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Ahh, Odin Sphere. A brightly colored, interesting story-lined, ahead of its time RPG for the ages.

After checking out the game from my GameStop, I proceeded to run home gleefully, nearly frolicking with the anticipation of playing an RPG that had received such great reviews from my friends and co-workers.

This euphoria quickly ceased when I realized gloomily that I did not own a PS2 memory card. Sure, they are only a couple bucks for me with my edge card and employee discount, but that is a couple bucks more than I have! So, I decided to up the anti on my awesome RPG shenanigans: Now, I would have to beat the game without saving... Add a PG&E-conscious old lady/roommate to the mix, and this was a recipe for disaster. I had to hide the slim PS2 under an ancient, oh yes, telephone teddy bear; hoping that its furry rear would cover up the green light, hence keeping my energy consuming secret safe.

With the PS2 safely stored under Teddy, our cat successfully chided and warned with death if it knocked out any of the cables, and a few prayers, I planted myself on our comfy love seat, and began my Odin Sphere adventure.

I am no professional reviewer, so please forgive me if this is biased or just plain shitty. Basically, I liked it over all. Upon entering the game I was immediately intrigued with the animation and drawn ever so slightly in to the story line. There is a common theme of the loyal wonderful king being taken over by some evil demon, and therefore letting his kingdom go to shit; and somehow, no one seems to notice the change until some heroic warrior (in this case the kings' own daughter) comes in, and beats the king down until he eventually admits to being some foul creature.

There are multiple characters; all of them following the same path as the one before, but with their own reasons for doing so, and their own fighting techniques; they all revolve around, you guessed it, Odin Sphere. I was most intrigued with the very first one, Gwendolyn. She is the daughter and aforementioned hero and savior of the King, her father. Mainly I enjoy the idea that for these warriors, it is considered a disgrace to be too weak to fight, and their punishment is to be forced to marry a man and take care of him - Haha, a punishment indeed.

The game play is interesting and a little frustrating at times. Many of the moves require these orbs called 'Phozons' that only drop when an enemy is killed. I found myself constantly pressing R1, trying to suck them up with my piece of magical crystal, praying that I would get enough to use my special move before the enemies eventually reached me and kicked my feather wearing ass. Also, there is not a lot of bag space, and way too many items to fill up said bags. It was a constant battle of its own trying to keep enough space to pick up the next cool thing.

I never figured out the chickens. I would let a chick go, it would eat seeds, but eventually I would get tired of seeing it waddling aimlessly and smack it a few times with my Psypher - the weapon every main character wields that possesses the aforementioned special phonzon-sucking crystal - ultimately resulting in a dead chicken. I assume if I ever had enough seeds for it to actually eat, it might have done something cool for me, but seeing as I was trying to beat this game in record time, I did not have much time to play with chickens... or cook. There are recipes you can pick up to cook food in the local café. The food will give you health and XP; but I did not have the time or desire to hunt down all the ingredients I needed to create these yummy dishes. Though, I imagine it would be a very nifty part of the game had I had a bit more time, and a memory card, to enjoy it with.

All in all it was a very good game, and I am excited to pick it up again when I have a few more weeks to fully explore it.

So, let us call this a trial run. I now have a memory card, and the looming fear of someone turning off the PS2, or, god forbid, a power outage, is no longer in the back of my mind. I will also give myself two weeks to enjoy this next game. It must be said, one cannot fully enjoy an RPG in one week... hell, not even in two. But I will try my best for the sake of science.

Up Next: Dot Hack: Part 1: Infection

Happy gaming,

CnC

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