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.