Composed In The Baroque Mode

I’ve been sinking quite a few hours into Sting’s role-playing game, Baroque for the Nintendo Wii. One variant of the several, historically mutable, definitions of the word ‘baroque’ is: ‘adorned or decorated so heavily the original intent is unclear’.


That would definitely fit this video game and the choice for that title has to be intentional despite Japanese developers penchant for devising titles in English that are nonsensical or ill fitting. Baroque’s mechanics are so convoluted (though the controls are simple) and its narrative so obscure that, personally, I’m incredulous that somehow this thing actually got made at all, let alone was successful enough to warrant conversions to multiple platforms.

In the heyday of the Sega Saturn, the lion’s share of my purchases were Japanese import titles. Baroque first released in 1998 looked really interesting from the screenshots and descriptions. Very murky and mysterious and cool. But the Japanese-only language issue was a problem. I’d just gone through Samurai Spirits Bushidoretsuden, the Samurai Shodown RPG, with the help of a guide and that was pretty damn labor-intensive. Good game and fun, but a lot of work. I also had the Saturn’s Japanese-language Grandia in my to-play stack. I really didn’t want yet another guide-aided slog. So I didn’t buy it.

Flash forward nearly ten years, and I see copies of a game called Baroque at my local GameStop in both the PS2 and Wii sections. WTF? Cover art and screenshots looked sort of like the game I thought of as Baroque, but not as dark and evil. Yep, plot description seems to jibe with my memory. I looked up online to be sure. Sure enough Atlus USA published remakes of the RPG Baroque in the United States. Not only was the game now totally accessible to my English-speaking self, but a lot of additional information was also in the form of an online mini-community. And while trying to avoid outright spoilers, I was reading that Baroque’s graphics were brightened up, the mechanics for controlling and fighting modernized, but that it was still considered a grueling hardcore dungeon crawl (original Wizardry came to my mind reading that stuff).

I’m already on the fence about RPGs as it is. Given that I used to play pen & paper role-playing games, and used to work for Games Workshop (not an RPG company, but fantasy toy soldiers and a lot of its customers and staff are also role-players), you’d think the genre would form a regular part of my balanced breakfast, but not so.

My indulgence in RPGs has never been more than occasional. I’ve racked up far more minutes in action games with RPG elements; basic item management and leveling up as games such as Odin Sphere or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But actual role-playing games I have played I can probably count without having to include my toes or other appendages. Two real reasons: one, I’m impatient with the learning curve and strategy aspects. While I like ‘exploring’ well-conceived game worlds, I want to just get to it. And I am (or believe I am) suck-ass at the more think-y aspects of many games including puzzles and tactics. Two, RPGs typically require A LOT of time put in. I play a lot of video games for a working parent, but sometimes it can be sporadic. I mostly go for short-burst pick up and play games that suit my lifestyle. So that’s why my ‘currently playing’ list is so dominated by arcade games like fighters and shooters. When I do have some kind of long-play title I’m working on, it’ll be an ‘action-RPG’ (SOTN mentioned above), or some first or third-person shooter, games that are not nearly as intricate and attention-demanding as RPGs are. I’m also pretty easily immersed. I don’t require dense, novel-trilogy levels of detail. I grew up as an arcade gamer and so it isn’t so easy for me to find the patience for games that really drag out at all, let alone to the levels many RPGs pad themselves out for maximum perceived value.

So weirdly, I am in some aesthetic ways someone who should like RPGs, but based on practical concerns I tend to shun them. Every now and then I'll get enough of a hankering. Most recently I played through Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast. I also bought the Virtual Console version of Chrono Trigger, like two weeks ago, but my kids have beaten me to that one for now. Baroque’s bizarre science and religion mash up story… revealed as your character continually cycles through death and rebirth…looked pretty intriguing. That the play style involved some ‘roguelike’ features; randomized dungeons, complete reset of characteristics and items upon death, just made it appealing to the so-called hardcore (okay, masochistic) side of my gamer self.

In any case, I chose to go with the Wii version. And the wiimote/nunchuk combination works fine with the game. The combat in Baroque is rather action game-y and the part of the game that resembles ‘standard RPG’ mechanics the least. You have to actually run around and fight in real-time. You can avoid enemies or circle around them to strike when they are vulnerable. My understanding is that this was tricky in the Saturn original. The dark graphics and the limitations of a first-person view made fighting difficult. Switching to third-person and clearing away the murk makes Wii Baroque much less frustrating, although it is still tough until you learn what you are doing. These fixes came at the expense of much of the game’s evil atmosphere. It may have made things difficult, but Saturn Baroque had a grim, grimy ambience that is lost to a shinier (but still fairly plain) new version. The soundtrack has been re-done too. The new one is fine to me, and quite fitting for the game, but players of the original frequently say it isn’t a patch on the Saturn’s moody industrial tunes. The story itself is largely unchanged.

Now having spent a considerable time with the game, I do find even the new version to be problematic. Most players used to other games would probably find the combat inflexible, the dungeons repetitive, and the dying/resetting aspect quite off-putting. None of that bothered me. The graphics, sound, music, and controls; none of these are cutting-edge, but they all came together for me personally.

Nope, my difficulty comes from the very heart of the game designers’ philosophy, and one of the things that made me want the game a decade ago. The way the mysterious plot and the in-game objectives are doled out.

As I said in the beginning, Baroque hides the particulars of its narrative points under layers and details. At first, you play and are trying to just figure out how to survive. Then you are trying to figure out how the items work or interact with each other. Then you are trying to figure out how to find or keep the best items. THEN you want to figure out what to do next. Apart from just going through the dungeons—what is the point? Well, NONE of this stuff is spelled out for the player. The manual has a lot of words in it but doesn’t really put the system together. The manner in which items are used for various effects (there’s no magic system) is discovered through trial, error, and numerous deaths. The non-player character dialogues are cryptic in the extreme, but critical to the game. All of this reflects the Japanese original quite accurately and effectively simulates your avatar who, in the story, has no memory and no idea what to do. Story and objectives are progressed by hearing dialogues, but it can frequently take many conversations with multiple characters just to dial in a single goal. And the whole time you are running around trying to find these conversations, you are highly vulnerable and still trying to work out other basic aspects of the game, like trying live long enough and not just die and repeat the upper few levels of the dungeon…again.

Most dialogues are triggered by items given to the speaker. There are hundreds of items in the game, with the player having a limited inventory. So again, a lot of running around and experimenting. This may be the first collect-a-thon type of game where collecting every goshdamn thing is integral to the story and not just a bonus for completists. You can complete a Mario game without finding all the stars, but in Baroque, you really have to pay attention to what you’ve acquired so you know what moves the game itself along. Add to THAT enemies and objects that can take your shit away from you… and yeah, a TON of work. And you MUST die multiple times. On paper that seems like a cool, hardcore concept, but in practice it isn’t so simple when the game severely limits what you will be able to keep with you the next time you resurrect. There IS a system for moving items around or hanging on them for your next incarnation, but the way its done is all part of the game’s strategic underpinnings… and while I wouldn’t say it is tedious exactly… it is a lot of work.

The game lets you save after each completed dungeon level. So I kind of found myself keeping a couple of save points running at all times, so that I could revert to a previous happier moment if something untoward happened, frequently the loss of a needed item rather than a death. I generally didn’t allow myself to ‘die’, as it were, until I’d gotten to the end of each dungeon run, where you have to either die or be absorbed by the game’s deity. Which usually furthers the narrative.

At this point, near the completion of the game, I’ve had numerous restarts from save points but my character himself is on his eleventh incarnation. From my understanding this is pretty fuckin’ speedy. A lot of players have logged many many more hours than I have. Here’s the thing, though. This is a game for completionists. For players who like to winkle out every detail and every nuance. It is for gamers who don’t mind plugging through the same hallways and rooms, because there’ll be some other weird item to find or slice of dialogue to hear. The game has extensive screens for tracking everything you find. I get the appeal of this, and I even find it compelling myself to a certain point… but it isn’t for me. I made time for an RPG, but I didn’t make time for the most demanding collect-a-thon I’ve ever heard of. So I did something I’m not proud of:

I used a guide.

Not just for one hint. Not just to find some devilishly well-hidden item. I mean I used it EXTENSIVELY.

It happens every now and then that I’ll hit up an online guide or walkthrough when I’ve reached my limit on trying to figure out an objective. That’s probably my most common reason. I can’t get my head around the various clues given in the game, if in fact there are any clues—some games as we know, don’t always work logically—so I hit up some online help to connect me to the next step. Less frequently I might look up tips or strategies to beating a troublesome level or boss. But in the main, I consider it pretty easy to get too much help and spoil the experience. So I try to be judicious. This is really the way most mature gamers use helps or walkthroughs, but it has been a bitch to explain to my son, who doesn’t understand how figuring shit out is ‘more fun’ than having your hand held through the whole thing. I’ve resorted to hazing and sarcasm to keep him away from guides.

If I’m going to use help in any significant way, I’ll buy the actual printed official book and use it AFTER I’ve completed whatever basic story mode or campaign is the backbone of the game. As I said, I’m not a collector-maniac in video games, but sometimes it is cool to continue to poke around for stuff. So for some games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, or Brutal Legend, I liked the game worlds so much that it was fun to buy a guide, and explore to get to previously unseen areas or find items or learn to play the game better or in unconventional ways. I don’t think looking under every rock and tree is loads of fun, but having the guides gives me a bit more incentive to spend some extra time in a game world without the tedium of endless clueless searching. I also frequently buy guides for fighting games. For some reason I just prefer my move lists in front of me in print, rather than pausing the game to look it up onscreen.

I avoided buying Saturn Baroque because I didn’t want to eke through it inch by inch using a guide to get around the Japanese…but that feels like what I did with the English version anyway! As I was playing, early on it became apparent I would not have the patience to work the details of this game out on my own. So I went to a walkthrough intending to just learn how the items, item combination, and inventory system worked.

But as I played and discovered that every single tidbit of information (necessary and otherwise) was going to be delivered in the same obtuse, miserly manner, I caved and started fishing out what my actual goals and objectives were. Who to talk to, where they were located, and what item to give them. I managed to avoid actual plot spoilers, so the central desire to find out what ‘the story’ was about remained for me, but that was about the only discovery aspect I got to experience. As much as I hate using a guide it is hard for me to say this actually ruined the game for me. I would like to stumble upon meaningful events on my own, but the amount of play time required for this was just more than I could possibly afford. So I sort of reduced the actual play mechanics to the same level of directness that almost every other RPG employs. ‘Take this magic book to the wizard who lives in the tower’ might be something an NPC would say to you in your traditional role-playing game, so I kinda forced that onto my game of Baroque. I’m not thrilled to admit it, but as compelling as the story is, I would NOT have stuck with the game if left entirely to my own devices. Life’s too fucking short.

In hindsight, I can now see a sort of ‘play formula’ that I could’ve used to get through the game without a guide to the objectives. It’d still require that the player know more about the basic mechanics than the manual or the game really tells you, but I could write up a breakdown that would leave all the surprises and discovery intact while giving the player a better shove out the gate. And in fact, some people have done this; they just aren’t quite ‘explanatory’ enough, I don’t think. Maybe I should start up a page on this blog for this purpose. ‘KOG’s Truly Useful Guide To Baroque’.

Here’s an odd final note: Like some RPGs (and a few other types of games), Baroque has a post-campaign scenario, an endgame. If a player completes these epilogues it’ll usually net you the complete, true, or additional ending. Chrono Trigger is pretty well known for this, allowing you to take your fabulously leveled-up protagonist back through the story, now able to take on the final boss at his earlier appearances in the game and so get a different ending, depending on where in the chronology you destroy him.

After Baroques’ credits roll, you strangely find yourself resurrected yet again. Ostensibly, this would help the collecto-freaks this game caters to continue to work at filling in all the item slots in the database, but supposedly if you accomplish such-and-such-and-such (yes, I used the guide to see if there were, in fact, any goals in this endgame) you actually bring some dead NPCs back to life and redirect the course of events again. The such-and-such-and such are actually pretty complicated, involving hunting down dozens of items and bringing them out of the dungeon over the course of multiple runs. So I figured that was pretty much all she wrote for my continued involvement. As I said, this game makes fanatic collecting a literal part of the game, and there’s this huge stretch ahead that I didn’t really want to indulge. But on a whim, I thought I’d just check out the dungeon one last time, seeing what was different now that I’d ‘saved the world’.

Not much was. BUT. At the bottom of the dungeon, I got the dialogue saying I’d triggered the final set of events. I didn’t DO the such-and-such-and-such that the guide says you need to do. I just played as well as I could and then went back in one more time for old times’ sake. So just to test if I really was in the final stretch, I entered the dungeon and headed right for the floor the guide indicated would house the first set of ‘final’ enemies. And there they were. I was loaded up on invincibility items (just in case) and it wound up that I needed them. Then I actually killed the creatures. So now I find myself somewhat jazzed at the idea of actually completing the full story arc, which seemed like a lark only a day ago. I don’t know how it happened, but I am only three or four dungeon runs from finishing the narrative aspects of the game. One run for each set of the final enemies. It seemed like I was going to have to resort to reading the dialogue online or watching Youtube clips of the final section, but I’m glad I held off on doing that.

In a day or two, the game should be done, and I’ll feel really fortunate that somehow, using a guide, I manage to play this intriguing, difficult game while divesting myself of all the bullshit in it that would’ve made me throw in the towel ages ago. Despite my guide-guilt I feel like it’s a really good game, but there’s so much about it that makes it difficult to just outright recommend.

(image kyped from Daily Record UK)

The Skies are Endless

The 'Currently Playing' list on the side looks like it might be stuck for a while, because Skies of Arcadia is taking forever.

I know I've spent a lot of time looking for Discoveries in the game, and the game's encounter frequency just makes this an exercise in frustration and tedium. A game about exploring and yet you can't walk or fly longer than fifteen or twenty seconds before you're halted by another fight.

If the game was just 'straight lines' between towns or dungeons, then the encounter rate wouldn't be all that bad. BUT. They want you to find stuff. Not just secret stuff scattered around the map, but you often have to search out your next location based on the plot or dialogue. It isn't usually super far away or hidden to any real degree... but any looking around you have to do AT ALL will be utterly plagued with random encounters.

Actually, the word 'random' is kinda stupid in this case, because the frequency of them is all too predictable. Choose one; a) as soon as you think you're going the right way, b) if you are impatient to advance the plot, c) right now. Any one of those criteria filled seemingly triggers another battle. I'll tell you one thing. I have yet to enter a single boss fight where I didn't feel completely comfortable with my items, spells, and levels. Y'know why? Because the game basically makes you grind, grind, grind, just to get anywhere. You don't have to force yourself to do it to make sure you are powerful enough... it's going to happen to you anyway. You are going to fight and gain levels and gold whether you fucking well like it or not.

There are six major treasures (plot-crucial items) and therefore theoretically six chapters or stretches of the game. But that doesn't take into account a sort of 'prologue' stretch, a separation from your shipmates stretch, and a earn and crew your own ship stretch, that are each about as long as one of the basic six. So I've plunked in about 35 hours and I'm just getting to area of the third treasure, and I've had the second one for umpteen hours now.

The plot and cutscenes are fun and interesting. I really do want to see how this is going to go and have scrupulously avoided all references to the narrative or the battles coming up. I've used a FAQ once. When something I was navigating to find was just not appearing to me, and I got tired of all the fights while I tried to find it.

50 hours my ass. How would this game be 50 hours long (DC version) if you actually hunted out all the discoveries? Honestly.

I still like the game, but this sure as shit reminds me why I've long since gotten stuck on the idea that I 'don't have time' for RPGs.

And I want to play Baroque at some point in the future. I must be insane.

Fly The Friendly Skies of Unit--, uh, Sega

Two games played recently:

Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. This game frickin’ rocks. I loved all three PD games on the Saturn. Sega’s Team Andromeda had created this amazing alien world, enthralling yet almost totally unlike ours. As a lot of players probably know the first two games are rail shooters and the third installment is an RPG. These games were done so well that they corralled a lot of players that were not fans of those genres into playing and enjoying them.

Flash forward to 2002. The PD series has a new game released for the Xbox, Panzer Dragoon Orta. If there were one game on that system that could’ve enticed me to buy it, this was the game. Alas, I was too busy spending money on games for my PS2, and buying stuff for my consoles even older. When I eventually bought an Xbox 360, Orta was one of the first things I investigated being able to play.

There were complications, not least of which was my having to buy a vastly more expensive Japanese copy to run on my JPN Xbox 360. But it was well worth it.

I’ve gone through the game completely once. Averaged a B grade across the ten levels. The difficulty is, if my memory is correct, similar to the earlier PD games, but clearing the game is a lot easier owing to it saving your progress. There are a lot of (skippable) cutscenes, but I find the PD world so interesting that I let them roll. The additional mechanics include a boost/brake element that took some getting used to. It feels clumsy at first, but the game never requires really split second timing with it until near the end. This chapter also gives you three dragon types that you can switch between on the fly, all upgradeable as per your dragon in PD Saga (Azel).

The graphics and music are phenomenal. Even considering the Xbox isn’t a current-gen console, these design elements are still very impressive. Definitely a ‘wow’ game.

If you liked the old PD games, getting this is a no-brainer. It is like the Saturn games but slicker looking and with a couple of easily-handled complications. Interestingly, the original Panzer Dragoon opens up on completion of the game, but it doesn’t play nearly as well as the one on an actual Sega Saturn disc.


Skies of Arcadia for the Sega Dreamcast. I don’t play RPGs all that much, but this is one I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time… I got it when it was a current retail title.

Skies is an old-fashioned game. Its turn-based combat, simple color magic system, and linear plot would all be considered quaint now. At the time it was thought pretty amazing for its graphics and the ship combat system. Having delayed all this time actually getting around to playing it, that quaintness is actually kind of a draw. Besides the obvious retro aspect, the game is just very positive. Vyse and crew are very well designed and charming. Despite the blocky visuals, the characters are more expressive than most any ‘more realistic’ game you’d buy new today. The music is good too, but not spectacular considering all the epic scores spanning all the RPGs one hears now.

Despite the occasional grim dialogue from the villains, the can-do attitude of the villains and the bright, decidedly non-gritty environments just makes a great change of pace from the constant angst permeating video games. I like me some angst too, but this game reminds me when the fun was the thing, not the drama.

Skies isn’t without drawbacks. Famous for the frequency of its random encounters, this is a real pain in a game that emphasizes exploration. It is fun to sail about the world trying to find cool locations and landmarks, but you won’t even have time to get into an exploratory segment before you’re dropped into yet another fight. Happens in the ships and happens on foot in the dungeons. While this hasn’t killed the game for me, as it has some players, it definitely has had me sighing resignedly more than once. I understand there is an item that’ll reduce random encounters while ship-board, but I don’t have that wonderful piece of kit yet.


I’m also not loving the ship combat. This is one of the big draws for the game in reviews, and while it is innovative, and on the surface interesting, the battles are too drawn out considering the so-so level of excitement, for me at any rate. It also doesn’t help that I suck at the ship battles. I don’t out-and-out lose most of ‘em, but I usually take way longer and incur a lot more damage than I probably should. I just can’t really get the hang of the process. Probably for the same reason I can’t ‘get’ stupid Bejeweled 2.


I can see the appeal of the ship battles. The game does enough things well to keep these or the random battles from making me give up. That barely sounds like an endorsement, but the good things are REALLY good things. I look at my stack of games to get to playing and while they will probably have lots of moments to enjoy, not many look to actually convey a positive, uplifting outlook. Enh, some of this has to do with the class of game I run with. If I was more into Pokemon or Kirby, I wouldn’t think this was so unusual. See the Super Mario Galaxy games for a similar upbeat outlook, but SMG games aren’t RPGs with swords and killing!

Anyway, for an old-fashioned RPG experience WITH swords and killing, Skies of Arcadia is a fun time. This looks to run about 50 hours and I think I’m a little less than one-third into it.

(image kyped from HG101)

Beautiful Slog

If you’ve read any game forum bitching from me over the last two months, it has largely revolved around one game, Odin Sphere for the PS2.

Back in 1997, a game called Princess Crown came out for the Sega Saturn. This game was being hailed as the cat’s ass at the time, for its phenomenal graphics, outstanding music and production values, and its real-time battle sequences. Being the import-crazy fan that I was (am) and with all the critical nods, it wasn’t long after its Japan-only release that I bought a copy. It didn’t disappoint. The combat was kind of quirky. Although it looked like a 2d fighting game, it still had something of the ‘we each take a turn’ flow of an RPG. It was in real-time, but the recovery times, power bar, and other aspects made it so you couldn’t just whale away like you might in Street Fighter. It was more tactical. Timing your defense (blocking or evading) could be difficult, especially given how committed you were once your character entered the combo slash sequence. Wise item use was also required, with inventory management important even during a fight. But the cool story, amazing artwork, and just all-around uniqueness of the game made it enjoyable and memorable. Once you got the hang of the fighting, the only downside was that all those incredible art assets meant that the development time and budget would only go so far, and to get the game up to an appropriate length quite a bit of repetition is involved in backgrounds, enemies, and soundtrack.

I guess the length a game of this type needs to be will be a major fiber in the fabic of this ‘blog entry. Odin Sphere was released ten years after Princess Crown, but is still very much a similar animal. Now on the next generation of hardware, Odin Sphere kept Princess Crown’s core play concepts the same while improving in almost every area (except the aforementioned length). Again, the fighting is quirky and oddly reminiscent of RPG combat, with copious inventories and gaining levels in both magic points and hit points.

But the graphics, animation and music are onto a whole ‘nother level of kickass. HG101 states this as making all other PS2 games ‘embarrassing’ by comparison, and I have to agree...with the addition that if you are a fan of 2d artwork it might make ALL other games embarrassing, even through the current generation. I’m not going to go so far as to say it is the best looking and sounding game EVER, but it is probably in the top few. I’m not even going to brook discussion about that. If you go online and watch videos of this thing and still don’t agree, you’re fucking blind and an imbecile. Begone.

I dislike the term 'action-RPG' because it has come to mean so many different things to so many different people... and ANY game with a protagonist that progresses in his/her abilities (levels up usually) and isn't turn-based seems to get saddled with that epithet. In this case action-RPG seems to be appropriate, to me at any rate, since I tend to use it exclusively for RPGs that have combat and movement in real-time and not games like Dynasty Warriors or Castlevanian: Symphony of the Night.

In this game, the blending of genres is done well on the surface, but as I played became central to the issues I have with the game. On the one hand, if you play a role-playing game, you know what you're in for time-and-effort-wise. Whether the game is long or short by RPG standards, you understand going into it that it is going to be detailed, involved, and more brain-centered than twitch-heavy. Action games are just the opposite. Your brain may be engaged in sorting out puzzle sections, finding all the hidden items, or figuring out how to beat a boss, but the game is still expected to move along at a brisk pace, and your progress is down to your (physical) skill at jumping, hitting, or shooting. If an item is absolutely necessary for progress it is usually provided to you right in the flow of the game. To me there are two totally different mindsets in place here. Playing an RPG is like settling in with a good long book. You learn about the characters and their backstories, there's no hurry to blast through it. The exploration and learning is THE thing. Action games are more like an issue of monthly magazine. Colorful, entertaining, quickly moving you along to the next treat for your senses, and (with the good ones) over too soon.

For Odin Sphere, the action elements propel you through the game... run through each area to defeat the hordes of enemies and get to the incredible boss. But the RPG elements run counter to this and actually hinder you. George Kamitani, director of Odin Sphere, acknowledged this problem in a recent interview. He called it 'confusion' for players over whether they should be approaching the game as an RPG, and taking time to level up, OR as an action game, taking on the enemies through sheer skill. He calls it exactly right. Because of the fighting game nature of the combat, even though it is quirky to learn how to fight without getting hit too much, once you get the hang of it you can make up for a lack of items and hit points with skillful play. Until you get to a boss. Then your failure to 'level up properly' will hit you right in the balls. The bosses do not play like fighting game opponents and frequently have shit dropping from the sky or area effect weapons. Going in to these encounters requires you have enough healing items, and enough hit points to be able to weather the undodgeable attacks... exactly what the player, heady with his action/fighting skills, probably did not account for. Your characters move quickly. The controls are responsive. The item inventories are available right there on the main screen, with no flipping through menus. Everything 'feels' like you should be able to just 'fight' your way all the way to the end. Once I'd figured out the timing, and how to avoid getting hit so much, the combat worked pretty well. And the levels were brisk and short.

But no. There's a reason why the game makes it simple to back out of various screens or return to the overworld map to choose a new area; you are going to have to grind for items and levels. By the time you get your ass leveled and equipped to the nines, upon marching through the areas again on the way to that boss you need to beat, you will find the all the rest of the fighting to be a cakewalk. The bosses are really the only thing you NEED to approach with an RPG mindset, but the effort involved will take up a lot of the time spent in the game.

Perversely, there then seems to have been a realisation on the part of the designers that the game really IS too fast for something so akin (in spirit at least) to an intricately plotted RPG. 'We have all this great production-- graphics, soundtrack, voice acting, writing-- we need to keep the players in here for a while'. So in addition to the need to grind to beat bosses, they also made five characters you have to play through, all of them seven chapters (areas) in length, with complete stories for each. The plot of each character is unique, as are their combat attacks, but the stories intersect and overlap so you have to go through the same limited number of areas, enemies and bosses every time. Each character has maybe one boss that is unique to them. This is a way for Vanillaware to use the same production assets to give you a game five times longer than it would be if it was just a one-character action game and fills it out to decent-sized RPG length.

As I said though, it doesn't PLAY like an RPG. It was just a drag to have to go through the same areas, with the same enemies over and over again. The unique attacks for each character helped. And fortunately (this is a big fortunately) subsequent characters get access to all the stuff learned by previous characters. So if you found a really useful potion recipe early on, you can equip with it very quickly in the later stories. As there is a grinding opportunity purposely made available to you right before the climax, you can even take early characters and go get some of the later-found recipes and items for them. For instance, you don't learn to make the super-healing Elixer potion until the third or fourth character, so you need to take the first few back out to make some Elixirs in preparation for their final encounters. Honestly, five characters to go through is too much. Or if they'd felt it important to have the player actually BE all five, then they could've cut the number of chapters each from seven down to four.

All this verbiage makes it plain that the game is a slog. No matter how beautiful, most players are not going to want to see the same thing over and over and over again. So why keep playing? Why did I plug a little over fifty hours into this thing?

It has quite a bit more going for it than just being pretty or having a great soundtrack. Both those aspects get repetitive no matter how well done. The framework that all these stories hang upon is the idea that a little girl is up in her attic reading each character's plot as a book. The books all tell some aspect of the world's prophesied final days. Each character is a key figure. So as you read each book, the characters meet each other, or you learn about a sequence of events from another point of view. As you play, all of this echoes a poem written about the game world's 'armageddon'. The poem has a number of stanzas with allegorical figures described participating in the end times. Seeing how this is all going to play out is pretty appealing since, in spite of too much time spent playing them, you really do learn to have an interest in the five. The plot is melodramatic in the extreme. Every character is doomed, sad, and depressed. Though they typically end up on a positive note in each of their respective books, they go through angsty, abusive hell to get there. There are lovers torn apart, parental yearning and abuse, heroes with no idea their true past, etc. etc. But Odin Sphere has such a good localisation in both the actual dialogue written and the voice acting that the game really sells the drama. Going through the first book, I was amazed by the quality, but rolling my eyes at how 'serious' it all was (so soon in the game). Several hours later I was totally buying into it, and actually found myself quite moved at parts. The scenery, soundtrack, and enemies may be repetitive but I was really rooting for these characters to turn out okay. As you get to the later books you already know how some characters are going to end up, but the game is so well done that it is still fascinating to see how they get there.

The final character, Velvet, has a story that ties up the threads from all the other protagonists. She knows more, and discovers more, than the others about the nature of the events they've all been going through. Her book finally reveals the prophecy poem and ends the individual character narratives. It is at this point that the tales from the books intersect with the larger meta-frame of the girl in the attic. A last book becomes available and playing it makes the final fate of all the characters known. The suspense ratchets up another notch, as the player is faced with one last encounter for each hero, all but one of them an uber-boss that you have never fought up to this point. As grueling as the grinding and repetition got to be, after all the heart and effort put by the designers into the game (and by the player in getting to the end) the climax plays out in truly epic fashion. I was hoping (and had read) that the end made all the work worthwhile. And it really did. Apart from the armageddon encounters being visually incredible (in an already incredible-looking game, mind you) they were mostly unlike anything that had gone before, and forced me to take two characters a little ways back through their individual books to get a few more items. After you are done, if you match the right character to the right finale (the prophecy gives clues to how to do this) the ending is a 20 minute piece of sheer awesome. I'd venture to say it might be the best video game ending ever... certainly in terms of how much work went into it.

It kind of took knowing that the last book was going to be great, though not how it would actually play out, to keep me grinding on. I kind of feel bad for anyone who tried this early on in the game's shelf life and just petered out playing it. To be fair, each hero gets their story done faster than the previous ones, because the player is better AND they have access to previously discovered assets. But in those days just after Odin Sphere's release new players would have to have played Princess Crown to have some idea what the game could have in store, and Princess Crown was released TEN YEARS prior.

My kids who had been following my progress through the game off and on, were riveted by most of the armageddon encounters and the ending. So much so that they immediately started their own save files, though I doubt they'll actually persevere through the game.

Odin Sphere winds up being one of those things I would recommend with reservations. Like a movie you know is great but has subject matter that could be objectionable. Now that its over, I'm really glad I played it. And all the levels, cutscenes, and ending bits are available for replay at any time. If I wanted to play it again it would be a relative breeze, given the ability to skip around, and the awesome saved state of the heroes. Its odd having something with so much going for it that you still have to do so much explaining about the drawbacks. That's what this whole post is, and that's what I'd have to do in recommending the game to a potential player.
If you don't mind grueling stretches of repetition, going through the same motions again and again just for snatches of plot, its really great! Some kind of sales pitch that is.

Vanillaware has recently released Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Nintendo wii. I've mucked around with it a bit, and it looks to have similarly stellar production values and artwork. Based on the aforementioned interview with the director, Vanillaware knows all the drawbacks to Odin Sphere and addressed them in this new game. They've gone for more of an action game, keeping the items and leveling up, but making placing it more in the flow of the game. It appears that if you get somewhere then you are equipped to deal with whatever appears there. There are also only two characters to play through. I don't know how long their stories are yet, but it would be almost impossible for this game to be bloated like Odin Sphere. I know there is repetition. That's pretty much the price you pay for the incredible graphics and music on the budget of a smaller studio. See my blog entry about Earth Defense Force 2017 for a related topic.

I'm looking forward to it, but I need a break. I'm going to concentrate on driving games and a few STGs before tackling Muramasa.

Hm. Those games are also from cult Japanese developers. I smell 'blog entries coming on for those too.

(image kyped from HG101)