Retro gaming is an interesting topic for a lot of reasons. Original hardware? Ports? Remasters? CRT? There are so many ways for people to play them and everyone has a different preference. In this instance I played this with a friend using the PS3 Sega Megadrive Collection as one of the extra games. What really matters to me though isn't how you choose to play, but how the game holds up. Considering this game came out in 1987 (and is nearly as old as I am) I was actually impressed by a lot of it but after discussing with the friend I played this with after beating it we decided your enjoyment of Phantasy Star is probably going to boil down to an entirely binary decision.

With, or without a walkthrough?

You see this game is very much a product of it's time, and I mean no insult by that. It plays akin to an adventure game as much as an RPG meaning you have to find a lot of strange items in dungeons from very cryptic clues from villagers you talk to. Going through the wrong dungeons in the wrong order without the right items or knowing how and when to use them can mean you hit frustrating dead ends. Magic spells and items don't have descriptions and the localisation feels almost machine translated it's so wooden and clunky. Wrong pronouns and spelling errors abound!

Unless you want the original experience of mapping out dungeons on graph paper and trying to work it out on your own, I'd advise using a guide personally to get the most enjoyment out of it. Playing with a friend was like rally car driving with one person in control whilst the other gave directions. The dungeons themselves were impressive in some ways regardless, despite their repetition. Phantasy Star has this cool effect where the traditional top down view of the world map changes to a first person dungeon crawler. The view change for a Master System we found really impressive with the dungeons wireframe programming and perspective being something feeling more like a Megadrive game, (I also love the catchy dungeon theme).

The game does some other really neat things too, the character and enemy designs are really neat. Having a female protagonist is still rare in JRPGs now never mind in 1987. though the story is incredibly threadbare of Alis avenging her murdered brother by going to kill the evil king, she doesn't come across as some weak damsel in the few animated cutscenes either, she just gets the job done. Other party members follow you on screen as you move around and I loved Myau the space cat's animation as he runs behind you. A lot of the enemy designs and sprites are really unique too with Phantasy Star's heavy Star Wars influence at the forefront with robots, sandworms and Jawa looking enemies. Some of these have surprisingly fancy and varied attack animations that kind of show what the Master System was really capable of for an 8 bit system.

Honestly I was surprised just how much I really liked this. Yes engaging with it as you would have in 1987 on it's own terms in 2024 is a somewhat painful experience, but playing it with a guide to experience this sci-fi and fantasy mix is kind of a delight. The music is surprisingly great, the art design is good and overall it still holds up well still. All that said I wouldn't play it again, at least this version. I do want to try the Sega Ages 2500 remake at some point, just to see an updated space cat if nothing else.

+ Great art design and enemy sprites.
+ The first person dungeon crawling is a neat effect.
+ Surprisingly catchy music (if limited on tracks)

- Dungeons do all look identical.
- Extremely difficult to know where to go or what to do without following a guide, a product of it's time.

So this year I was going to make a conscious effort to work through my backlog. Buy less games, play more etc. That quickly fell apart in the first month however I've done decently at playing them so far and the Odin Sphere remaster Leifthrasir is one of the older PSN purchase I have yet to play . I decided it was a good title to finally finish on my 2024 games played list.

Odin Sphere is the third Vanillaware title I've played at the time of writing. The first was Dragon's Crown, a game I truly hated but perhaps approached wrong expecting a four player Guardian Heroes. The second was 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim which I utterly adored for it's keep you guessing sci-fi story. (First quick review I wrote on Backloggd actually) It's fitting then that Odin Sphere would sit somewhere in the middle between them as a game I like but with a lot of flaws preventing me loving it and hard to actually recommend.

So lets get the positive aspects out in the open first as this game does have a lot of good going for it. Firstly the artwork and animations are pretty stunning. Vanillaware is pretty famous for it's layered 2D art style and animations. The characters and enemies all stand out and the usage of colour and style makes it feel like a painting in motion. To carry on the presentation side of my positive compliments, the whimsical soundtrack is stunning. I especially like the theme song but it's all gorgeous wrapping up Odin Sphere into a great looking and sounding package.

I actually had to double check this was originally a PS2 game because even as a remaster it just doesn't feel like it. Equally it just doesn't play like it came from that console. The combat animations and battles are all so smooth chaining from moves to move. This isn't an insult to the PS2, it was an amazing system, just a compliment to Odin sphere's visuals and animations. When in combat the characters have a large amount of moves with more unlocking as the game progresses. It allows you to chain various moves and skills into large combos. Hitting a group of enemies into a huge combo with perfect blocks to keep the chain is initially really fun. I'm saying initially because this is where my praise of Odin sphere starts to breakdown a bit unfortunately. The game is based around five characters:

- Gwyndolin, a Valkyrie Princess.
- Cornelius, a prince cursed into a beast form.
- Mercedes, a fairy Princess.
- Oswald, an orphaned knight with a cursed sword.
- Velvet, a forest Witch.

Similar to Vanillaware's later title 13 Sentinels each character has their own story arc playing the game from different perspectives before a final chapter linking the full story together. In principal the idea is great. Vanillaware themselves proved this can work wonderfully as a concept. Here it is extremely flawed though. My biggest issue is there is no variety between each character play through. They have different moves, weapons and some unique skills on a couple of them but they are fundamentally the same. When you take that into account along with the fact that each one of them plays through the same 6 locations fighting the same 20 ish enemies and same bosses and no matter how gorgeous Odin Sphere is, and no matter how nicely it plays it just becomes tedious. You have to play all five scenarios to see the ending and by the 4th character I was just feeling burnt out of it all.

Perhaps because it's an action RPG there is a greater downtime between the story sections that could have kept the mystery going for me to want to push onwards but I feel the narrative behind the game overall just isn't strong enough to justify the multiple perspectives. There isn't a huge mystery that gets unveiled or a surprise twist. Each scenario explains a few things more but I didn't find any of it compelling. Everything around the multiple protagonist formula here undermines the story and the mechanics. Some of the story arcs on each character don't quite match with some odd reasons to make sure the character does visit the snow mountain or lava kingdom etc. Having a food resource cooking mini game for levelling is a neat little idea but gets boring having to save ingredients and feed each character as a core way to level them up every time. Exploring never has anything new on different characters, same levels, same equipment. This feels like a 6 hour game padded out to a 30 hour game and the fairy tale esq setting and lore aren't strong enough to carry that.

I hate typing this as I wanted to love Odin Sphere like I did 13 Sentinels. I am however grateful to it for being the game that put Vanillaware on the map, the game that is almost like a later prototype they built on. I'm glad I played it, it's well made, and looks and plays wonderfully it's just lacking meat on it's bones.

I wish you really could just grow sheep from trees.

+ Gorgeous art design.
+ Fun , fast and fluid combat system.
+ Pleasant whimsical soundtrack and great voice acting (I played it in Japanese).

- The game loop is extremely repetitive and the story cannot carry nearly the exact same content from a slightly different view point. Only one real negative but it's a big one.

King of Dragon Pass is that rare pleasure, a game that feels fresh and almost totally unique 25 years later. From a high level, it sounds like a strategy game crossed with an RPG: using a simple menu-based interface, you must lead your clan to prosperity over the course of decades, managing your people’s wealth, happiness, and relationships with your gods and other clans. Several times a year, you’re faced with a narrative event that requires you to make a decision as clan leader. Along the way, you’re helped by a group of clan nobles who offer advice and guidance.

But where most other games treat culture as something intrinsically narrative, in KoDP, culture is gameplay. Set in the rich fantasy world of Glorantha, every single one of the game’s systems is governed by the laws, customs, traditions, history and religion of your people, the Orlanthi. It’s a complex harmony of gameplay and worldbuilding where learning the game means learning about Orlanthi culture and fully inhabiting your role as a clan chieftain. In so doing it carves out its own genre, cultural roleplaying. It’s practically a crime that this game was such a commercial failure on release and has exerted such little influence on video games as a whole.

Full video review: https://youtu.be/VaLxvyMRXBc

Somehow five years have already passed since the last Yomawari release and besides the time passing too quickly, I enjoyed that game a good bit. Super atmospheric, a large world to explore, and some decent puzzles too. This one though? Ehhhh....

Atmosphere
The atmosphere is easily the game’s best point. It is quite literally the same as it was five years ago: limited lighting, grainy world design, absolutely creepy yokai roaming about, and ambient sound design in place of a traditional soundtrack. For the type of story being told here, all of this works in the game’s favor.

That said, I was a bit disappointed that there’s really nothing “new” to differentiate the feel from the last release. It uses the same audio and graphical assets, has a very similar world design, and somehow feels a bit more empty.

Game World
One of the things I praised in the last release was that large world with plenty of stuff to find. This game has some of that, but it doesn’t quite match the extent of the former and honestly, it became boring to have to trek across identical, empty areas just to get to the next story objective.

Gameplay
I won’t make the case that Midnight Shadows was super involved gameplay-wise, but I can’t help but feel that Lost in the Dark took it even further down. Most of the gameplay involves running around, picking up items to get you to the next area, and then repeating. In fact, the first two “dungeons” or whatever were literally me searching however many rooms for a key or other item, picking it up and bringing it to unlock or activate something, and then repeating that in the newly unlocked area.

It’s back and forth busywork and maybe I’ve become less tolerant of such gameplay over the years, but the last one had a bit of this too, it just didn’t feel like to this extent. When you do get to a cool part - the boss encounters - those last maybe a few minutes before you have to cycle through the next hour or so of searching and pressing your one button to interact with things.

Performance
I ran the game at 4k 60 fps with no issues to speak of, although the settings are limited to just simple window and resolution options. Controls are simple enough that you can get away with doing keyboard and mouse, but it plays way better on controller and that is what I opted to use for my playthrough.

Overall
I cannot in good faith recommend Yomawari: Lost in the Dark. The last game - Midnight Shadows - may have been fun enough, but this is somehow worse while adding nothing really new. Great atmosphere, but with the same assets. A large open world to explore, but nothing really rewarding to find. A decently interesting story, but matched with some seriously tedious gameplay that left me bored after just a couple hours. Maybe in a bundle or on deep sale - but for now it’s not worth it.