Like Mega Man 2 before it, Odin Sphere is a rarity in the video game industry – a genuine labor of love. The spiritual successor to the Japanese-exclusive Princess Crown, Vanillaware has been working on Odin Sphere, in one way or another, since its predecessor’s release in 1997. Nearly bankrupting the developer, the game has finally been released a full decade later, this time arriving on both American and European shores. An action RPG heavily influenced by the best in the beat-em-up genre, Odin Sphere is a 2D graphical powerhouse that feels like an unreleased Super Nintendo game. Though its old school charm and lush graphics make it uniquely appealing, the game is not without considerable shortcomings.

Graphically, of course, Odin Sphere doesn’t disappoint. Gorgeous, hand-drawn sprites populate a world ripped from the most beautifully illustrated storybooks. Characters are composed of smaller individual sprites – an arm, a torso, a wing – that each animate separately. It’s the same technique Bandai has been using in its 2D Gundam fighting games for years, and though it helps overcome the staggering prospect of redrawing every sprite in every conceivable pose, what works for giant robots doesn’t work so well for fantasy creatures. Though the sprites and backgrounds are stunning – unequalled on any platform in terms sheer detail – they animate rigidly, like very beautiful virtual puppets with visible strings.

Ripped from the pages of Norse mythology, you’ll initially take up control of Gwendolyn, one of Odin’s valkyrie daughters. Caught up in a war against the fairies, you’ll eventually uncover a prophecy foretelling the destruction of the world itself. You’ll travel through snow-covered mountains, dense forests, and into the depths of the underworld itself battling dragons, demons, and gods before finally completing the game. However, completing the adventure as Gwendolyn only marks the beginning of the experience. Odin Sphere also has four other playable characters, each of which has their own set of levels to play through. While each character’s storyline works as a standalone tale, their plots intersect with one another, slowly revealing more layers of the game’s complex narrative with each subsequent character’s journey. Every character – playable, major, or minor – is fully voiced by competent, if not always amazing actors.

Regardless of which character you’re controlling, you’ll spent most of your time viciously battling waves of enemies. Each branching, web-like level is comprised of many smaller stages. Each stage is circular by design, requiring you to first defeat all enemies in the infinitely looping space before opening the stage’s exit(s). Though the overall level progression is linear, you’re given a great deal of leeway within levels themselves, as often entire sections of a given level – boss fights included – are entirely optional.

Combat is a simple affair relegated to a single button. While each character has a unique special ability and a host of spells, you’ll mostly just mash the square button to chain together attacks and form simple combos. The beat-em-up-inspired combat is brisk and surprisingly challenging, but offers little depth. In fact, it quickly wears thin, especially as you begin visiting areas and fighting enemies you’ve already encountered with previous characters. Despite each character having their own unique storyline within the gameworld, the levels they visit and the enemies they fight, including many of the bosses, are nearly identical. Additionally, the sheer number of sprites thrown on the screen at times – be it a large number of smaller enemies or a massive, screen-filling bosses – slows the gameplay to a crawl, often dipping the framerate to the realm of near unplayablity.

There is, however, more to the game than just combat. Defeated enemies yield phozons, magical particles that serve both as an energy source for characters’ spells and experience for their weapons. By absorbing phozons into their psypher weapons, characters can increase their overall attack power and learn devastating new attacks, but in order to improve their health, you’ll need to do some gardening. Planting seeds and allowing them to absorb phozons will produce a variety of foods, from berries and apples to, strangely enough, sheep. Eating these raw foods both restores lost health and provides experience towards raising your HP level, and your total health with it. You can also combine foods with other foods or herbs and spices in a café or restaurant to make more powerful food items.

In fact, this sort of item combining serves as the basis for the game’s most interesting mechanic – alchemy. By defeating enemies or uncovering secrets, you’ll find a host of items that you can then combine to generate additional effects. The basis of this system hinges on material, a vial-like item with a corresponding level. The higher the level associated with the material, the better the item it will ultimately create. For example, by combining a level 0 material with a carroteer (a small, carrot creature), you’ll create a healing tonic; or by combining a level 2 material with a cubsbane (a sentient herb monster), you’ll produce a painkiller potion that halves any damage you might take for a brief time. Besides serving as a helpful way to cleanup your always-limited inventory, the alchemy system allows you to transform items that are no longer useful into powerful new consumables. Though it’s an interesting game mechanic, and fun to play around with, alchemy never really lives up to its full potential as each time you start a new character’s adventure, you lose all items earned during the previous playthrough and start over with nothing.

Though Odin Sphere doesn’t completely nail any of its individual elements, the game is almost worth playing based on its fantastic graphics and the developer’s sheer love for their creation alone. But, simply put, the game has problems. For nostalgic 2D gamers eager for the sort of title that just isn’t made any more, the game’s repetition and frequent slowdown are but minor complaints against an otherwise solid package. As a 2D beat-em-up RPG, Odin Sphere is the very definition of a niche title. It will certainly generate a rabid fanbase, and with good reason, but ultimately the game’s extreme repetition and shallow gameplay makes it hard to recommend to all but the most die-hard of 2D enthusiasts.