What are you all playing?
Feb 28, 2024 23:45:45 GMT
Imperial Khador, stratogustav, and 2 more like this
Post by Cervantes on Feb 28, 2024 23:45:45 GMT
Albert Odyssey: The Legend of Eldean (SAT). It's a very standard RPG, literally zero gimmicks or unique mechanics: random encounters, turn-based battles with attack, magic, defense and items, no minigames, character customization is just weapon, shield, armor and accessory, attacks/magic either hit one enemy or the entire screen (no area attacks), no way to change the party formation or its characters. If you want a game that perfectly shows what is a "2d japanese RPG", this is it.
And here's the thing: it does all that perfectly well. Seriously, I thought it was just my nostalgia making me remember so fondly a game that sticks so close to the formula, but the game is really good and one of the best RPGs on the Saturn.
First of all, it excels in its visual style. See, this is the final hurrah of 2d RPGs in the 90s, so imagine something like Chrono Trigger with many more colors, much bigger sprites, more detail on everything and more frames of animation. It's like going from the 16-bit Contra games to Metal Slug. And I'm not just speaking on a technical level: the attack animations, the victory celebrations, the full party walking together around the screen, everything was done with a lot of care and personality; for example, when the mage character, Kia, goes for a physical attack, she trips up and hits the enemy with her cane while falling down. It's both cute, creative and well animated. There are also many effects on screen, especially while using spells, and the game does its best to use as many transparency effects as possible, something that was usually done in a subpar way on the Saturn - the very first village has the moving shadows of a forest, the overworld has many passing clouds and stuff like that.
A bigger jump is heard on the audio. The sound effects are clear and, when an attack hits, you can really feel it. But more importantly is the music, as most of it is an orchestral recording playing from the CD. While I might be overselling the game in many fronts, this is one aspect that I'm very serious about: the soundtrack is one of the best ever made. It was composed by Naoki Kodaka, who did the soundtracks for Blaster Master, Batman (NES and Genesis), Journey of Silius and other Sunsoft games that are known to have some of the best music on the NES. Now, imagine what happened when this guy could get real instruments to play his music. This is the first overworld theme (the violin is chilling):
The story is simple, but, first of all, it doesn't overstay its welcome, as the game is on the very short side for an RPG (I would say less than 20 hours even with thorough exploration). But relationships are well written and to the point: the hero even "gets the girl" halfway through the game, so in the second half they're clearly already a couple. Most importantly, Working Designs got a very fine balance on their translation, so the dialogue is both very well written, flows naturally and has a lot of humorous moments, including many spicy jokes (wait until a dominatrix villain starts flirting with the hero). They even toned down their usual pop culture references: besides an Indiana Jones and a Star Wars joke that were actually funny, there was nothing too out there. Almost every random NPC has something at least amusing to say, so it's interesting to talk to everyone in every town.
As for the combat, it's straightforward, but usually engaging: I'm at the final dungeon and never stopped to grind, which means it is well balanced; the bosses were usually hard, took a long time to take down and demanded my attention (especially since buffs/debuffs last for very few turns, so you have to usually decide if it's worth recasting them, recover HP or go for an all out attack). The first half of the game is on the easy side, then the very first boss of the second half gets a bit brutal and the following battles demand much more strategy - it's perfectly possible to grind if they're looking too tough, but let me reiterate that I could beat all of them, with my entire party alive at the end of every battle, just by normally exploring the dungeons and not running away from any enemies. But some later bosses really take 20-30 minutes to beat.
There are some obvious flaws, though. The encounter rate is insanely high, between 3-5 seconds between every battle, so exploration in some dungeons get a bit aggravating by the constant interruptions - and keep in mind that, according to the manual, this was toned down for the US release! One aspect of the combat, the debuffs, is almost useless due to the game showing no indication if the enemies are affected: not even a sleep spell will show any indication (the enemy won't fall down to sleep and there will be nothing on the screen indicating its status, it will just stop attacking). So, when I use a spell to slow down a boss or to seal his/her magic, I have no way to know if it worked and for how long, which is a HUGE flaw in the combat - I usually just stick to buffs on my party, as at least those have clear on-screen icons, and avoid using debuffs on enemies.
Although the graphics are detailed and beautiful, there's not much variation in the setting, so don't go in expecting to visit completely different places like when you change eras in Chrono Trigger; it's obvious that Sunsoft had a much lower budget than Squaresoft and it shows. Every cave uses the same tiles, castles/towers mostly change the color palette and some cities are similar to each other. This lower budget is also reflected on the size of the quest: as I said, the game is very short and lacks in extra content (there are literally only three small sidequests and only one of them features an unique boss fight - the other two are just extra dialogue scenes). When you finally get an airship and can freely explore the world, there's nothing to find: the new islands that you can reach are all completely empty. I think Sunsoft meant to fill these places, as one of the islands even has a small lake and a pier, but they probably ran out of time or budget. In the same sense, revisiting previous towns is a bit disappointing as the characters have nothing new to say even after the time skip between the first and second chapters. The game would benefit immensely from having a few sidequests on those islands and new dialogue in previous towns when the party gets the airship, as the world would feel much richer.
To sum it up, Albert Odyssey is a simple, charming game that does its job well while excelling in a few areas (well written/translated story, 2d visuals and sound), but also doesn't have the reach of a Squaresoft RPG from that era, which is probably why it remained so obscure.
And here's the thing: it does all that perfectly well. Seriously, I thought it was just my nostalgia making me remember so fondly a game that sticks so close to the formula, but the game is really good and one of the best RPGs on the Saturn.
First of all, it excels in its visual style. See, this is the final hurrah of 2d RPGs in the 90s, so imagine something like Chrono Trigger with many more colors, much bigger sprites, more detail on everything and more frames of animation. It's like going from the 16-bit Contra games to Metal Slug. And I'm not just speaking on a technical level: the attack animations, the victory celebrations, the full party walking together around the screen, everything was done with a lot of care and personality; for example, when the mage character, Kia, goes for a physical attack, she trips up and hits the enemy with her cane while falling down. It's both cute, creative and well animated. There are also many effects on screen, especially while using spells, and the game does its best to use as many transparency effects as possible, something that was usually done in a subpar way on the Saturn - the very first village has the moving shadows of a forest, the overworld has many passing clouds and stuff like that.
A bigger jump is heard on the audio. The sound effects are clear and, when an attack hits, you can really feel it. But more importantly is the music, as most of it is an orchestral recording playing from the CD. While I might be overselling the game in many fronts, this is one aspect that I'm very serious about: the soundtrack is one of the best ever made. It was composed by Naoki Kodaka, who did the soundtracks for Blaster Master, Batman (NES and Genesis), Journey of Silius and other Sunsoft games that are known to have some of the best music on the NES. Now, imagine what happened when this guy could get real instruments to play his music. This is the first overworld theme (the violin is chilling):
The story is simple, but, first of all, it doesn't overstay its welcome, as the game is on the very short side for an RPG (I would say less than 20 hours even with thorough exploration). But relationships are well written and to the point: the hero even "gets the girl" halfway through the game, so in the second half they're clearly already a couple. Most importantly, Working Designs got a very fine balance on their translation, so the dialogue is both very well written, flows naturally and has a lot of humorous moments, including many spicy jokes (wait until a dominatrix villain starts flirting with the hero). They even toned down their usual pop culture references: besides an Indiana Jones and a Star Wars joke that were actually funny, there was nothing too out there. Almost every random NPC has something at least amusing to say, so it's interesting to talk to everyone in every town.
As for the combat, it's straightforward, but usually engaging: I'm at the final dungeon and never stopped to grind, which means it is well balanced; the bosses were usually hard, took a long time to take down and demanded my attention (especially since buffs/debuffs last for very few turns, so you have to usually decide if it's worth recasting them, recover HP or go for an all out attack). The first half of the game is on the easy side, then the very first boss of the second half gets a bit brutal and the following battles demand much more strategy - it's perfectly possible to grind if they're looking too tough, but let me reiterate that I could beat all of them, with my entire party alive at the end of every battle, just by normally exploring the dungeons and not running away from any enemies. But some later bosses really take 20-30 minutes to beat.
There are some obvious flaws, though. The encounter rate is insanely high, between 3-5 seconds between every battle, so exploration in some dungeons get a bit aggravating by the constant interruptions - and keep in mind that, according to the manual, this was toned down for the US release! One aspect of the combat, the debuffs, is almost useless due to the game showing no indication if the enemies are affected: not even a sleep spell will show any indication (the enemy won't fall down to sleep and there will be nothing on the screen indicating its status, it will just stop attacking). So, when I use a spell to slow down a boss or to seal his/her magic, I have no way to know if it worked and for how long, which is a HUGE flaw in the combat - I usually just stick to buffs on my party, as at least those have clear on-screen icons, and avoid using debuffs on enemies.
Although the graphics are detailed and beautiful, there's not much variation in the setting, so don't go in expecting to visit completely different places like when you change eras in Chrono Trigger; it's obvious that Sunsoft had a much lower budget than Squaresoft and it shows. Every cave uses the same tiles, castles/towers mostly change the color palette and some cities are similar to each other. This lower budget is also reflected on the size of the quest: as I said, the game is very short and lacks in extra content (there are literally only three small sidequests and only one of them features an unique boss fight - the other two are just extra dialogue scenes). When you finally get an airship and can freely explore the world, there's nothing to find: the new islands that you can reach are all completely empty. I think Sunsoft meant to fill these places, as one of the islands even has a small lake and a pier, but they probably ran out of time or budget. In the same sense, revisiting previous towns is a bit disappointing as the characters have nothing new to say even after the time skip between the first and second chapters. The game would benefit immensely from having a few sidequests on those islands and new dialogue in previous towns when the party gets the airship, as the world would feel much richer.
To sum it up, Albert Odyssey is a simple, charming game that does its job well while excelling in a few areas (well written/translated story, 2d visuals and sound), but also doesn't have the reach of a Squaresoft RPG from that era, which is probably why it remained so obscure.