Odin Sphere’s brilliantly detailed visuals make it easy to be drawn in to this beat-em-up, with brush strokes almost crying out requests to be enjoyed. While the master’s brush was busy painting each character, others were seemingly busy with an involving story that ties all five of the characters together. Odin Sphere is not without repeated, frustrating, faults of slow down and uneven difficulty.

Not one to stray far from the foundations of the beat-em-up genre, Odin Sphere deviates only mildly by infusing basic RPG elements to the mix. Both hit points and attack power can be leveled through play, and an inventory filled with usable and equip-able items populate the game. Robust crafting springs out to enhance the leveling system; the only disadvantage of the crafting system is that not all items can be made for every character until the very end of the game. Because of this it almost feels as if the game favors the stories of the characters that are played last in the game, simply because the most options are available to them from the start.

Breathtaking as the in-game graphics, and rich backgrounds may be, even more impressive is the detail that is put into every cut-scene. While seemingly still done with what could be the animations used the standard battle, every character becomes alive and full of individual movement and expressions. Neither this, nor the in-game battles ever feel awkward in their animation, almost allowing the player to feel the love that the creators had for every single detail.

While most beat-em-up games rely on the story to propel the character into the first stage of action, Odin Sphere is a happy departure from the otherwise barren wasteland that all other in this genre have become. The game has a separate story dedicated to each character, with a break at the end of each stage to explain further what their motivation is for traveling to the next area. The attempts at a deep and political story filed with nations at war with each other never really feels more then waste deep, but it is enough to be fully enjoyable, and enough to add substance to each characters personality.

What is never explained is why all battles are done on spheres that link to one another. At first it is an interesting game mechanic, but after some use it becomes a mind-boggling event. All explanations seemed confused when the world map, used to select the stage, is laid out as a flat surface, with no spheres to be seen. While this is a very small complaint, it is something a mind will wander to after several hours of play.

Very palpable faults bring an otherwise amazing game back down to reality. During some of the grand battles during the game several dozen items little the screen, all at once. This vast amount of action causes an almost game ending amount of slow down. This would normally be fine, but the game only grinds to a slow during some of the most difficult battles, when the last thing that you want is any change in the way the game plays. There are difficulty levels that can be adjusted, but when playing the game on the Easy difficult presents little challenge, but the difficulty up is amazingly hard, and the hardest difficulty is so painfully difficult it should almost never be attempted by any sane person.

While constant deaths due to the steep, and unforgiving, jumps of difficulty cause the current “sphere” to be reloaded. While normally quick, lasting only a couple of seconds, they are constantly present. Other times during the game there are loads that last for over 20 seconds, bringing up only a small room needed for crafting items used to increase health. These loads are less forgivable, especially considering the condensed feel in those rooms. Take into consideration the almost guaranteed promise of a forgotten item, it can take over a minute to go in, leave, and come back, just in load time. These screens quickly become a massive annoyance.

With the advent of the next generation platforms, Odin Sphere could be the swan song that was foreshadowed the moment the PS3 launched. But, this flawed, yet inspired, game could very easily be proof that the PS2 still has staying power left in it. Swan song or not, the 2D beat-em-up is a genre that has been slowly fading out, and Odin Sphere does an amazing job of reminding us what an amazingly experience it really can be.