Last week, we started our look at Albert Odyssesy: The Legend of Eldean, a traditional JRPG for the Sega Saturn. The story was pretty solid, if a bit uninspired, and the characters were much the same. But what about the gameplay?
Well, for the first time in what feels like a long time, I think the gameplay pretty much matches the story in terms of quality. AO was absolutely in line with exactly what you would expect from an RPG that came out in the middle of the 5th generation: gameplay with firm roots in the 4th gen with the console's newfound power used more to make the world bigger and bolder. If the story here was almost directly in line with a traditional JRPG, then the gameplay pretty much traces that line directly. With almost not exception, AO is about as typical as a typical JRPG can be in terms of party growth, combat and exploration. That may come across as a negative, and it may be in some respects, but I actually think it's quite positive as well.
Simply put, this is the kind of game I would like to see a little bit more of nowadays. There's no attempt to reinvent the wheel, no compulsive need to fix what's not broken that leads to a miserable battle system, no unnecessary handholding that negates any and all difficulty. This is just a good, solid, RPG that stays true to the core mechanics of the genre and does it well. Frankly, it was a few impossible to ignore technical issues that pulled the game down from very good to merely pretty good, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. But even with those issues, AO was a bit of a refreshing return to basics from modern RPGS that, in many respects, don't actually feel like RPGs at all.
Perhaps the most "standard" part of the game is the combat system, which offers straight up, no frills turn based combat. There's no ATB, no Press Turn Icons, no action elements, your character attacks when it's their turn, the enemy attacks when its their turn and that's all there is to it. You can attack, defend, use magic or special abilities, use items and run, that's it. There aren't even any secondary mechanics like double team attacks or character transformations or anything like that. And you know what? That's kind of nice. Would I want every RPG to have a simple battle system like this? No. But is it nice to have it occasionally? Yeah, it is. For the most part it's well executed, everything does what it says it's going to do, nothing feels cheap or unfair and things like enemy weaknesses tend to be very logical. There is a nice enemy variety as well, though I do wish your characters were a little more varied.
The setup of your characters is one of the biggest strikes against AOs combat, as I felt their skillsets were unintuitive and the balance of their attacks was incredibly off. Take Gryz, our resident Dragon Man, for example. He is clearly set up to be the physical powerhouse of the team. He hits hard, he tanks damage, he's your stereotypical RPG knight, just green and scaly. However, he also learns a myriad of breath attacks, as one might expect from a dragon. These are party wide magic spells, which sounds cool, especially in a game where partywide attacks aren't common. But the problem is, his magic stats are so low they are almost never worth using. At least the offensive ones aren't. Gryz also learns healing breath, which is the only, and I repeat, the only, way to heal your whole party at once in the entire game. So yeah, you are going to use that a lot. That all leads to an incredibly disjointed character that makes little to no sense on its own. But when combined with the construction of the party it makes even less sense. Amon, the Birdman, is supposed to be the high speed/evasion character. Usually, this is the character that would learn those multi target spells that he could use at the cost of losing some raw damage output. But he only gets one special attack and while it is multi target, it's the only one he will learn for the entire game. In addition to limiting his use, it also makes him incredibly boring. Eka, Leos and Kia are all magic users and their offensive spells are great. But none of them has a way to heal the whole party and the majority of the debuffs they learn are completely useless. They also hit very hard physically, like, way harder than your magic user should. Pike is an okay hero character, but the way your party performs in battle is just odd. I should also mention, this is one of those games where status effects do almost nothing, so you are typically relieved when an enemy tries to put them on you.
The biggest strength here is the dungeon design. AO offers a bevy of tough but fair, labrynthian but not cryptic dungeons for the party to explore and spaces them out very well. Almost every one is the perfect length, you can beat them in a few minutes if you just sort of book it to the end but it will take longer to search for treasure. Of course, it's highly rewarding to do so, you almost always find good equipment in dungeons and it saves you a lot of effort in trying to buy new gear. This is one of those games where you are pretty much always broke, so it really is worth it to try and explore to get as much powerful gear as you can. Most of these dungeons have some level of gimmick or puzzle and almost all of them actually add to the experience. At worst they are inoffensive, and very rarely will you be stuck in a room getting constantly attacked while you try to figure them out. The encounter rate as a whole is very fair, especially considering when the game came out. You will get into just enough battles that you will be challenged and be on level, but not so many that you will groan as you get into an encounter every three steps.
The world map is pretty good, it is a little empty but it's well laid out and you will never be confused as to where you are supposed to go. There aren't too many transitional areas, but the ones there are are okay. I'm fine with this, as the meat of the game really comes from the dungeons and they vary the lengths enough that the feel like different challenges. You have some cool towns here, some are a little same-ish but it's nice to explore an old school RPG town every once in a while. I also think they are spread out just enough that it feels like a relief when you find one, but not a necessity. As a whole, the pacing was pretty good, at least it was in theory. The actual layout of the game and separation between towns and dungeons makes for a great flow. In many ways, I would say it's almost perfect.
And that brings us to, what might be the single biggest issue with this game, one that greatly impacts both the pacing and the combat: the slowdown/load times. Now normally, a little slowdown isn't going to impact a JRPG, pretty much at all. I mean, most JRPGs don't really have slowdown at all save for the occasional cutscene load time, it's not like you are playing a shoot 'em up where there's a billion things on the screen at once. But here, the loading is constant and the slowdown is completely unavoidable, to the point where it felt like it added a full two to three hours to my playtime and no, that's not an exxageration. Every time you take an action in battle, and I do mean every time, the game stops for a full two seconds to register the input before performing the animation. This might not seem like a huge deal but believe me, it is absolutely huge to the point of being nearly game breaking. It wasn't so bad early on, but later encounters felt like they would drag on for an eternity because of this. The bosses are pretty excellent overall, they hit the perfect balance of challenge and fairness. But a lot of the later ones have huge health pools and the extra loading is especially noticable in those battles. It isn't just battles either. Entering houses, towns, other rooms in dungeons or just about anything else takes way longer than it feels like it should. Again, this is the kind of thing that doesn't sound like a big deal until you actually get behind the controller.
It's a shame too, because most of the game's other flaws are comparitively minor. There is a huge difficulty spike at the end, there is a lack of extra content, there is no variety in party construction, but most of these were simply signs of the times. I would have really liked the combat here if it weren't for the insane loading times and I think that was the biggest issue here. It was very clear that there was a lot of effort put into this game and the developers very much new what they were doing. Sunsoft wasn't exactly known for RPGs, but they were a quality developer and it showed here, especially with the presentation. I could also complain that AO didn't break any new ground, but not every game has to do that. I would rather them stick to the formula and do it well than try to shoehorn a bunch of stuff that no one wants into the game.
But where does that leave AO overall. In many respects, it's a very standard RPG for its time. Outside of the visuals and sound, it doesn't really excel at any one thing. But that's okay, it does a lot of things really well, both in the story and gameplay departments, and is absolutely worth checking out for fans of classic JRPGs. Those cursed load times really bring it down though and it really did feel like there was the opportunity for more. While it's absolutely worth playing, by no means is this a hidden gem from the golden era that deserves to be in the conversation about the genre's elite. This was a good, solid effort and it's a shame we never got another one of these games in the West. Because I think a followup could have really taken this series to the next level. As it is though, AO was a good, not great, offering that's worth checking out if you can, but not going out of your way to check out.
7.5/10
Well, for the first time in what feels like a long time, I think the gameplay pretty much matches the story in terms of quality. AO was absolutely in line with exactly what you would expect from an RPG that came out in the middle of the 5th generation: gameplay with firm roots in the 4th gen with the console's newfound power used more to make the world bigger and bolder. If the story here was almost directly in line with a traditional JRPG, then the gameplay pretty much traces that line directly. With almost not exception, AO is about as typical as a typical JRPG can be in terms of party growth, combat and exploration. That may come across as a negative, and it may be in some respects, but I actually think it's quite positive as well.
Simply put, this is the kind of game I would like to see a little bit more of nowadays. There's no attempt to reinvent the wheel, no compulsive need to fix what's not broken that leads to a miserable battle system, no unnecessary handholding that negates any and all difficulty. This is just a good, solid, RPG that stays true to the core mechanics of the genre and does it well. Frankly, it was a few impossible to ignore technical issues that pulled the game down from very good to merely pretty good, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. But even with those issues, AO was a bit of a refreshing return to basics from modern RPGS that, in many respects, don't actually feel like RPGs at all.
Perhaps the most "standard" part of the game is the combat system, which offers straight up, no frills turn based combat. There's no ATB, no Press Turn Icons, no action elements, your character attacks when it's their turn, the enemy attacks when its their turn and that's all there is to it. You can attack, defend, use magic or special abilities, use items and run, that's it. There aren't even any secondary mechanics like double team attacks or character transformations or anything like that. And you know what? That's kind of nice. Would I want every RPG to have a simple battle system like this? No. But is it nice to have it occasionally? Yeah, it is. For the most part it's well executed, everything does what it says it's going to do, nothing feels cheap or unfair and things like enemy weaknesses tend to be very logical. There is a nice enemy variety as well, though I do wish your characters were a little more varied.
The setup of your characters is one of the biggest strikes against AOs combat, as I felt their skillsets were unintuitive and the balance of their attacks was incredibly off. Take Gryz, our resident Dragon Man, for example. He is clearly set up to be the physical powerhouse of the team. He hits hard, he tanks damage, he's your stereotypical RPG knight, just green and scaly. However, he also learns a myriad of breath attacks, as one might expect from a dragon. These are party wide magic spells, which sounds cool, especially in a game where partywide attacks aren't common. But the problem is, his magic stats are so low they are almost never worth using. At least the offensive ones aren't. Gryz also learns healing breath, which is the only, and I repeat, the only, way to heal your whole party at once in the entire game. So yeah, you are going to use that a lot. That all leads to an incredibly disjointed character that makes little to no sense on its own. But when combined with the construction of the party it makes even less sense. Amon, the Birdman, is supposed to be the high speed/evasion character. Usually, this is the character that would learn those multi target spells that he could use at the cost of losing some raw damage output. But he only gets one special attack and while it is multi target, it's the only one he will learn for the entire game. In addition to limiting his use, it also makes him incredibly boring. Eka, Leos and Kia are all magic users and their offensive spells are great. But none of them has a way to heal the whole party and the majority of the debuffs they learn are completely useless. They also hit very hard physically, like, way harder than your magic user should. Pike is an okay hero character, but the way your party performs in battle is just odd. I should also mention, this is one of those games where status effects do almost nothing, so you are typically relieved when an enemy tries to put them on you.
The biggest strength here is the dungeon design. AO offers a bevy of tough but fair, labrynthian but not cryptic dungeons for the party to explore and spaces them out very well. Almost every one is the perfect length, you can beat them in a few minutes if you just sort of book it to the end but it will take longer to search for treasure. Of course, it's highly rewarding to do so, you almost always find good equipment in dungeons and it saves you a lot of effort in trying to buy new gear. This is one of those games where you are pretty much always broke, so it really is worth it to try and explore to get as much powerful gear as you can. Most of these dungeons have some level of gimmick or puzzle and almost all of them actually add to the experience. At worst they are inoffensive, and very rarely will you be stuck in a room getting constantly attacked while you try to figure them out. The encounter rate as a whole is very fair, especially considering when the game came out. You will get into just enough battles that you will be challenged and be on level, but not so many that you will groan as you get into an encounter every three steps.
The world map is pretty good, it is a little empty but it's well laid out and you will never be confused as to where you are supposed to go. There aren't too many transitional areas, but the ones there are are okay. I'm fine with this, as the meat of the game really comes from the dungeons and they vary the lengths enough that the feel like different challenges. You have some cool towns here, some are a little same-ish but it's nice to explore an old school RPG town every once in a while. I also think they are spread out just enough that it feels like a relief when you find one, but not a necessity. As a whole, the pacing was pretty good, at least it was in theory. The actual layout of the game and separation between towns and dungeons makes for a great flow. In many ways, I would say it's almost perfect.
And that brings us to, what might be the single biggest issue with this game, one that greatly impacts both the pacing and the combat: the slowdown/load times. Now normally, a little slowdown isn't going to impact a JRPG, pretty much at all. I mean, most JRPGs don't really have slowdown at all save for the occasional cutscene load time, it's not like you are playing a shoot 'em up where there's a billion things on the screen at once. But here, the loading is constant and the slowdown is completely unavoidable, to the point where it felt like it added a full two to three hours to my playtime and no, that's not an exxageration. Every time you take an action in battle, and I do mean every time, the game stops for a full two seconds to register the input before performing the animation. This might not seem like a huge deal but believe me, it is absolutely huge to the point of being nearly game breaking. It wasn't so bad early on, but later encounters felt like they would drag on for an eternity because of this. The bosses are pretty excellent overall, they hit the perfect balance of challenge and fairness. But a lot of the later ones have huge health pools and the extra loading is especially noticable in those battles. It isn't just battles either. Entering houses, towns, other rooms in dungeons or just about anything else takes way longer than it feels like it should. Again, this is the kind of thing that doesn't sound like a big deal until you actually get behind the controller.
It's a shame too, because most of the game's other flaws are comparitively minor. There is a huge difficulty spike at the end, there is a lack of extra content, there is no variety in party construction, but most of these were simply signs of the times. I would have really liked the combat here if it weren't for the insane loading times and I think that was the biggest issue here. It was very clear that there was a lot of effort put into this game and the developers very much new what they were doing. Sunsoft wasn't exactly known for RPGs, but they were a quality developer and it showed here, especially with the presentation. I could also complain that AO didn't break any new ground, but not every game has to do that. I would rather them stick to the formula and do it well than try to shoehorn a bunch of stuff that no one wants into the game.
But where does that leave AO overall. In many respects, it's a very standard RPG for its time. Outside of the visuals and sound, it doesn't really excel at any one thing. But that's okay, it does a lot of things really well, both in the story and gameplay departments, and is absolutely worth checking out for fans of classic JRPGs. Those cursed load times really bring it down though and it really did feel like there was the opportunity for more. While it's absolutely worth playing, by no means is this a hidden gem from the golden era that deserves to be in the conversation about the genre's elite. This was a good, solid effort and it's a shame we never got another one of these games in the West. Because I think a followup could have really taken this series to the next level. As it is though, AO was a good, not great, offering that's worth checking out if you can, but not going out of your way to check out.
7.5/10
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