Aspect Analysis - Odin Sphere and the End of the World

in #gaming5 years ago

I am going to spoil the entirety of Odin's Sphere's end here. You have been warned.

That out of the way, end of the world plots are pretty common in video games, especially within the realm of RPG's. Usually, I'm more surprised when that isn't the focus of the plot by end game. Though through all my years of video games, no other game has made the coming end of the world feel as epic and grand as Odin Sphere. Now comes trying to explain why this works so well.

The first is the way the story itself is written. I mentioned this in my review of the game proper, but it's set up like the tale of a Norse or Greek myth of some kind. People don't really speak to normal people but in big meaningful prose and dialogue. Done well, which in this game it is, everything you come across seems bigger than in normal life.

To once again expand upon how big everything feels, you have the contrast between the way your playable characters are drawn and the way NPC's are drawn. Your playable characters are all normally proportioned and seem relatively normal in size. Compare that to the enemies you fight, which are massive in scale. Gwendolyn, for example, doesn't even come up to her father Odin's kneecap. The massive scale of many enemies in the game adds a lot to the atmosphere of the world and making everything feel so far beyond your grasp to really help you feel the impact of whats going on by games end.

A harder one to try to explain is everything leading to the end of the world are things you want to happen. For starters, the story of Gwendolyn. The latter half of her story sees her finally start to return Oswalds feelings. To this end, she recovers the Ring Titrel from the Faerie kingdom, and rather then give it to her father she returns keeps the memento that was originally given to her out of love. Then she saves Oswald from being enslaved to the Queen of the Netherworld by going there and slaying her.

The Ring Titrel allowed one to control the Crystallization Cauldron, which produced a limitless supply of Phozons, which the Faeries need to survive, and without that power leaves them vulnerable to the coming hordes of the Fire Kingdom. And the death of the Queen? That leaves a void to be filled, and a new ruler of the Netherworld to be crowned, King Gallon who would lead the dead of the underworld to attack the living.

See also, Cornelius. Wanting only to see his beloved, he is cast into the Netherworld and cursed. Upon his escape from the Netherworld, he also let's lose the King of Valentine, the true owner of the Cauldron. He causes not only the Cauldron to run amok, but uses it to unleash Leventhan, the Last Dragon. Every step of the way you wanted the things that caused the end of the world to happen, so once everything begins to fall apart you can't help but feel, as the player wishing for all these things to happen, at least partially responsible for what is unfolding.

Next up is how much you begin to care about the characters in the game, and how unfair everything befalling them feels. They are in a state where everything happening is beyond their control, with so many forces at work it is impossible for a good outcome. Even when plans are foiled, such as the deaths of the sorcerers who tried to orchestrate the end times, when the gates of the Netherworld are opened it is all for naught. You want to see these people succeed, for their own sake and the sake of the world at large, Yet despite that, the game has such a dark tone and the growing dread of the atmosphere, you can't help but feel there is a real chance some of these characters aren't making it out of this alive.

This last bit is a mix of design and Narrative, and the five final bosses you face, one with each character. You meet King Gallon at the beginning of Cornelius's story and are denied a look at him due to how horrible his body is, eternally rotting in the Netherworld. Once he finally gets free and controls the army of undead, he lives up to the description you got back then. He is a truly hideous monster and is genuinely uncomfortable to even look at.

Then facing off against Onyx, Lord of the Fire Kingdom. You see his demonic form, and you witness in the background the Forests of the Faerie Kingdom burning all around you, and Onyx himself on a desperate struggle to preserve his own Kingdom that has been swallowed up by the Ocean.

Then the final battle against Leventhan, The Last Dragon. A Dragon whose size is so great he wraps around the world itself. Even when compared to the rest of the game, the sheer scale of this dragon is unlike anything else you've come across.

Everything in this game is building to this finale. And everything hits all at once. Backed with some of the best visuals in gaming, the ending is built by giving the player five different plot lines to follow and seeing this unfold from all those different angles. You see everything that was building from the ground up, and with a game in which everything is made to feel big and grand, you get a climax that eclipsed everything else you have seen up until now.

You have witnessed the end of Kingdoms, the Death of the dragon race, eternal curses, yet once the Apocalypse begins all of these events feel small by comparison. And that is how an end of the world Scenario should be. This game truly treated it with a gravity that no other game has, and had the visual style and flare to create a perfect visual of ancient myths.

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