I enjoy a lot of what Albert Odyssey offers and revisit it every now and then when I want a classic JRPG. The artwork is really stunning throughout, with a high level of detail and great use of color. The quest is well written and structured, and I love that the mythological descendent of Albert is, well, not who we expect. The combat is very plain turn-based action but it gets the job done.

In the absence of other issues, I'd call this a better than average RPG from the era. But the encounter rate is too high for such simple battles, and they can grow tedious, especially since the load times going into and out of battle, despite Working Designs reducing them from the Japanese version, are still too long. There's a horrible bug that causes combat to fail to load now and then, forcing replayed sections. The last dungeon is the largest difficulty spike I've ever seen in an RPG. And boy, Working Designs "humor" is on full display here, and in particularly misogynistic form. I'm still grateful to them that I got to play this back when it came out, and for the love they put into their packaging and releases. But their humor was jarring at the time and wildly out of place now.

All that said, I still enjoy this one for the world, the story, and the music. It's a beautifully crafted game, with some rough edges and bog-standard combat.