Around the middle part of the 2000s, there was an explosion of 2D side-scrolling MMOs. LaTale, Dragon Saga, MapleStory — it was a thing. And a fun thing! These MMOs tended to be packed with action, NPCs and quests, and they typically had very quick grouping that just begged for your team to take on levels again and again, looking for loot and high scores.
Odin Sphere is if you took one of those MMOs, and just took it offline. Same action, loot, and score at the end, with no other players.
War isn’t going well for Odin. Enemies are at the gate; his forces are decimated, and his favorite daughter, Griselda, has just died and begged her sister, Gwendolyn, to return her magic sphere to their father and inform him that she died bravely and well.
Odin, showing no emotion, gives the spear to Gwendolyn and orders her back out into battle.
When enemies die, they leave Phozons in the air. Gwendolyn can level up her spear with those and unleash devastating attacks. Or, once the fighting is done, she can use them to grow plants that drop medicinal seeds or other materials that she can use in alchemy.
The play cycle is to use the map to find the next battle; go there, finish the battle, then using the Phozons in the air (or in some cases, those you brought with you), gather local resources and craft the items for your next fight.
This is a crafting game. You can only wear one item of gear, and none of it is armor. You get a little more attack, a little more defense, a little more experience from eating food or charging your spear, etc. So, though you are no slouch with the spear and have a variety of fun combos, most of the time, you’ll be crafting deadly potions (Toxin, Napalm, etc) and using those and the charges from your spear to do your killing. There can be thirty enemies on the screen. You don’t want to be taking them.
Bosses start out big and get bigger, often larger than the screen (and sometimes much larger). On smaller maps, it’s possible to run away until you come back around behind them; on larger maps, they’ll turn around to meet you coming. Killing minibosses gets you some decent materials (after all, preparation is the key to victory in Odin Sphere, and crafting is the key to preparation). Killing the final boss of a map gets you a little more plot to work with.
I’m told that eventually you can find other playable characters. I believe the Forest Witch is one of those, but I haven’t got there yet.
It’s a fun timewaster. Graphics are good, each level is short enough to be pick up and play, the characters are goofy, the sound is good. My only real issue is that my character has so little inventory space. Killing a boss drops too many materials for me to handle, and the need for all those potions is real.
Odin Sphere was remade for the PS3, PS4 and Vita, so if you don’t happen to have a PlayStation 2 at hand but do have a PS5 or one of these other game systems, you can play it today. It is on PlayStation Plus right now for the PS4 and PS5 as Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. And… it looks like Nimgimli and Bildo have played it!
