Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir – Complex to Learn, Simple to Master

Back in the day, I relied heavily on issues of Nintendo Power to inform me of potentially fun, unique games that would fly under the radar of the mainstream. This of course means that my knowledge of such games was mostly limited to Nintendo console titles. When it came to Playstation games, I had to rely more of luck and chance to find hidden gems. Thankfully, luck was on my side one day as I was browsing the discount games section of F.Y.E., looking at old PS2 games. That’s when I came across a strange looking game called Odin Sphere.

I will not be talking about Odin Sphere, though. Instead, I’m going to be analyzing Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir (OSL), a complete remake of the 2007 PS2 game. That said, because it is a remake, I will not be comparing the two. I want only to analyze the one game. There are a number of differences between the two versions. But ultimately, those differences simply serve to improve the experience, rather than make it feel like a completely separate game. With that said, let’s get to it.

The game’s setting is heavy in Norse mythology, where the player takes control of five different playable characters (throughout the span of the game). Each character has their own unique story, but unlike games like Octopath Traveler, the stories in this game do actually meet up and interact with each other. The narrative is extremely dense, and the melodrama can sometimes border on the ridiculous, entering Shakespearean territory. But basically, its a story about five fantasy kingdoms who are all at war with one another, and these five characters find themselves in the middle of it all. And of course, this all leads to the complete annihilation of the entire world. Simple stuff. Which is why it’s all told through the perspective of a small girl reading a bunch of books (which is how you select which character’s story you want to play).

But enough about the narrative, on to the gameplay. OSL is an interesting beast. Although technically classified as an “Action RPG” I would liken it more to a sidescrolling brawler with RPG elements. And while that might sound simple, the complexity of the game’s systems and mechanics can be a bit overwhelming to all learn right up front.

With that said, let’s first talk about how the game is set up.

OSL consists of seven Chapters for each character. Each chapter is pretty much divided into four acts: the setup (where cutscenes play and the story progresses, telling the player why their character is headed to whatever level they’re headed to and doing whatever it is they’re doing), the preparation (where the player can interact with NPC’s, do some shopping, etc. before they enter the level), the level (the part of the game where the gameplay actually takes place, through a series of interconnected “rooms”), and the resolution (more cutscenes after the boss of the level has been beaten, before moving on to the next chapter). I’ll be focusing mostly on the combat based levels.

Levels are built out of a series of interconnected rooms. The shape of the room when viewed from the map can tell you what to expect from any given room. Square/rectangular rooms are straightaways, you enter in one side and you exit on the other. Sometimes these rooms will have enemies, sometimes treasure, sometimes nothing at all, just offering a chance to catch your breath before the next combat scenario.

The circular rooms, however, are where the real magic of the game happens. These are combat focused rooms. In which you will be tasked of clearing out the room of waves of enemies. The number of waves, and the difficulty of the enemies varies depending on the star rating of the room (players will always be given a star preview of the room before they enter it). One star means it’s as easy as can be. While five stars means a boss-level difficulty encounter will be waiting for you in the room.

Clearing out the rooms will give players a completion reward (money and/or items, more on those later), but doing so as quickly and efficiently as possible is also important, as the player will be graded on their performance from room to room. Depending on how well they do, players will receive a rank (S, A, B, C, D, with S being the highest). Getting a higher rank means getting better rank bonus rewards, so it gives the player incentive to play their best.

One unique aspect of circular rooms (aside from the combat and scoring) is that they don’t pan out in the same was as the square/rectangular rooms. Where those rooms have a clear beginning and end, circular rooms loop endlessly. Now, don’t confuse this for some sort of 2D Mario Galaxy. When playing these rooms, it’s all displayed flat, in standard 2D sidescroller fashion. The room just loops endlessly, so no matter how long you might run, you’ll always wind up right where you started (eventually). Think of it more like one of those endless hallways in a cartoon chase scene.

This can obviously prove to be a bit confusing, especially when you’re being swarmed by enemies from all sides. Thankfully, the developers provided the player with three sorts of minimaps.

The first is your standard minimap, it shows the room’s shape, and it designates your position in the room by way of a bright yellow arrow (whichever way the arrow is pointing is the direction you’re facing), while enemies are displayed with red arrows. In the middle of this minimap is the player’s current rank. While a smaller circle around the rank depicts how much time is left before your rank drops (time is crucial to getting a higher score). A literal timer below the minimap also depicts this (sort of overkill).

The second minimap serve more as a radar. At the top right of the screen, the player is shown their immediate surroundings and everything within them. The player, enemies, items, doors, and anything else on the battlefield is depicted in white silhouettes. This is useful for finding enemies or anything else just off screen, or to give advanced warning of any new incoming areas.

And finally the third minimap is an overall layout of the level that you’ve previously discovered (or the entire layout if an area map has been purchased) as depicted in the image earlier.

Looking at a level’s layout, you might think this game is more of a Metroidvania style game, and you’d be sort of right. But only in the simplest of terms. The chapters’ levels are much more bite sized. And while there are hidden rooms with hidden treasures, those are few and far between. Puzzle solving and platforming are more afterthoughts than anything else. The core focus of the game is more on fun, fast paced combat.

Speaking of combat, let’s dive down that particular Pooka hole now.

Although a brawler, combat in OSL is surprisingly deep. Or rather, it can be depending on the player’s preferred style of play. Combat among all five playable characters is rather varied and unique, but most characters still have at least the basics in common. But, because the game prioritizes combat, the devs made sure that even basic attacks were fluid, fun, and varied.

Combos play a big part in OSL combat. And with basic ground attacks, sliding shield breaking attacks, dash attacks, air juggling attacks, ground pound attacks, and more, the player is ensured many ways in which to keep that combo score high (resulting in a better rank at the end of combat, naturally).

But those are just the basic attacks. There’s so much more than just that. OSL also features a number of special skills (unique to each character) called Psypher Skills. Psypher skills are special moves that are unlocked through various methods dependent on the character (complete a chapter, beat a special sub boss, find it in a hidden room, etc.) and they come in three different flavors: Active, Passive, and Abilities.

Active Psypher Skills are special moves that are activated (obviously). These skills can range from simple attacks with added benefits to screen covering devastation. However, it all can be a little unnecessarily complicated, because these skills activate using two different energy systems. Some skills use an energy source called Pow. Pow is generated passively over time, but can be generated more quickly by successfully fighting enemies. Other, more powerful skills use an energy source known as PP. PP fills up only when the character has collected a Phozon.

And here’s where it gets super complicated. Phozons are small balls of purple energy that drop from defeated enemies. However, they serve many more purposes than just filling up your PP meter. And although they do fill up the meter, Phozons are not consumed when using PP, only PP is consumed. Phozons are stored in a separate area from PP, even though they are used to charge PP. Clear as mud.

I don’t want to get sidetracked, though, so we’ll put a pin in the Phozon discussion for the moment.

Passive Psypher skills are much simpler, thankfully. And rather self explanatory, they are skills that passively enhance the player’s combat abilities.

Both active and passive Psypher Skills can be enhanced with Phozons (again, complicated, Phozons serve far too many purposes in the game). By accessing the skill menu, players can spend phozons to upgrade the skill, but in doing so, the skill itself isn’t the only thing that will be upgraded, because with each upgrade, there comes the added benefit of the character getting a small permanent stat boost. It’s a nice touch but one that can often go unnoticed. Because so many systems in the game serve more than one single purpose, it can be hard to truly appreciate just how much one action can accomplish.

Then, finally, there are abilities. Abilities are similar to passive Psypher Skills, because they are also passive. But Abilities focus more on niche categories, rather than just combat abilities. For instance, some Abilities reduce costs at merchants, or increase overall XP gain, and so on. Abilities also differ from Psypher Skills in that they cannot be upgraded, or unlocked by finding them in the levels. Instead, they are unlocked with Ability points, by way of a more traditional “skill tree.” Ability points are gain through leveling up (one point per level).

Speaking of leveling up, let’s take a minute (or more… probably more) to talk about the bizarre way the game encourages XP gain. While you certainly gain XP from beating enemies/rooms/levels (that’s a given), it is not actually the best way to level up. The brunt of the XP players will get comes from eating. You heard me…

Food plays such an oddly vital role in this game, it’s impossible to ignore. Core food ingredients are obtained by growing plants from seeds. Seeds can be planted at any time and in any place. But in order for them to grow, you need to give the seeds Phozons (there they are again…). This can be done by planting seeds in combat rooms, and letting the seeds soak up the Phozons dropped from enemies, or you can release Phozons you’ve previously collected. You can also plant a rare seed that will grow without Phozons and the resulting plant will release Phozons into the air, but again, those plants are not a common occurrence. Once a seed has received enough Phozons it will grow into a plant and produce one or two pieces of fruit or sheep (you heard me… again…) depending on the seed planted. Naturally, seeds that require more Phozons produce better quality food.

Eating this food will have many benefits. It will refill any lost health, it will increase your character’s maximum health, and it will give you XP. While all of that is great, eating raw food materials isn’t nearly as beneficial as eating cooked food.

While in level, if a player stumbles upon a bell in on of the level’s “rest areas,” they can summon Maury, a traveling Pooka (anthropomorphic rabbit) chef. Using the food ingredients players have grown and collected (some food items can only be won from defeated enemies/room rewards or bought from merchants) Maury can make legitimate meals that provide HP and XP boosts that normal food couldn’t hope to reach.

Of course, if that was the only way to eat cooked meals, that would simply be too simple. Fear not, though, for it’s more complicated than just that! Before a player enters a level, they will often have the opportunity to visit the Pooka Village. There, they can visit two different restaurants to order more XP giving food. Unlike Maury, however, they do not require the raw ingredients to cook the meals. Instead, they require a special kind of currency that differs from the normal currency used to purchase goods from vendors. These coins drop much like normal currency in levels and in rewards, so it’s often hard to differentiate just what kinds of coins you’re picking up. You can always check your current currencies in the pause menu, but it’s still all just a little convoluted.

Of course, food isn’t the only type of item in the game. There’s also equipment (which is thankfully simple, just small trinkets that give clear stat boosts). And then potions, a more complex but rather straightforward mechanic.

Potions (mostly) are created through the game’s crafting system, known as alchemy. In order to craft a potion, a player simply needs an empty bottle (which are plentiful) and some ingredients. Crafting is interesting in this regard, because an ingredient can be literally anything the player picks up. A piece of equipment, a seed, food, other potions, anything.

Through the use of simple to use radial menus, the player can mix and combine all sorts of things to create potions of varying effects. But the most potent and effective potions are usually used by mixing Mandragoras. Mandragoras are small semi-sentient plants that pop out of the ground when attacked. By using these plant creatures, players can concoct potions ranging from simple health potions and antidotes, to magic potions that can cause screen covering, status inducing, damage inflicting blizzards. It all just depends on the ingredients and quality of the empty bottle used. For instance, mixing a bottle and one fire mandragora will result in a potion that will create a small pillar of fire, while three fire mangragoras will create a potion that will cause volcanic eruptions along the entire surface in front of the player.

So, if you haven’t caught on by now, all of this is very complicated. It’s a complex game to learn. And it’s all taught to the player by way of very standard, very boring tutorials. And these tutorials go on for at least the first three or four chapters of the first character. Making those first few chapters a complete slog to get through. Complex as it is though, once you get past the initially high learning curve, it all comes together quite seamlessly, and the game’s pace quickly picks up speed, and becomes a joy to play. However, because it is so simple to master, it actually starts dragging towards the end, because you’re simply experiencing the same thing five different times.

I mentioned earlier, there are five different playable characters, all with their own unique moves, weapons, and stories. I’ll breifly go into each now.

There’s Gwendolyn, the spear wielding Valkyrie, who excels in aerial combat. Seeing as she is the first character players play, she’s also fairly well rounded.

Cornelius, the sword fighting cursed Human/Pooka prince, who is also pretty well rounded, but at his best while on the ground.

Mercedes the crossbow using Fairy, plays very differently from the others, and that is not a good thing. Mercedes uses ranged attacks, but those ranged attacks require ammo in the way of Pow. And although she can fly at will, she cannot recover Pow while in flight, making the mechanic useless.

Oswald, the Shadow Knight, plays similar to Cornelius, due to his weapon being a short sword. However, he has the added bonus of the special Berserk ability. When this special gauge is full, Oswald can become a shadow monster that moves much faster and hits much harder.

And finally, the exiled Princess who wields a chain, Velvet. Velvet is easily the most acrobatic of the five, able to swing on her chain like Spider-Man. She also has the most reach, as her chain can extend further than any other melee weapon.

All of these character (except for Mercedes) are plenty fun to play. But the problem is, that the game’s world is just not that big. You’ll visit every territory/kingdom with every character. And while the level layouts/difficulties are different for each character, the enemies and bosses rarely are.

For example, when going to the Fairy forest of Ringford, you are guaranteed to fight fairies, elves, and unicorn paladins. Every time. Those are the standard enemies of that area, and it won’t ever change, regardless of what character you are.

Base enemies, I understand, but the more egregious crime here is the boss fights. You’ll often face off against the same boss with different characters, over and over again. And the boss’ style of fighting will not change between characters. Leaving the fights pretty dang stale when you finally get around to playing as Princess Velvet (new characters only unlock after finishing the story of the previous character). This improves slightly in the endgame, but to get there, you still gotta put up with a lot of repetition.

Although hardly perfect, and a bit repetitive, I’d still say the game is worth playing. It can provide some good fun as a mindless brawler (on its easiest setting) or it can be a gruelingly difficult challenge (on its hardest difficulty). If nothing else, it is a beautiful looking game with its hand painted art. And it is certainly unique in its level design and presentation. There aren’t many non-Vanillaware titles out there quite like it.