History Headscratchers / OdinSphere

** "Nothing super special"? I wonder what you're comparing it to... Anyways, it had a very unique art ''style'' for a 2D game, unlike what most people would think of when they hear the word "2D" (usually it'd be something akin to the StreetFighter series' hand-drawn sprites and similar styles). And the other gripes don't really have much to do with the art style itself, but more with the game's level design and frame-rate issues...

* I was a bit puzzled as to why no one was taking the direct approach to stopping King Valentine. Many times in the story, he was narating his plans to use Levanthan as an instrument of destruction, in front of a psypher-wielder, and then said psypher-wielder would idly stand and watch as the mad king walked away with his future bringer of the armageddon. True, he was immortal, but if someone at least hacked off his skeletal arms he wouldn't be able to carry Levanthan around.

* Are the axe-soliders of the Aesir short humans or big dwarves? If they're not human, are all Ragnanival men so large, or is that we only see their massive leaders and captains? The Axe Knights of Titania are just as large, mind.

** To add some perspective to Mercede's ending, the final art of the great tree that sends its roots into the netherworld to be with Ingway implies they got a happy end of sorts as well, and Mercede's became a literal World Tree that enabled the world to flourish again.

*** ''Everything'' is animated, though, even most of the backgrounds. The colors are rich, the designs are stylistic, and especially for 2-D sprites, ''richly'' detailed; certainly moreso than the non-cutscene FFX models, at least, and they aren't prone to awkwardly clipping through solid objects the way polygon models do. Whether one likes them or not is a matter of personal taste, but from a purely technical standpoint, Odin Sphere's visuals maintain consistent levels of high quality; the average [=PS2=] RPG from that era has spikes of ''epic badass graphics'' in between wandering around mostly-empty environments.

** As for what the point of it all is, its to get the ending that allows life to continue when fate has made it very difficult to avoid complete extinction of everything. And even those who die are not gone for good, thanks to the system of reincarnation that is present in the game's world. By preserving even a few humans one enables them all to come back over time.

* Why don't Oswald and Cornelius ever figure out that they are each other cousins?

* As big as a fan I am of this game's story and characters, I won't deny there are some issues with the plot that I have. A notable example occurs during the Armageddon book. What actually happened to Beldor in the True Ending? The False Ends where either Mercedes, Gwendolyn, or Oswald have him stabbed in the back by Ingway while Velvet's Darkova ending has him wandering off after he discovered that Ingway dropped the scroll with Darkova's spell somewhere in the firestorm, but it's never shown what happens to him when Cornelius fights the Darkova.

** The endings bug me for a different reason: you go through all this trouble throughout this whole game, and for what? The world still ends! Only two people and--I was never quite clear on exactly how many--at least some of the Pooka (maybe just Velvet and Cornelius) make it, and that's it. The worst example of the [=PCs=] is poor Mercedes, who breaks her back in her story trying to learn how to lead her people, and then just as she's getting the hang of it, everybody dies, rendering her CrowningMomentOfAwesome victory over Odin nothing more than a NiceJobBreakingItHero. I think Alice even says something to the effect of the ending being nothing but one big downer. And it's not that I'm against sad endings as such, but this is about a hair's-breadth removed from straight-up ShootTheShaggyDog. YMMV, obviously, but it didn't even feel like it jibed with the tone of the rest of the game to me.

** Answered! According to a thread at Cosplay.com, those wings are magically animated parts of a Valkyrie's armor. The cosplayers on the thread determined this from deciphering the Japanese notes written in the character sketches for the game. [[spoiler: If the wings are not part of Gwendolyn's body, it would thankfully mean that having those wings destroyed during her fight with Leventhan means she's not actually crippled]].

* The endings bug me. Look, we know that the books are true (more or less) because of the good ending. However, we only have one scene from the author's point of view. That's when the merchant is talking to the camera and we see all the main characters walk or fly by, [[spoiler: Velvet's state indicates that it happens during the late game too.]] This implies that the author traveled to this time or this world and then came back and wrote about it. The problem is...how could the author write about the end of the world if [[spoiler: there were only four people left!?]]

** The endings bug me for a different reason: you go through all this trouble throughout this whole game, and for what? [[spoiler: The world still ends! Only two people and--I was never quite clear on exactly how many--at least some of the Pooka (maybe just Velvet and Cornelius) make it, and that's it.]] The worst example of the [=PCs=] is [[spoiler: poor Mercedes, who breaks her back in her story trying to learn how to lead her people, and then just as she's getting the hang of it, everybody dies, rendering her CrowningMomentOfAwesome victory over Odin nothing more than a NiceJobBreakingItHero]]. I think Alice even says something to the effect of the ending being nothing but one big downer. And it's not that I'm against sad endings as such, but this is about a hair's-breadth removed from straight-up ShootTheShaggyDog. YMMV, obviously, but it didn't even feel like it jibed with the tone of the rest of the game to me.
** How was [[spoiler: Mercedes' victory over Odin a NiceJobBreakingItHero? It only really meant that HE died in the end, and really, would he have mady much of a difference in halting Armageddon if he lived?]]
** Definitely YMMV, since I was expecting [[spoiler:something akin to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt as soon as the Myth/NorseMythology (particularly Music/RichardWagner) influence became apparent. Although I agree that it would have been nice to have Mercedes survive, it would have gone against the whole {{Gotterdammerung}} theme. Also, I get the impression that Velvet and Cornelius were the only Pooka to survive.]]
** Well, since [[spoiler:it was EarthAllAlong, before the beginning, it explains why TheMagicGoesAway.]]

* Why don't Oswald [[spoiler: and Cornelius ever figure out that they are each other cousins?]]
** Oswald himself states that he never knew his birth parents, and the sole point that [[spoiler: he's of Titanian Blood]] only comes about during the end of the world. As for Cornelius, it's likely that Edmund only told him a little bit about his uncle Edgar, [[spoiler: whom is Oswald's father]], given that Edgar abdicated long ago. Besides, if you notice, they never cross paths in their stories, and by the only time they do show up in the same scene, Oswald's passed out from pushing himself to save a falling Gwendolyn, and Cornelius is still on the mend following his fight.
* As big as a fan I am of this game's story and characters, I won't deny there are some issues with the plot that I have. A notable example occurs during the Armageddon book. [[spoiler: What actually happened to Beldor in the True Ending? The False Ends where either Mercedes, Gwendolyn, or Oswald have him stabbed in the back by Ingway while Velvet's Darkova ending has him wandering off after he discovered that Ingway dropped the scroll with Darkova's spell somewhere in the firestorm, but it's never shown what happens to him when Cornelius fights the Darkova.]]

** Definitely YMMV, since I was expecting [[spoiler:something akin to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt as soon as the Myth/NorseMythology (particularly Creator/RichardWagner) influence became apparent. Although I agree that it would have been nice to have Mercedes survive, it would have gone against the whole {{Gotterdammerung}} theme. Also, I get the impression that Velvet and Cornelius were the only Pooka to survive.]]