Monday, August 4, 2008

ODIN SPHERE: Armageddon

I have beaten this game and seen both endings and I can say that it will be in my PS2 top-five for all time. An amazingly good game with an equally great story and the best 2d artwork of ANY game on the system hands down. Also, Odin Sphere is unique amongst my favorites for getting it's spot the list for it's story foremost, then graphics and then gameplay. More novel-like than any game I have played, it is not only completely voice acted, but those voices never detract from the presentation instead enhancing the gameplay whenever characters speak. Atlus USA should be lauded for it's job on the localization. All of these elements make Odin Sphere a real triumph. Now how did the game end, you're wondering?

I won't be giving anything away when I tell people that the end of Odin Sphere is the end of the world. You can make guesses at that after looking at the cover of the game, the game's titular king, Odin, is a character from Norse mythology where the event of Ragnarok (the Norse end of all creation) figures heavily. This world-ending has a different name, but the myth is borrowed from in parts along with a few others from other cultures to make the game's overall theme. Where the endgame gets it's texture and context is in a series of texts known generally as the prophecies. These can be accessed any time for reading in the 'prophecy' menu, and are won from npcs in story events mostly. The old manuscripts tell about the end of the world from a number of different perspectives, but the major ideas do not change. The world will be visited by five calamities and in the end the land will fall away into the void and the sky eaten by the Lord of Serpents. During the Armageddon Mode, the entire experience changes. The beauty that the world once possessed is shattered and just about everyone perishes in the calamities.

It is easy to look at the graphical style and the characters, a fairy princess for example, and think that Odin Sphere is for youngsters but it is relevant on the adult-level far more often than it is not. I think the art style and the lush nature of the environments are designed to be placed next to the blasted devastation of the armageddon mode as a contrast. Kamitani (the director) wanted us to mourn for Erion, I think. The npcs lament, cry and beg for release from the doom of their senseless deaths. The forests burn, and mountains are brought low and the great cities razed without exception. We are to be given the explicit message that nothing survives this devastation. There is a 'good' ending obviously but as always these things are relative.

That brings me to the way the endings are handled. Each of the five calamities must be defeated by one of the five main characters. Not only that, but for the 'good' ending each calamity needs to be fought by a particular character, and the choices are not obvious even when you use the prophecies as a guide. There is one curve ball that pretty much guarantees that you will see the bad ending before the good, though this is probably by design however as nothing in the game was done without a great amount of thought.

Now before and after each of these five battles there are cut scenes, and for each of the five characters there are good and bad cut scenes depending on who you choose and therefore which track you are on. I should say that some of the best story in the whole game is given over in 'bad' endings for the various characters, so you will probably need at least three trips through armageddon mode to see it all. It's certainly worth the effort.

I really can't go any further without giving too much away, but this kind of match-the-character approach to ending the game allows for an amazingly multi-layered story to close out this epic. You get many viewpoints to the end days of Erion and you even have a chance to end things on a lighter note if you are careful about it. If you folllow the path the texts lead you along, there is one last book to read where the fate of the world is decided. As a videogame, Odin Sphere will most likely be referred to by designers time and time again for the way in handles narrative and plot. Right now there isn't a game that does it better. As I mentioned in a previous post, George Kamitani is going to be a big Kojima-like deal before too long. Count on it.

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