Flying in the face of modern industry trends, Odin Sphere adopted a strict two-dimensional sprite-based approach and managed to stir up enough interest to help it in staging something of a minor coup. Gone are the rough pixellated, quick and dirty gradient-shaded sprite jobs of yesteryear. This is 2D, but it’s 2D grown up.

Massive hand-drawn sprites dominate the screen, each filled with incredible detail and painstaking attention poured into every animation. In turn they populate a world of rich detail, each setting looking nothing short of absolutely gorgeous with a deep and varied colour palette. Gone are the virtually static backgrounds. Instead the environments are constructed of layered sprite work so as well as having trees bending in the wind, sunlight filtering through the tree line and shooting stars streaking across the rotating purple-hued sky, the forefront of the screen is also covered in swaying plants alive with movement or swirling mist and fog. When combined, the style and quality raises it up to look superior in both imagining and substance than the vast majority of high-powered, High Definition games. But it has certainly taken time, effort and dedication to craft such a visual triumph.

Its creators, Vanillaware, last produced The Princess Crown for the Sega Saturn a whole decade ago. On seeing the level of detail and care ploughed into Odin Sphere’s visuals it isn’t too far stretched to believe they’ve been working on nothing else for the last ten years and witnessing the purity of it in motion it’s understandable that every bit of dedication and determination was poured into producing such a high-quality sheen.

Sadly there is a downside to all the splendour in that the sheer amount and size of the things on display can lead to some pretty extreme slowdown. Most evident during the boss fights due to their larger and more-impressive sprites, it’s is sadly the price to pay for it looking so good.

While it would be effortless to fill the rest of this review with examples of how good Odin Sphere looks (have we mentioned that yet?) there is also a game underneath the polished veneer.

Told in a similar way to The Princess Crown the game follows the stories of five fantasy characters, as read by one little girl who is accompanied by her cat, and aided by one incredibly comfy-looking chair. It’s a charming NeverEnding Story start to a classic and sometimes dark, but always entertaining, tale of love, honour and betrayal. The story of each character is split into a separate book and while each is a standalone adventure, all need to be played to truly understand the events of the game in their entirety. Despite being well scripted and with some uncharacteristically good voice acting, the downside to this heavily interwoven story is that some may tire of the repeated environments which are seen time and again over the different stories.

Every book consists of chapters which follow a set pattern of a beginning (the back story for that chapter), middle (traversing the stage and the boss fight) and end (the closing story for that chapter). The middle sections are split in to a number of rings (stages) and each one contains a set number of enemies that need to be defeated before the exits open allowing the player to move on to the next. Rather than simply having them scroll from left to right and stopping at an invisible impasse, as their name suggests, each ring folds back on itself so that running in one direction will eventually lead you back to where you started. At first this feels odd but it soon becomes second nature and allows for tactically taking out enemies, avoiding attacks and best of all prevents the age-old nuisance of enemies pinning you up against an invisible barrier and draining your health.

Although each character has a different weapon and slightly different moves, attacking is always a case of hitting the Square button, while holding it down defends. That isn’t to say that it’s possible to mindlessly hammer the attack button to clear a stage. Despite appearing to be a side-scrolling beat ‘em up, the game makes it painfully obvious very quickly that this tactic will get you killed in next to no time. Instead players are required to attack, defend and retreat, with the help of the radar in the top of the screen used to track enemies across the ring, breaking down groups before picking them off in smaller chunks whilst using magic and items to gain the upper hand. This is reinforced by the inclusion of a POW bar which becomes depleted the more you attack and the longer you defend. Should the bar drop all the way down the character will become dizzy and totally exposed, with opponents always quick to take advantage of any opening. Restrictions aside, forcing a large number of enemies, particularly those twice your size, into submission tinges combat with a real sense of accomplishment.

Defeated enemies release energy called Phozon which can be absorbed to power up the character's weapon or, if necessary, quickly recover part of the POW bar. Collecting enough will also allow the player to cast spells to regenerate health or release magical attacks. Phozons are also used to grow seeds that can be planted in each ring, with different types requiring a different number of Phozons before their edible life-restoring fruit ripens to maturity. All this means that there is a constant need to prioritise what you do with Phozons.

A heavy part of Odin Sphere is the item management, something the player will find themselves doing a lot. And when we say a lot, we mean a load. A dumper truck-sized load. There is only limited inventory space but a plethora of items to be gained by defeating enemies, opening chests or clearing each ring. While coins can be used to purchase additional storage bags and make things easier, it is always a constant balancing act between hoarding those items which may come in handy and selling, using or just discarding others. The bulk of the time will be spent combining the base potions of Material with various seeds, fruits and other items to concoct flasks of potions for healing, warding off elemental effects such as extreme heat and cold, or increasing attack power.

Later when the player unlocks the Restaurants and Cafes these throw another set of balls at the juggler, since certain ingredients can be combined to create meals. While eating enough of any food increases your Hit Points, meals are much better than the odd berry or carrot so there is always an incentive to collect as many ingredients as possible. Again the item management comes into play as these eateries can only be accessed at the start of each chapter.

Given the increase in power from some of the items, giving the characters' pockets of infinite depth would have unbalanced the game but this heavy emphasis on item management will no doubt alienate some. For those not immediately put off by this aspect the introduction of a quick access button goes someway to speeding up management and making it more approachable, but the need to continuously re-jig the inventory over the course of the game will inevitably become tiresome.

Odin Sphere is a title that doesn’t take kindly to preconceptions and that is very particular in the way it wants to be played. Screaming 'niche' in its steadfast approach to do things its own way in everything from the visuals, its approach to combat and the RPG elements and its refusal to slim down on the item management emphasis, at heart and despite its appearance it is undoubtedly a classic RPG. The overall result is that it’s unlikely to create a mass resurgence in 2D gaming, let alone recoup the time and costs it took to develop it.

Sadly this means it may be a further decade before we see another game like Odin Sphere, if indeed we see one ever again, so the opportunity should be taken to experience what can only be described as a flawed masterpiece and one which will undoubtedly be as fondly remembered as its predecessor.