| ZenfoldorVGI said: Again, I really respect the look of Odin Sphere, but a few things make me shy away from it. A. Switching characters thing makes me feel like it's not the traditional leveling model I want. I hate going through large portions of a game feeling confused about what's going on. B. The inventory management thing looks downright frusterating. C. The circular level thing looks meh. D. The gameplay looks awesome though, but I dunno if its the traditional experience I'm looking for, structure wise. In other words, it looks easily exploitable and twitch based(but so did FFXII and it wasn't, it was amazing, imo) E. How is the story. It looks like kinda not as fufilling and lengthy in narrative as I would like. |
A) The game consists of several "books," each of which has you playing a certain main character. The only time you switch characters is when you complete a book and move on to the next one. Characters play more-or-less the same, with slight variations. (The first one you get can fly, the second can bounce on enemies and has slightly shorter reach, and so on.)
B) I wouldn't say it's "downright frustrating," though you may find it as such. You have extremely limited inventory space, which often forces you to dump less-useful items.
C) The circular levels actually work very well. I much prefer them to the "invisible walls" of a flat level, since they allow for some extra strategy in the gameplay. (For example, you can run around and attack enemies from behind.)
D) The combat is like a beat 'em up, using a hit-point system similar to a post-SotN Castlevania game. I don't know what you consider a "traditional experience;" if you're looking for a turn-based, "press X to attack" game, then it might not be for you, but I found it more fun than most such "traditional" RPGs. It's also not easily exploitable; at least, not by any way that I've found.
E) The story is extremely lengthy and fulfilling. I'm not a fan of most JRPGs' stories (to say the least), so my praising it should tell you something. Each "book" presents a sort of subplot in the game's universe, all of which tie together in the final book. I should also mention that the locailzation is generally top-notch, and that there's not a bad voice actor among the game's main characters.
"'Casual games' are something the 'Game Industry' invented to explain away the Wii success instead of actually listening or looking at what Nintendo did. There is no 'casual strategy' from Nintendo. 'Accessible strategy', yes, but ‘casual gamers’ is just the 'Game Industry''s polite way of saying what they feel: 'retarded gamers'."
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