Odin Sphere/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Awesome Music:
    • Tunes like "Rise to Action and Invasion" or "Valkyrie March" really hit home.
    • The arranged tracks in the OST for Leifthrasir are downright gorgeous. Of particular note is the version of "Battle in Ringford ~Second Movement~" found on the soundtrack.
  • Complete Monster: King Valentine arguably qualifies as such (it really depends on how forgiving you are of his horrific actions, taking into account his tragic backstory.)
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The Wizard enemies in Titania Capital, who combine Standard Status Effects and their ability to summon more Mooks with Teleport Spam that effectively prevents you from hitting them more than once at a time. The "proper" way to combat a Wizard is to deflect one of their swords back at them to stun them -- but the game doesn't actually tell you this until you fight Beldor (a boss-caliber Wizard, wielding the same attacks cranked Up to Eleven), long after you've either figured it out for yourself or died trying. Hitting their swords back at them is easier said than done. It's easiest when they spawn swords right in front of them, but rarely will they actually do that, and there's usually so much stuff flying at you from all directions that even when it does happen, you probably won't be able to take advantage of it in time. And make sure not to hit the wizard at the same time you hit the sword, or he'll just teleport away anyway (if he doesn't take the sword in the face and then just instantly teleport just to be an ass).
    • Any enemy with a stomping attack is usually this. Bonus points to the guards in Titania (a.k.a. the "Butt Brigade") for appearing alongside the aforementioned Beldor boss fight.
  • Designated Villain: Odette. On the one hand, she's a massive bitch. On the other hand, all she really does in-game is try to enforce death's finality. She has even less ambition than Elfaria and, aside from Oswald's case, wouldn't come into conflict with the heroes at all had they simply stayed in the land of the living.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Ingway. Here we have a guy who let his sister get beaten and punished in his place and cursed all his country's residents for a painful eternity. Rather than atone, he blames his parents for everything and continues the tradition of making his sister miserable for years, not even hesitating to eternally curse and emotionally torment her lover. He eventually brings a different curse down on himself, but only for selfish reasons that endanger the entire world. With Odette gone at that point, he even dodges the full scale of its downsides. It's a good thing he's pretty.
  • Ending Fatigue:
    • Actually more like Game Fatigue. How many times are you willing to go through the same exact zones? How many times can you stomach fighting the same exact boss who has the same exact tactics? How many times are you willing to have the same story retold to you but through a different perspective? How many times can you put up with building a character up to a complete god but are reduced to less than a peon and have to start over because you're on the next chapter?
    • The Book of Armageddon, if you're going for the best ending. You need to see every scene possible, even the ones where you pit the wrong character against certain bosses. This requires a minimum of four playthroughs, although thankfully, you can cut the second and third short in the remake after beating the third boss without missing anything if you don't make any redundant character choices.
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: How about all five protagonists. This game caters to both the male and female gamer's fetishes.
  • Freud Was Right: Without his huge flail Odin's powerless... wait a minute...
  • Game Breaker:
    • The Adversity Ring is far and away the most powerful accessory in the game, capable of giving your characters a MASSIVE damage boost when their HP is low. Especialy considering it STACKS with the Overload spell.
    • Mercedes + Unlimited Power potion = Nonstop magical machine gun of pain.
    • Mercedes is even more broken in the remake, as she no longer needs to remain fully stationary to reload/recharge.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • The fireball and ice crystal enemies tend to pop up at the worst possible times during certain boss battles.
    • The animal ghosts in the underworld. Be sure to use Blizzard Potions!
    • The Wizard Eyes with the stun ray attacks. A tough boss fight is turned BRUTAL by those guys.
    • The fairies, whenever you're fighting against Ringford — flying, almost impossible to hit, and they fully heal whatever you're fighting. When you fight a boss that has fairies supporting it, you want to throw something straight through your TV.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Ingway.
  • Les Yay: Despite being half-sisters, Gwendolyn and Velvet really have their moments. Overlaps with Foe Yay when they are confronting one another.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Ingway, who manipulates with style, even as a frog!
  • Moe: Mercedes and Alice.
    • Gwendolyn has some moe traits as well.
  • Most Annoying Sound:
    • Mercedes's "Here we go!" about half the time when she reloads her magic bow (although some might find it cute).
    • Also, "Ah ah ah, bombs away!" from random attacking dwarves.
    • More annoying than either these? Four words: Merine and Merlunch's VOICES.
  • Player Punch:
    • To get 100% Completion, the player needs to unlock every cutscene. This means intentionally choosing the wrong order in the Final Book and watching the Bad Ending at least three times. If Myris's sobbing while the world collapses and the oceans are rising to kill her while asking why someone would choose this horrible fate hits especially hard. Fortunately, in the remake, you can cancel out once you've viewed the scenes you needed by saving and returning to the attic, so there's no need to actually watch the Bad Ending more than once.
    • Sending Mercedes to fight the beast of Darkova in the Armageddon book is guaranteed to make you feel like an asshole. Her fate in the good ending isn't much better, either.
    • Generally speaking, the unique False End cutscenes for each of the characters is a punch in one's gut. Both Darkova endings with Mercedes and Velvet make you feel even worse for them and Ingway, Cornelius's ending against King Gallon is pure Nightmare Fuel, and, depending one whether you face him with Oswald or Gwendolyn, you will either hate Onyx or somehow pity him.
  • Polished Port: So much so that Leifthrasir easily outclasses the original game in numerous ways and most class it as a Video Game Remake. 1080p, 60 FPS, numerous amounts of new or redrawn artwork that makes the game even more gorgeous, and a complete overhaul of the battle system that transforms it from a slow-paced action game into a much faster hack-and-slash (or shoot-em-up in Mercedes' case). It even fixes numerous issues like streamlining the leveling and food systems to be far less obtuse and bloated, to the point of getting quick food safe rooms throughout areas to level mid-dungeon instead of leaving the whole dungeon to go chow down. And in case one prefers the original Odin Sphere setup? Classic Mode has all the original game design intact.
  • That One Attack:
    • Onyx's inferno charge can cross the entire arena (twice) and leaves a field of damaging flames in its wake; in addition, Oswald can't jump high enough to clear it. Heaven help you if Onyx decides to spam it.
    • Brigan's grab attack isn't a One-Hit Kill, but it may as well be, dealing insane amounts of damage and dizzying you afterwards. Unless you've been chowing down with Gwendolyn to raise her max HP, if he grabs you, it's over.
    • Belial's inhale attack, where he attempts to suck the player in and eat them for a lot of damage. This usually comes after he's filled the arena with junk, so there's lots of things to hit the player as they're trying to run away and knock them backwards (and of course Mooks aren't affected, so they're free to further help knock them into Belial's maw). On the plus side, if the player managed to get far enough to get behind him, they can wail on him with impunity.
    • In Leifthrasir, the Phoenix Riders in Volkenon. There's an attack that they do that causes a pillar of lava to shoot out of the floor and send flaming debris everywhere. Since the pillar is almost as tall as the stage itself, expect a lot of rage if you get caught between it and the rider.
  • That One Boss: Another proud Atlus tradition.
    • Two words: KING. GALLON.
    • Any time the player squares off against the Three Wise Men, a boss-caliber Palette Swap of Titania's resident Demonic Spiders with the same Teleport Spam and attack methods (but channeled Up to Eleven). And that's not counting who they bring in to accompany them: Mercedes has to contend with two midbosses with An Axe to Grind and Death From Above jumping attacks; Oswald has to deal with three midbosses (minus the jumping attacks, very fortunately); and Velvet has to stare down a freaking dragon, all while fighting their respective Wise Man.
    • To a lesser extent, any time you're required to take down two Unicorn Knights or Berserkers.
    • As well as the sheer amount of lag when fighting Odette, Queen of the Dead, forcing much of the battle to proceed at an insufferable crawl, and that's not including when she knocks you across the room to start healing herself.
  • That One Level Titania Capital,for every characters.Oh God Titania...This level tend to come with some of the worst Goddamn Bats and Demonic Spiders in the game.It's pretty much quasi-impossible to beat without very good preparation
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: If the game takes place in a storybook, it might be too mature and tragic for a girl Alice's age. She seems to be okay by the end though, as she does say it's pretty sad, but doesn't believe it actually happened.
  • The Woobie: Each of the PCs get at least a little bit of this in their characterization, especially Mercedes. On the NPC side of things, there's Myris.
    • Belial. One of the characters with the most tragis backstories in the entire game. Dragons already have a hard time in this game, being universally feared and hunted by pretty much every sentient race, but Belial spends the entire game under submission by the Wise Men and forced to battle the heroes against his will. He even thanks Cornelius for mortally wounding him after their fight, since it allows him to finally be free from the Wise Men's control.
  • Woolseyism: Averted, oddly enough for Atlus. The game was a strange case where the seemingly Shakespearean dialogue was almost entirely the result of direct translations rather than adjustments. In fact straying from the original script was what made for awkward, toned down parts such as Mercedes's Rousing Speech. This might make it an Inversion.
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