Ok, for the first time ever, its...
A DOUBLE FEATURE MEEPLE RANT!!!
By this I mean I'll Meeple Rant about 2 games, so here we go!
Odin Sphere: Completed!
NOTE: I MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY SLIP AND SPOIL SOMETHING SO BE WARNED! I'LL TRY MY BEST NOT TO!
Ok, the game had some ok core ideas, but egads did they do NOTHING WITH THEM until the last two fights in the game. Seriously, before then, every fight is pretty much just "ok, learn the attacks, and exploit, heal if necessary!" combined with some bosses having moves that are flat out impossible to avoid (Onyx vs. Mercedes comes to mind; Mercedes is SLOOOOW and he's a boss who likes using Charge Attacks, and will match your height, so avoiding him doesn't work.)
The PCs...4 of them felt more or less the same with slight quirks, Mercedes was the only truly original one being ranged and all that. The others? Its more "They're all melee, but they have one special attack and their fighting style varies slightly!" No, if you're going to have 5 different PCs, try to make the differences more pronounced. For example, Velvet uses chains...yet most of her moves were still close range? They really needed to do something like "She can aim her chain around in various directions" instead of "YOU CAN ALTER HER COMBO SLIGHTLY AND SHE HAS HOMING CHAIN!" Such wasted potential. Further more, being a witch, wouldn't you expect her to have, I dunno, ACTUAL MAGIC?
The game starts off hard, but eventually degraded to a point of such simplicity that everything was very standard. Yes, even Belial and Beldor I didn't find hard. Now, before someone says "You were overleveled!" I'll note that it was actually AFTER that fight that I did a lot of my building up on Velvet. Also, I don't consider it "overleveling" if you are using a faster, more cost efficient method of raising your character by simply holding onto resources rather than expending them.
That's how I played; I used the Pooka Shop for most of my HP. The HP Boosts are dramatic there. Yeah, ok, +13 HP doesn't look like much...but they add up with the rest. I am convinced that HP is more important than Psypher levels after playing this game, cause, well, its a Solo game; surviving matters a hell of a lot more than hurting things. Despite this, Psypher levels were typically higher cause after a point, it was much easier to raise those. No, Yogurt is not more efficient than the Pooka Shop. Let me show you an example:
Napple Sorbet: 1 Ariel Coin, 1 Napple, 1 Milk. 2200 HP EXP, +13 HP
Napple + Yogurt: 1 Napple, 1 Milk, 1 Even Numbered Material. 1125 HP EXP, 2 Phozons (this can be higher if you use double digit Material, mind, but you can't assume those.)
Napples are easily gotten anytime in the second half of the game, Milk is storebought all over the place (and usually in the Pooka Village), and you typically get Ariel coins by just progressing through levels (Now, Valentinian Gold, that's a different story; those are genuinely rare, and should NEVER be spent outside of the Pooka Shop unless you absolutely have no choice. Same can be said for Mixes, though Mixes can also be used for far more important things like, I dunno, Heal Tonics, Elixirs and Pain Killers? (also Napalm and Unlimited Powers are useful too, possibly Regens but those are harder to get.)
"But you get 2 Napples for every tree, that's 2250 HP EXP!"
True...but wait, that uses *2* Napples, vs. a Napple Sorbets 1. So that OTHER Napple can STILL BE CONSUMED for an extra 750, and we still have a clear winner.
Granted, you don't get the Napple Cores for some extra Material enhancing (or 1 Ragnanival Silver!) but until Elixirs pop up, that's not a big deal, especially since you're handed so many Grape/Muggle/Mulberry seeds that can be used for the same thing if you just want level 2.
Napple Sorbet is just one recipe, mind; there are other ones that work too. Heck, some are FLAT OUT STOREOUGHT like a Cheese Omelet is Cheese + Egg + Ariel Coin, and that's a quick 1400 EXP right there (and like 7 HP), from things that give you absolute garbage at EXP.
So long as you conserve your resources, the village can be done rather easily, just wastes a few extra minutes to go there and back. Which is pretty much the entirety of Odin Sphere actually...
The whole game is resource management. The final levels made that clear; take your characters with the exact inventory they had from their final battle, and put them against a boss! Thankfully, most of my characters were well set for that anyway, though Cornelius was a bit lacking on healing, so that fight got dangerous, but otherwise, I lucked out (well, no, in the case of Velvet, they give so you many carroteers that you can't realistically run out of healing <_<)
Game play was repetitive, getting back to that. As I said, it took until the last 2 fights to finally come up with something truly unique (Cauldron was a cool fight, Leventhan would have been cool but was poorly handled with things like "No Butterflies + HEY LOOK AT MY MEGA FLARE THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DODGE AND THERE'S NO WAY TO PREDICT IT! DO YOU HAVE INVISIBLE? NO? BWAHAHAHAH!" so meh. Didn't help my least built up PC was facing him.)
Also, this game makes it so easy to take damage and NOT KNOW WHAT HIT YOU. So often I have been killed and went "Wait, what the hell just hit me?" That combined with how damage on the enemy end is hard to predict (those Axe Knights did 150 and 250 damage with the SAME ATTACK IN THE SAME FIGHT, and no Pain Killers involved in each value, what the hell? So now I gotta be paranoid with healing cause I don't know how much HP is safe to be under?)
Music is utterly forgettable, voice acting was good though! Not much to say here. The game is also pretty, can't argue that! Also does have some fun lines, most particular is Velvet's on Horn Mountain (FINALLY a game makes fun of a character going to an icey region when she's wearing practically nothing.)
Plot...well, the story itself isn't too bad. My biggest qualm with it, though, is its story telling style. Now, yes, multiple main characters work...but it goofed up big time in a few areas (comparing this to Suikoden 3, the other big game that used this). Observe:
1. Forced Character Order. See, yes, Suikoden 3 has a "Canon order" where watching it like that helps you understand the game best and yields minimal spoilers. HOWEVER, it never once forced you to play, say, Chris 1 after Hugo 1; you could choose either one if you wanted. That worked, that's letting you move the story along at your own pace. OS, however? Forcing the order of Gwen to Cornelius to Mercedes, etc. was a bad move. The game had little spoilers to work with and little dramatic irony as well, so it was wasted. Not to mention some characters were obviously a lot easier to use for beginners (Cornelius comes to mind) and are not the first character anyway.
2. Not reshowing plot scenes. What I mean is, well, Velvet's comes to mind. See, in Gwen's chapter, she fights off Brigan, kills him, and he outright said something treacherous that should have let Gwen been pardoned for her actions, at least some (killing Odin's generals = bad, but when said general is planning an uprising, I think you can safely say he'd be more lenient.) Odin seems like a dick as a result. HOWEVER, then we see Velvet's side which...outright shows Gwen going against Odin's orders by protecting Velvet rather than saving her, and such. Now, this was good scene...but my problem is WHY WAS IS IN VELVET'S ONLY? It was a scene that was pretty big for Gwen's development and explains stuff, and Gwen is a big player in it (possibly bigger than Velvet), and they don't show it?
Compare that to Suikoden 3. Lulu's death comes to mind. We see this scene twice, from both point of views. It doesn't randomly show the village burning down in Hugo's path, and then show the next chapter it shows Lulu's grave and Hugo pining over it, and we don't see what happens til Chris' chapters. No, we OUTRIGHT SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN BOTH CHAPTERS, from BOTH POINT OF VIEWS. Suikoden 3 also didn't go out of its way to merely touch up on random allies (like how Borus, IIRC, runs into Geddoe and Queen on his own. We only see this in Geddoe's chapter, cause Geddoe is a direct participant in it. The game doesn't go out of its way in Chris' chapter to show it cause it'd be a waste of time), I wanna say OS did this at points, cause I do remember myself going "wait, why am I seeing this scene?" here and there. Oh, right, I know an example!
Oswald's chapter, there's a scene with Melvin pondering what he's going to do. They randomly pop Mercedes in and she whines about Melvin failing to protect her mother. Ok, fine...BUT WHY WAS THIS SCENE IN OSWALD'S CHAPTER? It had nothing to do with Oswald; it was all Melvin and some Mercedes. Its like some scenes were picked at random and shoved into other chapters. Now, that Oswald w/ Haljia scene in Gwen's chapter was fine; it takes place *AFTER* Oswald's scenario, so it couldn't really in there, and felt like its better to see the scene rather than just hear what happened. That Mercedes Scene, though, clearly takes place during Mercedes chapters though, so why was it in Oswald's? Really made no sense there.
These were two things that annoyed me. The actual scenes were good and the plot is passable enough once you connect all the damn scenes finally, but...I don't want to play a jigsaw puzzle with plot, nor do I want to rewatch all the scenes in order. It needed to connect scenes better. Leaving integral scenes out of a character's own story (see the Gwendolyn example I noted) until you see other characters, or forcing you to remember that character's action in a previous book is pretty blech. Again, its one thing if the event happens outside of the character's book (Oswald situation I indicated0, but that wasn't always the case.
Another thing was the excuses the game had for you to expand each book to 6 chapters, a prelude and an epilogue. Some were just stupid fetch quests (Yes, we have to go out of our way to watch Mercedes get the object for the bow to become stronger!), others just felt completely pointless (Lets randomly have Oswald get injured so Gwen can save him!) Even more ridiculous was the bosses being refought.
Now yes, I am a fan of WA3 and you do refight bosses a lot there...except the game generally had good reasons for it. I mean, the Prophets were the main villains of WA3 for a good part of the game, and there were very in your face type villains, instead of behind the scenes; ditto to Janus. Naturally, you'd expect lots of confrontations, and given how much your ideals clash, you are expecting to fight them a lot, especially when they're not these overpowered creatures, or you're facing them in an area where collateral damage will be minimal or just doesn't matter.
OS though? Its mostly just "Umm...we need a boss...Oh I know! LETS BRING BACK BELIAL!" I really wish I wasn't kidding with that; Belial pops up just cause he fucking can. Other bosses aren't much better.
In fact, only boss offhand I can think of that you fight only once is Oswald, and 3 of the last 5 fights (well...ok, technically the last is the same character, but the fight is so different that it might as well be another character altogether). Granted, Darkova does change between his two fights, adding some differences, so I'll give him that. Everyone else is fought at least twice. Some of them had good excuses (Onyx vs. Oswald made sense; basically a duel for the same thing and they were leading up to it. Onyx vs. Mercedes fit as well for different reasons.), I'll grant, but its a minority.
(no Urzor (or was it Skuldi?) doesn't count as a new fight; he's identical to Beldor when you face him, just with different support, and Beldor had different support anyway.)
What's worse is THEY HAD THE POTENTIAL FOR MORE FIGHTS. Why didn't they make, say, Ingway his own boss in Cornelius' chapters, instead of making him pull a tranny stunt and pretend to be his sister? That's just stupid. Chance for a unique boss, but instead they recycle shit for a lame excuse.
Another thing that pops out to me is WHY DIDN'T OSWALD FACE GWENDOLYN? We see the aftermath of that fight in her intro, and we even see Oswald participating in that fight in his own chapters...but instead we get a lame ass "Dual Halja fight! Yes, beware the double mini boss!" See, fighting Gwen could have been interesting cause it'd have been a unique fight, but instead they degrade to being lazy.
That's...a lot of what OS did wrong. It has wasted potential written all over it. Its ideas are there, but it screws them up one way or another.
As for characters? Most were decent enough.
Gwendolyn was fine for someone whose development was purely internal, as she herself didn't change much in the way she acted, just the way she did things. Cornelius doesn't have much, but again, he was more a victim of circumstances, so its more watching him deal with shit, instead of him actually changing. Mercedes...I ranted on, as I said, I think she's horrible since OS tried to make a character who grows up in as few scenes as possible, and I found it utterly unbelievable; she's the exception.
Oswald worked for what he was; raised as tool, learns he's not loved, all he wants is someone that can remember him when he dies as something more than that (hence why he wanted Gwen to genuinely love him), as well as someone dealing with the fact that he was raised as a tool for war. Not a great character, but worked for his role. Generally good chemistry between him and Gwen to.
Velvet...hard to say. Someone who basically wants to give Fate and Destiny the big proverbial finger, and was generally rational about things. I guess she worked, but there wasn't much there. I also felt her relationship with Cornelius was wasted cause they avoided it for too long, then its suddenly "Oh my love, we are reunited!"
NPCs now...
First off, Odin isn't really much of a dick. Considering the time period, the views he took made sense; when you rule over an entire country and you're in a bit of a medieval setting, your children aren't going to seem much more than property to you. The fact that Odin actually felt remorse for his actions is proof enough that he had morals, but he was definitely someone who took more of a "Duty first, family and personal shit later." Contrast that to VP2 Odin, who does something bad...and then is proud of it. OS Odin would do something, and then regret it, despite knowing the consequences of not doing it. He's not what we call a good person, no, but I can't find myself to call him a dick either; he's a nice grey character.
Odette...is a bitch. "I RULE THE UNDERWORLD FEAR ME LOLOLOL!" Yeah, sums her up.
Elfaria lacks scenes to really matter. Ditto to Onyx and Cornelius' Father (Edmund, I think?)
The 3 Wise Men were typical cliches. "Rar, we're evil power hungry old men who want to destroy the world!"
King Valentine was the REAL emo of the game. "I AM HURT! TIME TO DESTROY THE WORLD!" sums him up. That scene with him, Odin and Velvet was great though, mostly cause he tried to gain remorse, and then Odin basically says "Your words are empty" and leaves (sounds like a dick statement but...well, when you see the scene, Valentine was so obviously trying to gain sympathy and pity and felt like he was forcing everything, Odin was basically just saying "its not working" and at the same time, insuring Velvet realized it was just a stunt too.)
Melvin was interesting. At first glance, he's a dick. But really, that's just how he treated Oswald. He was just being rational about going about things. From his perspective, he felt Elfaria wasn't taking the best course of action, but was obliged to follow, just kept wanting to get his two cents in hoping she'd listen. His rebellion makes sense when you see Oswald's chapters; Mercedes really wasn't suited at all to become Queen (and how fast she suddenly became this strong queen I still stand by felt forced, and unreasonable), from where he was sitting, and figured she'd doom them all. Thought that'd be the perfect time to get things going and with him as king, no one could question him...yeah. Can't really say he's completely evil as, well, he didn't really do anything against Elfaria cause it was clear he respected her, where as Mercedes was a case of "shit, with her as queen, we're fucked!"
(if he really wanted the throne that'd badly, he'd have killed Elfaria a long time ago, instead of waiting for Odin to do it, which seemed more by chance.)
Granted, Melvin's issue? Lack of scenes. They did get some stuff done with him (unlike the likes of Elfaria who we see enough to say "strong benevolent ruler!" and then she dies), but there was definitely more they could do. Again, OS tried to do things in as few scenes as possible at times, and it actually hurt it more often than not.
Ingway was fucking stupid. Really, there was like no sense to be made with him. He's this incredibly saintly character in Mercedes chapter, a random road block in Cornelius, and then suddenly he's this "HA! I AM THE TRUE EVIL!" in Velvet's? Then they try to make it all come together with "Time to repent for my sins, DIE CAULDRON!" but that just means "watch Cornelius kick the shit out of him again!"
The ending...well...what happens to one of the characters I can't argue with! The result of two of them I saw coming as well (well, no, when they said "two crownless lords" I was wondering how one of them would fit in...but after that character's final battle, it became dead obvious), the last two is...random. Its like "oh, yeah, lets have this happen based on a loophole!"
Though, speaking of the final chapter, I must say, the game felt like it really just wanted to forget Mercedes existed. She pops up purely for her own fight and that's that. The other 4 all play a much larger role. They try to sneak her in at the last scene before the silly merchant talk (which was...about as random a way as you can end a game by just showing the title), but that kind of felt forced and pointless.
Anyway, overall, its a 3-4/10 game. Its got some neat ideas but its so obviously flawed in most areas that I'm unsure how much credit I can give those.
END OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS AND THE OS RANT!
Now, for the *OTHER* game?
...that'll be in the next post, only cause I want to avoid glitching and such.
