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.

terrible thought: the lower class we had been demeaning (vita players) might have been on the right side of history

its 2d air juggle combo game with lite-ivalice art, lite-ivalice story, real-ivalice music - how could i be honestly mad at all

the only things i can really complain about is its small scope, quite a bit of repeating levels and some slow menus, but generally i am cumming . i am comboing and i am cumming. i am doing a cumbo

Good, but a bit unsatisfying in some way I can't quite put my finger on - both story- and gameplay-wise. Of course the art is phenomenal, though it does occasionally feel like the game is padded to wring the absolute most out of the beautiful assets. The localization is also kind of weirdly bad in spots, which, given that this is a second pass at it, is unfortunate.

From what I understand, this remake is a massive improvement on the original, which sounds much less playable. But this is certainly that - playable. I had no problem pouring 40-ish hours into it and had a good time learning about these characters and the world from start to finish. Probably not going to stick in my mind to any real degree and I don't feel like I need any more of it, but it was a good enough time!

A gorgeously presented tale about love, war, free will, and fate in all of its beauty, ugliness, joy, and misery.

My honest to goodness first Vanillaware game I've ever dipped into personally (previously watched someone play "13 Sentinels", which inspired me to start looking into Vanillaware), and what a game to start on.

However, before I start gushing about the game endlessly, I just wanna take a moment to talk about some of my minor complaints about the game in a relatively objective manner. To start with, despite the excessive variety the game has (which will be talked about later), I feel that that bosses, both the Mid and Chapter End variety, end up being repeated more than I'd like. Sometimes storylines for the characters have entirely unique encounters (including certain player character bosses), but more often than not you'd be hard pressed to go through a character storyline and NOT re-encounter a fair number of bosses. It's not noticed at first, but definitely more present as the game goes on, with the Armageddon chapter literally being a five End-Boss gauntlet with each of the five characters (you pick which character to use per boss in the run) that must be completed at LEAST four times if you want to see all the cutscenes. The other nitpick sadly happens to be the voice acting. Not the quality of it, as it voices are absolutely top notch, but the script used by the characters can pendulum swing wildly between Shakespearean theater to schoolhouse play. Any given cutscene can be elegant, beautiful, heartfelt, harrowing, triumphant, sorrowful, etc and then a cutscene or two later the dialogue feels a stilted or cheezy (creating some unintentionally funny moments that were probably supposed to be more emotional). An often joked about line between me and my wife (also a fan of the game), is when Cornelius shouted "I have a magic sword!" upon hearing a rather beefy situation dump over the war between the Faeries and King Odin's forces, as if there was a line omitted that would have otherwise made it sound less jarring and narmy. To be fair, most of the good dialogue tends to belong to important characters, and most of the narm charm belongs to side or minor characters, but it trades every now and then. The last thing is that, despite one of the most interesting characters lore wise is present through the game and drops hints about more background info, her personal story instead is a slightly repetitious lore exposition campaign rather than the more personal story that the prior four characters would have. Sure, we do get some personal story, but it's normally quite sidelined by backstory about the world and talk of the big prophecy already talked about at length through the game.

Despite all of this, though, this is STILL very minor in the grand scheme of things. It's still a beautifully woven tale, presented with absolutely dazzling and graceful visuals and artwork, with storytelling that at least half the time sounds like professional theater. It's fascinating to partake in this Norse inspired story as it unfolds slowly and reveals more about how the world of Erion works. Meeting the vast array of inhabitants of the land from humans to valkyries to dwarves to faeries to fire spirits to the beast-cursed Pooka, along with variety of flora and fauna that populate the natural and unnatural worlds. Visiting the largely unique and exquisite locations that greatly contrast with each other in aesthetic, climate, and purpose. And fighting against a large cast of foes aiming to put your current character into an early grave in some of the slickest 2D combat that I rarely see outside of head-to-head anime fighters (hell, even the special moves that you unlock during your journeys can be re-mapped as fighting game commands for extra combo-style nonsense).

The game's presentation, regardless of the minor issues above, is just so close to pitch perfect that it might as well be, and I'm not even purely talking about the visuals here, which, I shall mention again, are absolutely stunning. I'm more referring to the absolutely jaw dropping amount of detail and care that went into this game. From animations, item effect use, character strength and weaknesses during combat, strong homages to other game genres, the mouth watering food-porn, and even the "main menu" in the game. Actually, let me get into that last one. The main menu of the game, after the title screen menu, has the player take control of a little girl in a blue dress, rummaging around an attic filled with books and knickknack, and reading these stories and documents as the game continues to progress. Hell, each transition to major chapters (usually the swaps between cutscenes and gameplay) presents itself as if it were lettering in a fairy-tale storybook, and every historical note found in game transitions to the bookshelf to be read, which can be re-visited by the little girl herself to review the documents separate from story progression. It's such a small piece of the game that just adds so much on top of an extra whimsical charm to an already very whimsical game (despite dark story themes).

Then, there's the combat. Holy crap, the combat. I touched upon it before, but seriously, it's such a delicious feast of violence and character with every slick move, every special utilized, every enemy juggled, and every boss triumph. Animations are as smooth as they are graceful, feeling like they're coming from a top quality arcade game, with all of the precision and control that comes with it. Every hit feels satisfying. Every finisher is heavy. Every special and dazzling with a large pool of utility, especially when mixed with other specials. And the RPG mechanics compliment the action gameplay extremely well, making it feel like a perfect blend of tactics and action. And to think you get FIVE different characters to play with that play WILDLY different from each other. It's kind of insane how much a player can actually do in the game with such vast kits between that many characters. Oh, and movement for the characters is pitch perfect too. Not too quick, and not too slow, but each character has their own personal method of speeding up if the player needs to rush.

This game is a special one. If you ever have the chance to play it, do so. Even if you're the kind of person to one-and-done it, it's a joy to go through from start to finish, and for those that want more than a single runthrough of essentially FIVE DIFFERENT CAMPAIGNS, there's new game plus, a special survival boss gauntlet, and a new difficulty for those that are seeking a challenge that demands near perfection.

You know that RPG you start, then life happens, then when you get back to the game it's been so long you forget what was happening so you restart it? Odin's Sphere was that for me every 3 years, for nearly 2 decades.

I'm glad I finally finished it, it was pretty cool!

Everyone should play 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

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.

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.

Charming!

Wish I developed stronger feelings about it. A good portion of my friend group described it as "straight fantasy romance written for gay people." Kind of hard to match those expectations. What I got instead was just a great, fast, action game.

You can really see the building blocks for what would become 13 Sentinels. Multiple playable characters, interacting storylines. Whole she-bang. Each character's gameplay style feels more concrete here than in 13S, especially when you've just finished a speedy character and started a slower one. My favorite characters relied significantly more on how comfortable they controlled rather than personalities. The 2D shooter style gameplay of Mercedes stressed me out far more than speedy Cornelius fight boy.

But the story telling is the real high point. Once you accept this as a straight-forward fantasy adventure without much subversion, the interweaving narrative is truly something. Gwendolyn's struggle to impress her father, Cornelius fighting for love against a curse, Mercedes avenging her mother, Oswald rediscovering his identity outside of being a soldier, Velvet defeating the sins of her family. All compelling frameworks. There's a few missed opportunities here to develop more conflict between the cast. Their goals keep them divided, but for the game's supposed interweaving narrative, the main cast actually interact very little. Their fights can never take place inside both of their narrative, only before one narrative has begun or ended. A character isn't allowed to lose during their own story. Feels like its not quite ready to commit to how its characters can have deeper or more antagonistic relationships. By the final scene, most of the cast doesn't know each other. Its an odd feeling.

But the sheer charm and warmth of the game tends to overpower that sense. Dragons, evil kings, family drama. All the tenants of good fantasy. It works! Even if it worked on me less than others, I can't deny that it works.

I searched for this game for a long time before realizing earlier this year that it was remade on PS4 and I just never knew about it for some reason.

I went into this excited just on the art style alone and that department did not disappoint me one bit. I was surprised to find myself playing a beat 'em-up type RPG and completely creamed my jeans. Each character has their own playstyle and powerful abilities to unlock that breaks up a bit of the monotony from obliterating endless hordes of enemies. I preferred Cornelius and Mercedes personally, but each one stood out in unique ways.

The leveling system is interesting, but easy to manage. It was pretty easy to just pop an XP boost right before shoveling several of the best food in the game down your character's throat right before a huge battle and demolishing them.

While the remake added some changes to make this process go by a little smoother, it still feels extremely routine to downright annoying near the end of the game. I like that the story is stilted per character, it makes you surprised to find out how things came to be later down the line when you realize their timelines aren't exactly running simultaneously, but it can get monotonous fighting the same boss 3-4 times throughout the game. Especially if you hate fighting that boss. That big ass Dwarf battleship fight made me want to tear my face off every time I ran into it and you fight it 5 times.

Play it in one go if you can deal with that, but it may benefit to taking breaks between chapters because of this. I recommend at least giving it a try because the art style juxtaposed with the dark plot makes for a very compelling experience. Dread starts to seep in as you push forward and the build up to that was my favorite part.

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.

Vanillaware has a habit of creating some of the most beautiful games out there, and Odin Sphere is no exception... it is absolutely gorgeous.

I have a weak spot for Norse mythology, so I enjoyed that aspect of the game's world/setting. Game is overall solid from a gameplay / combat standpoint with multiple characters and POVs. The only negative that brings this game down a fair bit for me, is that after a while of playing, it is prone to being a bit too repetitive.

Still worth playing though - for maximum enjoyment, I'd recommend cutting the game up in short playtime sessions to combat its repetitive nature.

Leifthrasir é uma versão aprimorada do clássico Odin Sphere de PS2, produzido pela nossa saudosa Vanillaware, um dos poucos estúdios que temos no mercado atualmente que ainda consegue entregar jogos side scrolling extremamente bonitos com essa pegada anime´like, e esse aqui em questão, se tratando de um remake/remaster não foi diferente.

O segundo jogo da companhia se trata de um beat'em up com elementos de RPG, situado em um universo fantasioso, onde iremos acompanhar 5 protagonistas com suas respectivas narrativas se aventurado pelo mundo, com isso, teremos uma valkiria buscando aprovação de seu pai, um coelho espadachim amaldiçoado, uma fada inexperiente tendo que assumir a liderança de seu povo, um cavaleiro sombrio procurando propósito pra sua vida vazia e uma bruxa carmesim tentando parar o inevitável traçado pelo destino.. ui.
A história é bem bacaninha de acompanhar, é meramente simples com cinemáticas de personagens estáticos falando um com os outros, mas funciona da mesma forma, a dublagem japonesa é maravilhosa e ajuda muito a digerir a trama; ela é conduzida por seleção de capítulos, que vai do prelúdio até o sexto capítulo e finalizado com um epílogo, cada campanha atinge umas 4 ~ 5 horas em média para completude.

Eu gostei bastante do sistema de combate, sendo um beat'em up o gênero fala por si só, mas aqui temos diversas habilidades únicas por personagem junto com o sistema de alquimia, o preparo de poções dá mais camada de aprendizagem, assim como a refeições que fazemos durante os intervalos, sendo o nosso meio principal de ganhar nível no jogo; além disso temos o phozons, um recurso que ganhamos quando derrotamos inimigos ou extraímos de plantas/borboletas, ele serve como moeda para melhoramentos de habilidades, mas também utilizamos o mesmo pra cultivar plantas, que vai nos garantir frutos, servindo como ingredientes para pratos mais sofisticados, que nos darão mais XP consequentemente, então você sempre fica naquela dualidade na hora de usar, algo que achei bem implementado na gameplay.

Um dos problemas principais desse jogo é a sua barriga, ele é bem repetitivo, levando em conta que temos 5 campanhas diferentes, a maioria dos eventos se passam nas mesmas regiões, então.. espero que tenha gostado de explorar aquele mapa pela primeira vez, porque você vai voltar pra lá com outro personagem.. mais 4 vezes. É meio cansativo senhores, não vou mentir, mas a progressão de personagem nesse game é tão bem feita, que eu ficava até animado pra próxima aventura, de qualquer forma estejam avisados.

Seguindo para termos visuais: qualidade Vanillaware, os caras não decepcionam nesse departamento e vale dizer que o Odin Sphere original é de 2007, então envelheceu super bem; apesar dessa nova versão possuir melhoramentos, a direção de arte se manteve da mesma forma (obviamente)

A trilha sonora é um ponto neutro do título, sinceramente não me pegou com quase nenhuma faixa, mas também não desgostei.

Pra finalizar, eu tive uma ótima experiência com o título, gostei pakas da reta final e fiquei viciado nas mini mecânicas integradas na gameplay, por conta disso recomendo pra geral ai.

Ps: VELVET MELHOR PERSONAGEM

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.

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.