Albert Odyssey : Legend of Eldean is a Sega Saturn game developped by Sunsoft that was released in NA on July 1997. It was localized by Working Design, known for localizing other great game (especialy RPGs) in english on different console. There is two other Albert Odyssey that came out before on SNES. These were tactical RPGs instead of turn base like this one. AO is another game that I played when I was a teenager. I can't remember if I had finished the game, but I know that I have some good souvenir and I liked it in the past. It is not a RPG that has revolutionized or bring any new gameplay elements. You cannot be more classic than this game, but it's a game that you can do and enjoy pretty easely.
Story :
You play as Pike, a young boy found and raised by a group of harpies. With you, they found a magic talking sword called Cirrus that speak for you since Pike is one of these heros that does not speak in a RPG. So one day, the harpy village crystal is stolen and a friend of yours is petrified by the ennemy. Then your quest begin to find a priest who will be able to cure your friend. So over your adventure you will learn that an evil emperor try to take over the world and overtime you will find different allies that will help you to destroy him.
Nothing big here and pretty straight foward. It's not a great or bad story. It is enough so you can continue to play even if sometime, some mission or event that you have to do seem like they were not very necessery to the story. They just sometime happen and finish really fast and then you do : '' Meih!? That's all...? Ok, fine...'' All in all, some events could have gone a little deeper.
But the cool thing is that when you think you have finished the game a new adventure begin. (Yeah, I just spoiled you a little about the game, but I know you will not play it so it's fine ;) This new adventure begin with almost all your old crew. Again, you have to find and kill a bad person that you briefly saw in your last adventure.
Game Play :
The battle system is pretty simple. It's turn base, so each player and ennemies wait for their turn, determined by the agility. Then you has to choose if you want to attack, defend, use skill/magic, item or run...pretty simple huh? As for the magic and skill, they are unlocked after getting a certain level. Nothing complicated here either. Even if the combat are simple, for me there are one of the best type they can be. But I must admit that in Albert Odyssey, loading time kill me a little. When you enter a combat or when a ennemie die, you have to wait some seconds that seem to last forever.
Outside battle, you have all the basic of a RPG. Villages, a world map and dungeon to explore. This last one are pretty straigh foward and not long to do. One thing though that annoyed me in the game are the monster encounter rate. I hate that when just after a combat, you do two steps and then get another fight! Dammit! Let me walk a little for god sake!
Graphic :
The graphics in this game are really nice. The town, dungeon or castle sprites are top notch. The characters sprites are also well made and detailed. In a battle, the combats animations are nice to watch and reaaly done well. They've done a great job on that game.
Music :
The music in this game is very nice. All was made with real instrument, it is not something that you were hearing a lot at the time. Even thought the music is good, I don't think it is something that you will listen often outside of the game.
Overall :
Albert Odyssey is a nice game for those who want to play a good old style RPG but with better graphics and animations. It is a simple and no brainer game with a story who is very easy to follow.
This is until you reach the goddamn last dungeon! What the heck there were thinking on that!?! Earlier I was questionning myself if I have finished this game in the past. After passing some time in the last dungeon, I remembered rage quitting it in the past. It is such a maze with teleporter and all that shit were you can just turn around for hours. Even in the past people were calling in lot at Working Design to know what to do, so they made a Walktrhrought to help peoples to do it... and that's what I've done. meih...
Awesome :
- Simple turn base system
- Awesome 2d graphic and animation
- Nice humour
Meih... :
- Loading time in combat
- High encounter rate
- The last dungeon!
Here a Gameplay video by RyviusRan :
