I think Odin Sphere really demonstrates the beauty and dangers of Vanillawares commitment to exclusively lush 2D games: on one hand, this creative constraint breeds alot of novel and compelling game design decisions; on the other hand, this can be a costly endeavor if youre not careful about your genre. Without a big budget, Odin Sphere takes some repetitive cost-saving measures that keep it flawed but promising.

For example, circular rooms for a platformer are an extremely smart and elegant solution to the challenge of keeping 2D worlds from feeling like flat planes with unreal perspective. Layered, parallel storytelling with multiple characters also offers an excuse to reuse some assets and enemies while still having an engaging, rich narrative (in some ways even richer than linear storytelling). Odin Spheres issue is a matter of poor foresight.

Vanillaware debuted with an MMO before establishing themselves as champions of the lush, luminous, partly hand-drawn style of graphics (of visual feasts such as Legend of Mana & SaGa Frontier 2) with Odin Sphere. A spiritual successor to Princess Crown, this 2D brawler's main appeal is not the storybook-like setting they aimed to recreate, but the fluid, elegant quality of its animations that update Valkyrie Profile to the next generation. In fact, the plot (spanning multiple interweaving routes) is far less important than the atmosphere generated by its fairy-tale critters and ominous backgrounds, a contrast that sometimes lends the feeling of a wonderland devastated by endless invasions and warfare. Even its characters seem like minor accessories in spite of - not coincidentally, their designs; its art is all visual.

Therefore it certainly isn't the smoothest or most advanced of beat-em-ups. Lengthy recovery (whether for offense or knockdowns) and stamina curb the flow of gameplay a little too much, and - with the exception of Oswald and Velvet, its physical movesets are limited the way old-school brawlers are, possessing only one combo string and a few situational moves. Nonetheless, their combat - taking place in small looping stages, succeeds in its command over ground and air space (handled by its five playable fighters in different ways) and in the vital roles items & magic fulfill (the first devoted to utility, EXP and especially crafting, and the second as powerful limit breaks charged by defeating foes). Their effect redistributes ARPG gameplay between fighting, looting, mixing and deploying.

It started feeling like a chore about 20 hours in, but until that point I was extremely impressed with this. Everything about the presentation is beautiful, the combat (especially given the switch-ups that the different storylines provide) is nice and meaty, and the crafting system is exactly the right amount of deep-but-not-impenetrable. Even the story has some downright surprising hooks, given how chintzy and fantasy paint-by-numbers it feels at first.

On the technical side, the slowdown during some of the more crowded fights is straight wild. Might be worth picking up that remaster if you haven't yet checked this out, but I'm not entirely sure how much they fucked with the gameplay. As it stands, this one is plenty good.