Odin Sphere starts off with a somewhat unassuming premise: a little girl named Gwendolyn and her cat Socrates are in her bedroom one afternoon when Gwendolyn picks up a book at her feet about Valkyries. As it just so happens, the main character of the book is also named Gwendolyn, who happens to be a Valkyrie and the daughter of Odin. Apparently, Odin and his forces are engaged in a large scale battle against the Vanir and the Fairy Queen for control of a celestial cauldron that will provide an unlimited amount of power. Unfortunately for Gwendolyn, her fellow Valkyrie and sister Griselda is mortally wounded by a warrior known as the Shadow Knight and dies in her arms. Before Griselda passes, she bequeaths her magical spear, known as a Psypher, to her sister.
The Psypher is an interesting item, because it absorbs the souls of the fallen from the battlefield, known as Phozons, and transfers their energy into two separate gauges. One is used to strengthen the Psypher itself, making it much more effective in battle whenever you land a blow or a combo. The other gauge determines the amount of magical power that Gwendolyn has available to her, which she can then use to trigger spells that sweep across the battlefield. This is important because Gwendolyn will be swarmed by multiple enemies from all sides, including aerial attacks, and sometimes casting a spell is the easiest way to give her some breathing room to counter incoming blows or use an item.
Even the items in Odin Sphere take on a multi-faceted approach, because just about everything has a dual purpose. For example, healing items not only restore Gwendolyn's energy, but also provide her with experience to increase her total health level. Other items, like seeds, can be used as a defensive precaution before fights. As the battle is waged around you, the plants that sprout from the seeds will provide Gwendolyn with additional healing items or souls that can be used to replenish her magical energy. This can be especially helpful when you've exhausted your spells on the previous stage and haven't managed to absorb enough souls for the impending attack. Or perhaps you need to inflict area damage on a group. Players can use items like Napalm or Toxins to set targets afire or poison them, weakening the affected for a finishing strike. The faster you manage to eliminate enemies, the larger the bonus you'll receive at the end of a stage, which can provide you with various materials that you can then use to craft spells or create additional items.
While we have just barely gotten into the adventure, it appears that the game will be somewhat lengthy, with at least 5 different playable characters available in the game. Along with three different difficulty levels and the option to play the game in either English or Japanese, Odin Sphere looks like it would appeal to most action and RPG fans. However, even players that aren't fans of those two genres will probably be impressed by the visual style of the game, which appears to take large 2D animated hand drawn sprites and places them in striking environments. This really is one of those titles that you need to see to grasp how remarkable the art of the game is. Fortunately, we've got four brand new movie clips of the game in action for you. We'll have more on Odin Sphere shortly.