I just finished a session of Odin Sphere. This game absolutely punishes you to death again and again if you attempt a single button mash!! It's refreshing to play a game that finds ways to prevent you from button mashing, especially after recently finishing kingdom hearts 2 - a fun game due to its setting and vibe, but in terms of skill and challenge, well that stuff is just not required for that game.

So with Odin Sphere, finishing a level (especially any of the boss levels!!) makes you feel like you achieved something with your thinking, planning and strategy, to a level which is quite unique to the real-time action RPG Genre.

I'm still early into the game - about 8 hours or so, but so far the story telling is fresh and amazingly well crafted. The voice acting is superb with Japanese audio and English subtitles. It is terrible with English voice acting. Its like watching a quality anime series but getting to actually play and plan your battles in real time - definitely my thing indeed!

I'm seeing that there might be some issues with the inventory system later on in the game, as I am already finding sorting through the inventory to be a little sluggish at times. Things like this are very easy to forgive because of the ridiculously detailed lush and smooth illustrated animations that are spilling out of the screen here. Graphics, sound and music are top notch here. Really goes to show how much 3d graphics stalled the progression into truly detailed graphics such as this (another game that deserves a mention here is diablo II, 2d and absolutely beautiful).

I'm yet to find out how the rest of the game fares.. I have a good feeling about this one :)

I'm currently playing through Okami in bite sized chunks before I go to bed. That brush art style is one of the most wicked things I've seen in a game. It really does transcend the standard looking graphic effects you see in games even upto current gen. The upcoming Prince of Persia is a close contender.

The cool thing is, when standing still at just about any angle and any point in the game, it looks uncannily like a watercolor painting, a breathing watercolor painting that is. Anyway, heres hoping I get to the end of this game. I think it deserves my time!

I just have to make a quick note that this is one of the best websites ever made, and I'm totally loving it!

Power to the people, its an ideal situation in a small corner of the universe, lets keep it this way for as long as possible :)

This is definitely the best homage to games ever created on the internet.