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.

Vanillaware games just resonate with me every time but now I'm a little sad there's no Odin Sphere-likes in the world. It's a fantasy RPG where every character has wildly different combos and gameplay like picking an FGC. They all feel great mostly (I have problems with Cornelious) while having unique movement options some of the times and others more arbitrarily difficult levelling difficulty (HP Scaling with food or Levels on certain characters felt punishing.) The story has a similar sort of progression to 13 Sentinels but is entirely linear - until the Book of Armageddon (pick any character any order final scenario.) The writing here isn't fantastic it has a lot of romance that feels right for the themes of mythology and gods and so on. You feel the weakness of the stories structure most when you face a boss after a sequence of events you've seen or heard of from another characters POV - you want to know where everyone fits in but this game, unlike 13 Sentinels, can't and won't provide that context, also everyone having access to the Pooka Village feels wrong but it is funny. This is the most gameplay heavy Vanillaware experience I've played so I understand other aspects like stories syncing up, like in 13S, can't be done at least not back in 2007 but then this game feels ambitious enough already with the complexity of the character roster and the systems and art etc. With certain boss fights and scenarios feeling like a fantasy Metal Slug game using various skills and combos in a 2D setting, Devil May Cry combo chains to keep a good score and grade it keeps hitting the right balance. This is an amazing game to play if I had any criticism it would be that character progression breaks take up too much time and the boss roster is great but a little thin. Eating food, growing food, and phozons are all good but more ways to speed up this stuff would've been very welcome and while the menuing isn't bad sometimes it feels a little awkward.

Unsurpassed art style with improved gameplay over the original. In addition, if you want to suffer you can play the original mode because it is included.

In Odin sphere we will be told the story of 5 characters, whose stories are intertwined, through the eyes of a girl who is living the adventures while "reading" the books.

Each book has its own character with its own personality, style of play, history... that will be discovered as you advance through the pages.

The way of telling the story is based on 13 sentinels his best known work (Playing the game it is clear that 13 was strongly inspired by Odin sphere in how to tell the story).

The only downside I can put to the game is that they do not take it out of playstation. I need this game on steam (I know it's impossible because they hate steam) or at least on switch.

Estilo artístico insuperable con una jugabilidad mejorada respecto al original. Además, si quieres sufrir puedes jugar al modo original porque está incluído.

En Odin sphere se nos contará la historia de 5 personajes, cuyas historias se entrelazan, a través de los ojos de una niña que va viviendo las aventuras mientras "lee" los libros.

Cada libro tiene su personaje con su personalidad, estilo de juego, historia... que se irá descubriendo a medida que se avance las páginas.

La forma de contar la historia está basada en 13 sentinels su obra más conocida (Jugando al juego queda claro que 13 se inspiró fuertemente en Odin sphere en cómo contar la historia)

La única pega que puedo ponerle al juego es que no lo sacan de playstation. Necesito este juego en steam (sé que es imposible porque odian steam) o como mínimo en switch.