Odin Sphere Leifthrasir

This is such a divisive title, even with its major improvements over the original version. Odins Sphere basically presents itself as an overly ambitious action rpg with beat em up combat, that sees the player take the role of 5 characters, each showing their perspective in a faction war. Unfortunalty the game is extremely repetitive, and I was done with it after beating the first character.

The game offers some incredible 2d art style, that looks good statically, but looks even bettern in motion will all the particle effects and hordes of enemies. Thats what to be expected out of Vanillaware, but for someone that wasnt played many of their titles it caught me by surprise.

I couldnt really care much about the story, and started skipping it early on.

This is a combat heavy RPG, so its gameplay can be divided with combat and its exploration and level up mechanics.

Combat is basically a 2d version of a musou game, in which you can easily defeat dozen of equal enemies with ease, with a couple of multiple health bars bosses and mini bosses. There is a big focus on crowd control and some elements of stylish action game like hit counters are present, as well as grading of each combat encounter. The game feels really good moment to moment, particularly since its active skill have low mana costs to use and abuse. Unfortunatly this ease in combat and similar enemies means that it soons starts to get repetitive, right from the first map.

Exploration of the maps is done well enough, with plenty of meaningful side treasure and hidden skills to pursue. Despite the easiness of the majority of the combat encounters, you can feel the impact that leveling up has on the combat.
Odin Sphere also has some cool ideas for leveling up. There is a big focus on cooking food, planting seeds, and brewing potions, and actually cooking food is the main mechanic to leveling up. Its a bit silly to see the characters eat dozens of grilled chicken to level up, but thats another way that they made exploration rewarding.

Even if im not even at the 20% mark of the game, im done with it. Playing it any further will only accentuate its flaws, and I prefer to leave while I still have a very positive outlook on this title.

Odin Sphere is a game I wanted to play for a while since it had a good reputation among JRPG fans, but I have to say it left me pretty underwhelmed. Perhaps if judging it from a 2007 standard when the original came out, but as far as "mid PS4 gen" the mechanics feel pretty outdated.

Actually the game isn't too bad when you start, it's a decent action side scroller RPG. The action is pretty fast paced with lots of combat where you will be using your skills to do a lot of dmg the get through the hordes of enemies. As you progress you add skills (from a skill tree) and the game lets you decide which one you want to select and upgrade. A few pendants can be equipped for additional defense stats and the game revolves around eating things to make you gain XP. All in all not so bad. After you complete a few chapters however, you kinda of notice that every chapter is built around the same way, but at least the enemy variation keeps things interesting. Following 6 chapters and an epilogue, you will eventually reach the end of the first story (roughly 7 hours). And then you will start book 2 with a different character, and that's where the game goes downhill.

See the issue is that 2nd book features a new character and story, however it's the same mechanics with the areas shuffled around in order and varying difficulty... a lot of the bosses that you faced, you will face again. The same food shows up and the same pendants, the progression is mostly like exactly the same. The 2nd character has different skills, but the skill tree is built in the exact same way. So things are definitely less exciting there. When you finish book 2, there is book 3. Then book 4. Then book 5. And there all exactly the same. This game absolutely does not justify being 35 hours long!!! Like it's interesting that in each book the stories are intertwined with the others and you will recall different events from different point of views. It's not as well written as 13 Sentinels (Vanillaware's next game) but it does some interesting concepts. You just need to play it a whole long time to get to that, and it's so much repetition. Doesn't quite get a pass from me, and modern Action RPG or Metroidvanias definitely have better combat and exploration. I felt that Dragon's Crown did this better and it wasn't trying to be so goddamn long. I don't know it's not awful, but I wouldn't really give it a high recommendation.