Odin Sphere - Reception

Reception

Prior to the release of Odin Sphere, pre-order sales numbers in Japan exceeded Atlus' expectations. Bill Alexander of Atlus indicated, concerning North American pre-orders, "They are good, and getting better. Buzz is really building around this game". Initial Japanese sales for Odin Sphere were reported by Media Create as 59,248 copies for its debut week. Sales capped out at 96,280 copies in the region by the end of 2007. Editors of Famitsu Weekly magazine gave the Japanese version a 32 out of 40 cumulative score, earning it the publication's Silver Award, with critics praising the title's graphics and "intuitive" controls, but also remarked that its difficulty was high and many areas of the game looked too similar.

Following its Western debut, Odin Sphere received an overall positive reception with an average critic score of 82% at Game Rankings and 83% at Metacritic. Play magazine awarded it a perfect score, stating that "In the case of Odin Sphere, confident that this is a perfect game, and that anyone who comes to it will derive the same," praising its 2D graphics, detailed storyline, and unique combat system as high points. PSM3 magazine called the title "an incredibly deep, incredibly detailed, spectacularly beautiful game--and it doesn't hurt that it plays like a dream, proving that gaming excellence doesn't necessarily require a third dimension." IGN's review also praised the game highly, highlighting the game balance and colorful visuals, and summarizing, "Simply put, this 40+ hour adventure, with multiple difficulty levels and extremely deep gameplay mechanics is one of the best RPGs to come out on the PS2 in a while."

The game has been criticized concerning the occurrence of slowdown when there are many enemies or objects on screen at once; GameSpot described this as "uneven performance" in addition to frequent load times. Charles Herold, videogaming columnist for The New York Times, echoed this sentiment, writing that "The elaborate graphics cause trouble when too many things are onscreen at once; some battles are so overpopulated with monsters that the game runs in slow motion." 1UP.com called this issue "Odin Sphere's one very glaring fault," but overall felt that it was "more than worth tolerating." This criticism was partially addressed in the European release with greatly reduced loading times and an "optimized for 50hz display mode". Websites such as Eurogamer also remarked that the game was prone to heavy repetition, stating that "While the immediacy of the action will grab all comers right from the off - the repetition, made worse by the game's difficulty and drawn out length, ensures that few who start on this adventure will ever finish it."

Odin Sphere became the recipient of several website and magazine distinctions, particularly during IGN's "Best of 2007" PlayStation 2 awards, where the game won Best Artistic Design, Best Story, Most Innovative Design, and Best RPG, and was runner-up in the PlayStation 2 categories for Best Original Score and PS2 Game of the Year, additionally earning its developer Vanillaware "Best Developer" along with GrimGrimoire, also released in 2007. In 2010, IGN would name Odin Sphere the 44th best PlayStation 2 game of all time as well as one of the top ten best looking games for the console. The game also became the winner of GamesRadar's "Pure Beauty" award during their Platinum Chalice Awards, with the website remarking that "The graphics here are so artistic it's hypnotic, if not literally breathtaking."