Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir

released on Jan 14, 2016

A remake of Odin Sphere

Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir is an enhanced HD remake of Odin Sphere game for PlayStation 2. Many various adjustments and changes were made in gameplay, considering comments from people who played the original game. While this is enhanced version of the original and it's trying to stay true to it, there are new gameplay and story elements presented in this release, some of which include new boss fights, new attack moves, new background music, and new map area to explore. While the initial idea of the developers was to make just n HD remastered release, it ended up being more of a re-created game version. As such, the game offers both classic mode as well as refined mode with all new elements and new gameplay.


Released on

Genres

RPG


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Leifthrasir targets exactly what Odin Sphere had a problem with: variety . Additional mini-bosses, redesigned levels, reworked boss fights, and the introduction of skill trees that help diversify the combat styles of each character as well as adding a much stronger (and less confusing, frustrating) sense of progression. Vanillaware not only manages to rectify Odin Spheres shortcomings but in fact pushes it into one of my favorite combat-oriented 2D platformers ever.

If you like this gameplay loop I got good news for you. This game is essentially just that, and it does it really well.

If you don't like this gameplay loop I got bad news for you. This game is essentially just that, and it has nothing else.

A great game with a true fairy tale atmosphere, amazing background and overhaul artstyle. Even if it's quite repetitive I really liked my expercience with the game. My favorite play styles were Cornelius's and Velvet's.

6,5/10

Complicado.
Eu genuinamente gosto desse jogo e desgosto... é um caso de amor e ódio.

Eu genuinamente gosto da história, dos personagens,da ost, da direção de arte e design, esse jogo esbanja identidade, eu amo isso nele, mas....

O combate apesar de simples e fluido sofre do level design fraco e terei de explicar um tanto.

Controlamos 5 personagens, 5 rotas, 5 pontos de vistas, em conceito é interessante, eu particularmente gosto disso, mas muito boss e mini boss é reutilizado, o jogo fica repetitivo depois da rota da gwendollyn, o level design fica absurdamente fraco com exceções de fases muito específicas, o flow do game se torna tedioso e a narrativa sofre do ritmo arrastado da corpo do gameplay.

O maior calcanhar de aquiles desse jogo é algo que a falcomm sabe perfeitamente fazer bem ( Nem sempre) em jogos ys, que é a
Simplicidade X Execução.

Me forçei a terminar esse jogo, pois eu estava legitamente interessado na história e nos personagens, mas a narrativa perde muito ritmo devido a repetição dos elementos da gameplay, a variedade no gameplay é baixa, ainda mais na rota do polka prince, a historia dele tem pouca coisas relevante, mas o gameplay dele é gostosin...

No fim de tudo eu gostei, o final escalou de uma forma boa e foi uma conclusão afável, não vou esquecer esse jogo, isso eu afirmo.

So this year I was going to make a conscious effort to work through my backlog. Buy less games, play more etc. That quickly fell apart in the first month however I've done decently at playing them so far and the Odin Sphere remaster Leifthrasir is one of the older PSN purchase I have yet to play . I decided it was a good title to finally finish on my 2024 games played list.

Odin Sphere is the third Vanillaware title I've played at the time of writing. The first was Dragon's Crown, a game I truly hated but perhaps approached wrong expecting a four player Guardian Heroes. The second was 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim which I utterly adored for it's keep you guessing sci-fi story. (First quick review I wrote on Backloggd actually) It's fitting then that Odin Sphere would sit somewhere in the middle between them as a game I like but with a lot of flaws preventing me loving it and hard to actually recommend.

So lets get the positive aspects out in the open first as this game does have a lot of good going for it. Firstly the artwork and animations are pretty stunning. Vanillaware is pretty famous for it's layered 2D art style and animations. The characters and enemies all stand out and the usage of colour and style makes it feel like a painting in motion. To carry on the presentation side of my positive compliments, the whimsical soundtrack is stunning. I especially like the theme song but it's all gorgeous wrapping up Odin Sphere into a great looking and sounding package.

I actually had to double check this was originally a PS2 game because even as a remaster it just doesn't feel like it. Equally it just doesn't play like it came from that console. The combat animations and battles are all so smooth chaining from moves to move. This isn't an insult to the PS2, it was an amazing system, just a compliment to Odin sphere's visuals and animations. When in combat the characters have a large amount of moves with more unlocking as the game progresses. It allows you to chain various moves and skills into large combos. Hitting a group of enemies into a huge combo with perfect blocks to keep the chain is initially really fun. I'm saying initially because this is where my praise of Odin sphere starts to breakdown a bit unfortunately. The game is based around five characters:

- Gwyndolin, a Valkyrie Princess.
- Cornelius, a prince cursed into a beast form.
- Mercedes, a fairy Princess.
- Oswald, an orphaned knight with a cursed sword.
- Velvet, a forest Witch.

Similar to Vanillaware's later title 13 Sentinels each character has their own story arc playing the game from different perspectives before a final chapter linking the full story together. In principal the idea is great. Vanillaware themselves proved this can work wonderfully as a concept. Here it is extremely flawed though. My biggest issue is there is no variety between each character play through. They have different moves, weapons and some unique skills on a couple of them but they are fundamentally the same. When you take that into account along with the fact that each one of them plays through the same 6 locations fighting the same 20 ish enemies and same bosses and no matter how gorgeous Odin Sphere is, and no matter how nicely it plays it just becomes tedious. You have to play all five scenarios to see the ending and by the 4th character I was just feeling burnt out of it all.

Perhaps because it's an action RPG there is a greater downtime between the story sections that could have kept the mystery going for me to want to push onwards but I feel the narrative behind the game overall just isn't strong enough to justify the multiple perspectives. There isn't a huge mystery that gets unveiled or a surprise twist. Each scenario explains a few things more but I didn't find any of it compelling. Everything around the multiple protagonist formula here undermines the story and the mechanics. Some of the story arcs on each character don't quite match with some odd reasons to make sure the character does visit the snow mountain or lava kingdom etc. Having a food resource cooking mini game for levelling is a neat little idea but gets boring having to save ingredients and feed each character as a core way to level them up every time. Exploring never has anything new on different characters, same levels, same equipment. This feels like a 6 hour game padded out to a 30 hour game and the fairy tale esq setting and lore aren't strong enough to carry that.

I hate typing this as I wanted to love Odin Sphere like I did 13 Sentinels. I am however grateful to it for being the game that put Vanillaware on the map, the game that is almost like a later prototype they built on. I'm glad I played it, it's well made, and looks and plays wonderfully it's just lacking meat on it's bones.

I wish you really could just grow sheep from trees.

+ Gorgeous art design.
+ Fun , fast and fluid combat system.
+ Pleasant whimsical soundtrack and great voice acting (I played it in Japanese).

- The game loop is extremely repetitive and the story cannot carry nearly the exact same content from a slightly different view point. Only one real negative but it's a big one.