Whether you’re armed with Oswald’s sword or Mercedes’ bow, murdering ice trolls and salamanders always feels fluid and natural. Every character is responsive to your button-presses and stick-nudges. Moment to moment, Odin Sphere is a 2D beat-em-up in which you string together slashes, aerial juggles, slide-kicks, and so forth until the screen is awash with wind and flame. Structurally, Odin Sphere is a role-playing game: you level up as you play, and spend skill points on new magical abilities, and upgrades to abilities you have already unlocked. Yet Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is largely successful at fending off monotony, engaging you with its action-packed combat, and by keeping battles short and sweet, much like Gwendolyn herself. This entails a certain amount of repetition-you see the same characters from new angles, while traversing the same areas and encountering the same enemies. The five main chapters, as well as the ones you might unlock if you’re industrious enough, wind in and out of each other, lending new perspective to previous plot points. And so it goes from beginning to end, introducing you to, among others, a prince turned into a bunnylike Pooka a troubled survivor trying to prevent the very end of the world and the queen of the netherworld, whose spitefulness makes that of Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent pale in comparison. Regardless, it’s the kind of romance you see in musical theater or in opera, where all it takes is the space of a song and a few coy gestures for you to be believe a couple has fallen in love. Such is the power of a colorful tale that only in retrospect do I wonder if Gwendolyn wasn’t suffering from some form of Stockholm Syndrome, given the nature of the romance she gets involved in. (Or perhaps on the winds of his own farts. Or consider her father Odin, whose cape flutters wondrously behind him on winds of unknown origin. You can’t help but gawk at the starry sky from Gwendolyn’s balcony, or at Gwendolyn herself, whose three-tiered dress in certain story scenes is the very essence of Disney fairy-tales. Developer Vanillaware’s trademark painted visuals do much of the work in this regard. The first chapter, starring the Valkyrie Gwendolyn, sets a whimsical tone for the game to follow, and its tale of improbable love and family tragedy is still my favorite of the lot. But like any softy, I am as swept up by the fantasy as I was when Odin Sphere was first released in 2007. One of the five playable characters, the fairy called Mercedes, makes an insufferable squeak when performing actions like reloading her bow, and the recurring “blathering ingenue is forced to prove her worth” theme repeats often enough to get maudlin. Well, I suppose you might get a little cross. It’s too earnest, too kindhearted, too sweet for that. You can’t stay cross with it any more than you can stay cross with a bright-eyed puppy playing in dandelions. You could accuse Odin Sphere of too much telling and not enough showing, but its genuineness slips right past such criticism. Like in fables of yore, you can always tell who the bad guy is going to be, and love arrives with the chirps of bluebirds and the calls of trumpets. Odin Sphere Leithrasir tells five such tales, all intertwined into an overarching volume, each story glowing with heartwarming sincerity and clarity. Fairy tales are rarely complex, but from their simplicity grows profound truths that resonate with both young and old. If you're passionate about retro gaming or just want to learn more about it, then you should check out Retro Gamer. It’s quite simply the best experience you can have on Sony’s handheld. Japan Studio’s game is everything you want from a killer app: it offers stunning visuals, does a spectacular job of showcasing the PS Vita’s unique attributes, and is mechanically excellent. Not since Crackdown has the feeling of exploring presented so many rewards and it’s easy to lose focus from the main adventure as you explore Hekseville’s many nooks and crannies. It creates a wonderful sense of freedom as you explore the breathtaking city of Hekseville and complete quests for its memorable NPCs while looking for the tucked-away gems that will expand Kat’s health and grant her new abilities. Kat has the power to manipulate gravity and while it takes a little while to master, you’ll soon feel invincible as you run along the sides of buildings, propel yourself at enemies and even master the power of flight. Few videogame superheroes express their available powers as well as the main protagonist of Japan Studio’s sensational action-adventure game.
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