I suck at the game. The gameplay was a bit boring for the character I was on. So I dropped it and watched the cutscenes on YouTube at 4.0x speed. But seriously the story for this is better than the other games I've dropped.
All the characters are interesting, and most are likable. The story's scale is large and stays that way. There are many epic scenes and I'm not saying that in the "EPIC REDDIT MOMENT" meaning, there are truly epic scenes. The characters are well written, with a variety of realistic and mythical motivations. The gods are written as gods are in greek and ancient tradition, they are prone to superhuman emotions, as in they go far off the spectrum, all their actions in the game are fully believable. The story (coupled with the amazing art direction) truly draws you into the world. There were two small twists that I was genuinely surprised by and they were well-written, as in they added to the story and made me have confidence in the writing - 2 small twists wehre i was genuinely surprised,
(SPOILER)
the identity of the frog (maybe I just didn't pay enough attention), and the king's plan to get the ring back via Gwendolyn.
(END OF SPOILER)
Also, can't believe the artist and writer is one person. What a talented person.
Possibly the most consistently great game story I've ever experienced.

NOTE: This review is about classic mode (aka PS2 mode) on hard, with all refinement options turned off.

This is one of those weird scenarios where most gamers "in the know" with regards to notable releases in the 2000s are aware of Odin Sphere, but the conversation kinda begins and ends with how pretty it is in a "WHOA COOL ROBOT!" sort of way. Why aren't we actually... talking about this game, a game with a mechanical identity that's absolutely peerless (even in attempt!), and a narrative that's shockingly effective and affective?

From the bizarre "platformless action-platformer" movement design to the inventory management, to the alchemy, to the leveling system, to the positional-centric combat—All carefully made to be only EXACTLY as complex as they need to be to promote meaningful decision-making—this is a game that even in spite of its flaws feels like Vanillaware's magnum opus, which is INSANE when this is literally their first game (under their current name, anyway). And yet here we are.

It's after midnight and I gotta be up in 4 hours ("If death cannot be avoided, then I welcome my fate.") and I'm rambling incoherently but just... this is already one of my new favorite games of all time y'all, fucking play it. It's on every PlayStation device released since 2007, you have no excuse unless you're Xbox's Strongest Soldier in the Console War or whatever.

NOTE: Will definitely have more to say about both Classic AND Refined mode whenever I play and finish the latter; this remake FASCINATES me.

Review in progress:
Just as overrated as Muramasa for me. The gameplay loop is repetitive and the story is as boring as it is wordy. I'm not a fan of the level design, either. You go traverse through a series of tiny, flat, and nearly identical-looking zones. There's no sense of cohesion. I'm not saying it needs to be a Metroidvania, but having areas that are larger, interconnected, and visually distinct would go a long way toward making the world feel more alive.

The alchemy and farming mechanics didn't really add a lot to the core experience.

I had to drop some items for an alchemy tutorial and was kicked out of the room without warning afterward, which made me lose everything on the ground. I'm so used to autosave being a standard feature in modern releases at this point, but it's completely absent here, so I lost a fair bit of progress. Good times.

At least the artwork is great outside of some questionable character designs. That's definitely their strong suit.

I'm still not getting the Vanillaware praise. Hopefully, I'll enjoy 13 Sentinels more.

This game is incredibly long. I dropped it after 15 hours.
The art is beautiful, though a lot of the female characters are designed very similarly. The story is just not for me, its boring and I have to sit there and listen to the characters drone their lines instead of being able to click through text boxes once ive read them.
I loved the combat and it's one of the reasons I think I will come back to it eventually, but the fact that every character has to go through the same goddamn levels makes it mind-numbing.

Positives:
- Good story
- Well written characters
- Nice art style and animation

Negatives:
- Extremely repetitive
- Bland level design
- Characters don't feel that unique (individual traits are not used enough)
- Some bosses are poorly designed (specifically the mage bosses)

7.5 / 10

Good game with amazing art and a reasonably interesting story, but unfortunately extremely repetitive. Even on the first character I was feeling drained midway through because there simply isn't enough variety. The second character at least does substantially more damage, but at this point I feel like I've seen all there really is to see in terms of gameplay from this game. It may be something I pick back up way down the line, but for now I don't want to waste at least 20 more hours with 4 more characters when I could play something more engaging.

meh.
after 13 sentinels i wanted more of that vanillaware magic.
i didnt quite get that. artstyle is beautiful, the gameplay feels fast & responsive at all times. but this game lacks substance. the story couldnt get any more basic, the characters don't grow on me. i do not want to engage with them or get to know them more. the english dub also sounds kinda whacky. an endless gameplay loop with okayish controls also does not seem to do it for me. they tried to give this some kind of atelier flair by giving you the chance to mix potions and a lot of other things with ingredients you find along the way. this gets more complicated to the point where you just stick with the first formular you learned in the beginning which absolutely is enough for this game because its button mashing at its finest while looking out for your level. if you do that, this game is really easy.
and sorry but doing this over and over with all the cast? i dont know if i want to do that. step by step maybe but this story isnt worth grinding another 40ish hours to fight the same enemies in the same areas again just with a different character.

le cambiaron un par de cosas al juego original y lo hicieron 10 veces mejor porque el combate ahora es GOD (aunque si es un poquito repetitivo), pasa de ser una experiencia aburrida donde necesitas jugar a la defensiva todo el tiempo a un juego donde haces malabares con los enemigos y podes hacer combos larguisimos que se hacen mas largos conforme vas desbloqueando habilidades con los SEIS PERSONAJES!! que controlas. la historia se hace medio complicada de seguir porque cuando cambias de capitulos la linea temporal medio que se da vuelta sobre si misma y hay cosas que terminas no entendiendo si no prestas muchisima atencion durante las cinematicas y lees los documentos, tampoco ayuda que algunos personajes secundarios sean recolors de enemigos o directamente el mismo sprite.

la musica de sakimoto acompaña perfectamente a este juego que visualmente es un espectaculo, el mundo esta construido enteramente con escenarios y personajes 2d super coloridos dibujados a mano que tengo entendido que es la estetica que usa vanillaware para sus juegos asi que me dejo manija para probar otros titulos.

Yo soy la esfera de odin

El juego esta weno pero creo que su gran problema es la constante repetición de bosses y escenarios es una pena que cuando te juegas la primera campaña prácticamente ya te has visto el 90% de los mapas y el como el 70% de los bosses pero si puedes soportar esa repetitividad vas a tener una historia bastante bonita con muy buenos personajes y con un gameplay que un repitiendo lo que dije arriba cada personaje se siente realmente unico con sus mecanicas que les diferencias de cada uno.