it's impossible to move forward without creating items...

Localization-wise, this is probably Atlus' best work yet. The dialogue has this medival-ish feeling similar to FFXII. Voice-acting is pretty good. The music is amazing, composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto. I personally find the music here better than FFXII.

I'm almost done with the first character. So...anyone else has been playing this game?

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Funny you'd bring it up cause I just started playing it again.

I bought it and couldn't put it down for a few days, which is amazing for me because I usually put new games down in like a day to test it out and then go back to the games I haven't finished yet. I have to say, one of the most beautiful games I've played in a long time in many senses (artistically, musically, graphically) and is awesomely addictive. Tough too.

Plus, as with all Atlus games there's an option to turn the voices to Japanese. This is probably the first game I didn't bother switching; the voice acting is fine, for once! The storybook feel and story actually make me want to go back to play it now.

I'm still on the first character... apparently the most boring arc of the story, which is good, because I'm having a ball.

Highly recommend this game!

-Nick

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The Valkyrie part is killing me. I really like the game, the gameplay is great, music and visuals are amazing, but I'd really love to be able to move from character to character. Not even freely, but doing a certain part of one character's story opens the next part of another's story, you know? It's a great game, but the same character gets old fast. Well, at least the other characters' stories provide incentive to continue (Cornelius looks like a blast to play).

This game is hard, too. One of the first games in a while where putting it on hard difficulty actually makes the game harder. What a concept, eh? But really, I like the boss fights. Sure, it always devolves into square, square, square, square, jump away, Heal, rinse and repeat... but it's a pretty intense rinse and repeat, to be fair.

At this point I'd give it an 8/10, but as I continue I'm sure it'll get to at least a 9/10, judging by the other character's backgrounds. Good times, kudos to Atlus.

Now where the hell is Disgaea 3?? :grin:

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The difficulty ROCKS like you guys are saying. One of the few games I have no mind to switch to hard to. Been playing hard ever since I started and I didn't switch to normal yet. I can't seem to put my finger on it, but I'm willing to bet that playing on hard is personally more fun for me than on normal, even though I did not try it on normal yet. Some of the 5 star areas get really adrenaline-pumping, forcing me to pull back and regroup my shit together (aka fill up HP, gathering more souls for special attacks, etc). Surprisingly, I haven't been having much difficulty on the main bosses up to now (just beat that fairy queen with relative ease)...probably because I'm equipping the relic which ups my attack 20% in addition to casting the magic which doubles up my attack temporarily.

Most boring arc of the story, Necrotic? Wow...looks like I ain't seen nothing yet!

The only thing this game is missing are puzzles and/or platforming, similar to Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. Man, if the game had those elements it would've been perfect!

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You guys are going to be really disappointed when you find out that the game recycles all 8 levels and all 10 bosses across all 5 characters.

Rather than being a 35-40 hour game, it feels like five different 7 hour games back to back using the exact same assets. I was really loving at first, then not so much, and now it's just kind of "eh, more of the same."

By the way, if you think Valkyrie is the most boring story, you're really going to hate Cornelius and Mercedes. Oswald's story is the most interesting and his character abilities make him the most fun to play as.

Game is a 7/10, could have been more if there wasn't so much repetition of everything.

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I rented it a while back, and liked everything but the gameplay, unfortunately. I find the alchemy system (combined with the limited inventory) to be kind of off-putting, and the actual combat is just a bit too unresponsive and repetitive for my tastes.

It's a real shame, though, because I thought the art direction and music were absolutely ACE.

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Odin Sphere is amazing on all but very few accounts.

-lots of loading screens, but nothing exceptionally long

-slowdown during the biggest of boss battles due to the sheer number of things onscreen

-repetitive in nature, but if you've ever enjoyed an MMO, this shouldn't be a problem as it all has a purpose

-some characters are so much fun you want to play them more when you should be continuing the story, one is way too powerful

On positive notes:

+What a story! Man, I'm a sucker for stories, but this one is really just well done. The fact that you have five characters showing their side of it, you get quite the comprehensive storytelling experience.

+Alchemy is quite innovative considering the main point of the game.

+Gameplay is solid and tight

+The entire world looks amazing.

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You guys are going to be really disappointed when you find out that the game recycles all 8 levels and all 10 bosses across all 5 characters.

Rather than being a 35-40 hour game, it feels like five different 7 hour games back to back using the exact same assets. I was really loving at first, then not so much, and now it's just kind of "eh, more of the same."

By the way, if you think Valkyrie is the most boring story, you're really going to hate Cornelius and Mercedes. Oswald's story is the most interesting and his character abilities make him the most fun to play as.

Game is a 7/10, could have been more if there wasn't so much repetition of everything.

You serious? Man I was expecting something like another world map depending on the character or something. Man...that kind of blows. :(

Digging Valkyrie's story though. So I'm guessing I won't have any problems with other characters.

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This game isn't nearly as "hand animated" as people seem to think. Just for fun ran it in Pcsx2 (I have a real game so don't flame me) and changed the emulator to wireframe mode.

As it turned out the sprites in the game are really made up of dozens of little polygon billboards with hand drawn textures on them and linked together like a puppet. Same for the backgrounds, most of the plants etc are multiple polygon billboards all linked together to form a larger object.

Remember the old wolfteam games on the genesis like Earnest Evans? This is the same thing only much more advanced.

Here is a screen shot with the game rendering normally on the left and in wireframe on the right.

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/askull/?action=view&current=odinspherepolygons.jpg

I'm not trying to say that it's not hand drawn, but they sure did cheat like crazy on the animation.

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This game isn't nearly as "hand animated" as people seem to think. Just for fun ran it in Pcsx2 (I have a real game so don't flame me) and changed the emulator to wireframe mode.

As it turned out the sprites in the game are really made up of dozens of little polygon billboards with hand drawn textures on them and linked together like a puppet. Same for the backgrounds, most of the plants etc are multiple polygon billboards all linked together to form a larger object.

Remember the old wolfteam games on the genesis like Earnest Evans? This is the same thing only much more advanced.

Here is a screen shot with the game rendering normally on the left and in wireframe on the right.

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/askull/?action=view&current=odinspherepolygons.jpg

I'm not trying to say that it's not hand drawn, but they sure did cheat like crazy on the animation.

panandzoom1mj7.gif

But seriously, though. I've never heard/read anyone say anything about it being "hand animated" before. Why do you bring it up?

I really like what they did. The puppetyness pleases me. If that's cheating, then fuck the rules. :)

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panandzoom1mj7.gif

But seriously, though. I've never heard/read anyone say anything about it being "hand animated" before. Why do you bring it up?

I really like what they did. The puppetyness pleases me. If that's cheating, then fuck the rules. :)

It looks good I won't deny that. And when you understand how they did it it's even more impressive. But it's not merely a high res SNES game. The animation system is far more advanced than that.

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I'm currently at the fifth chapter of "valkarie" and the fire caverns are VERY impressive.

Just to ask did any one find <Spoiler> the boss fight with General Brigan at Winterhorn Ridge <End Spoiler> to be a hard battle, or was I just doing it all wrong?

I personally can't wait to see what else Vanillaware will do. ( I already know about Grim Grimore. )

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I got really bored by the end of the first book. I think i'm supposed to go rescue that guy from the underworld or something, but the game just isn't that fun after a while. I wanted to like it too.

You "think"? what are you skipping over the cutscenes?

/slap

Go back to playing God of War II or whatever 3D crap people are currently going ga-ga over.

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You "think"? what are you skipping over the cutscenes?

/slap

Go back to playing God of War II or whatever 3D crap people are currently going ga-ga over.

Hey look, it's Atomic Skull here to dispense his own brand of superiority and elitism!

Odin Sphere devolved from a beautiful game full of potential into a beautiful game full of repetition and tedium.

Now, GrimGrimoire. That's the game Odin Sphere should have been. It's dynamic, it's fun, and it has a story that's far more interesting.

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Is grimgrimoire awesome?

I thought Odin sphere would be awesome, but it was waaaay too repetitive for me.

GrimGrimoire is indeed awesome. This coming from someone who very rarely plays RTS'. If I had to recommend one of the games to someone who could only get one of them, I would recommend GrimGrimoire 10 times out of 10.

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I personally like the story and the repetition doesn't bother me too much.

But back on topic, the August issue of Hardcore Gamer Magazine has a import review of the remake of Princess Crown for PSP(the game that Vanillaware did on the Saturn before Odin Sphere).

The reviewer makes a very good point that some of the things that don't work well in Odin Sphere (pow meter and eating food in the middle of battle) are hold overs from Princess Crown.

But then again, I enjoyed the single player in PSO so who am I to judge.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Am I just playing this game wrong or just trying to beat everything way too quickly because I'm having trouble with some of it. I just beat Valkryie's fifth act, and that boss was pretty simple, but I probably spent an hour trying to get through the act four boss. Now I'm trying to get through act six and am stuck fighting two Unicorn Knights in this one area and it is not going well.

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