An Action RPG for the Play Station Vita developed by Game Arts and published by XSEED Games for localization in North America and Europe in late 2012.
The gameplay is simliar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series in that it revolves around teams of up to four slaying gigantic monsters and using the loot found to create new weapons and outfits, but the overall theme is set within the world of Ragnarok Online and placed in a more action-based drive than the MMORPG it is based on.
Taking place in a mercenary hold, the player joins the forces that must defend mankind from the threat of monsters taking over. As a fellow mercenary, you can either fight alone against the many enemies that you’d encounter through the Story Quests, or take them head on with three other players online. While there are only six available classes, the player will be allowed to freely switch between classes to determine a favorable fighting style for any situation. Weapons—both looted and crafted by the local Blacksmith—can be enhanced by the later to raise the damaging stats. And, true to RO-Style, Odyssey includes a Card System that may allow the player to effectively tackle any task—though, most cards will often have downsides—by installing them into their outfit of choice. In addition, players can tap into Dainslef Mode to get an edge in battle.
An Updated Re-release, entitled Ragnarok Odyssey ACE, was released on the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 in 2014. Added features include new dungeons, such as the town of Niflheim and the randomly generated Tower of Yggdrasil, a bonus chapter after the story mode, gameplay balances, and customizable Halomonas Weapons.
Ragnarok Odyssey provides examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: While outfits aren't given out as actual quest rewards, new ones can be bought/crafted using materials found on missions.
- Armor Is Useless: Slightly averted, in which the outfits themselves don’t have stats. However, the player can extend the amount of card slots available in a outfit, enhancing their versatility in battle.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Several of the Norse Deities that you’ll fight in-game. A note-worthy example is the flagship boss, Hrungnir.
- Battle Aura: Dainsleif Mode shrouds the player in a red-and-black aura.
- BFS : Sword Warriors usually employ this.
- Beam Spam: The Guardian Enemies make annoying use of this, especially in groups.
- Big Bad: Utgarda Loki
- Bonus Dungeon: The Tower of Yggdrasil in ACE, an area that has 200 floors up and down, filled with monsters and bosses, old and new.
- Boss Rush: ACE has The Prison of the Gods, added in an update, with courses of varying lengths and difficulties.
- Character Customization: All there, from skin and hair color to voices, and you can make later changes with the local stylist, Harald.
- Charged Attack: Each class has their own variation, but guaranteed to either Knockback enemies or cause significant harm.
- Co-Dragons: Fenia and Menia.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
- Beneficial and detrimental effects of cards are colored blue and red respectively. Also noted for most Red and Blue enemies, while Purple enemies are laden with the most dangerous ailments, ranging from attack/defense debuffs to paralysis and poison.
- While Green, Orange, and Brown enemies exist, they are relatively closer to nature and usually the employ for overcrowding battles.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Though subtle in the storyline, the fifth member of the Five Scales said to be seen where lightning can be found, and is not one to make angry. Cue shock upon learning it’s the quest distributor and outfit fanatic, Pavianne. Even more so, she works behind the counter because, according to Eadgils, it’s what best suits her. She took up the job for the Kafra outfit, but still wants to head out into the battlefield! She even lampshades this by telling you her talent: sensing gargantuan enemies. She’s the first one who will alert everyone in HQ when the monster approaches.
- Cute Bruiser:
- Bosses Fenia and Menia fit this trope to a T, cutely running after you with maces of pure destruction.
- And so does the fifth member of the Five Scales, outfit-fanatic Pavianne!
- Loli Ruri, from ACE, also applies.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: The intro
. - Dangerous Forbidden Technique: With enough SP built up, the player can access 'Dainslef Mode' during battle. It spikes up your damage, raises your running speed, grants unlimited movement actions and Super Armor. In addition, you gain life for each attack you connect...at the cost of HP rapidly decreasing. In addition to the Super Armor gained in this mode, the player is immune to status debuffs and ailments, but entering this mode with poison or burn still applied to the player can make for a very dire situation.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Look at the box-art. Look at the intro. This will be your life in the game!
- Your fights against the REALLY HUGE bosses start as this and you’ll have the chance to fight against them without the aid of the ballista!
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Mina goes solo against a group of Orcs, Mercenary HQ Leader Eadgils valiantly rescues her and they did not return the next morning!!—according to Eirik. Apparently, Eadgils would rather not recount said tale...
- Downloadable Content: Cosmetic items, music, and quests were rolled out each week for a while after the release of each game. With the exception of some headgear, it was all free.
- Dual Boss: Some later missions have you fighting two bosses at once. Common combinations include Orc King and Orc Hero, Hati and Skoll, and Fenia and Menia.
- Empty Room Psych: The Tower of Yggdrasil occasionally has floors that have no enemies in them. It can throw a player off when they've become used to monsters on every other floor, sometimes in cases where they show up and force the player to defeat them to proceed.
- Evolving Weapon: The Halomonas Weapons in ACE. By completing special requests for them, like killing certain enemies or completing certain quests, they grow more powerful and gain abilities.
- Equipment-Based Progression: While you do get a stat boost for completing each chapter, much of your progress will be based on collecting better cards and weapons and expanding your outfits to hold more cards.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Played straight with the Mage Class. Burning and Freezing are available to you as equip-able ailments, in addition to Poison and Bind.
- Flunky Boss: Some bosses, like the Orc Hero, Hati, and Skoll, can summon regular monsters to fight alongside them. Later bosses will also have regular enemies that spawn automatically.
- Gotta Catch Them All: One of the game's trophies require the player to collect all of the monster cards in the game. Thankfully, it only requires one of each type of monster regardless of rank. If it was every rank of every monster's card, the trophy would be practically impossible to obtain.
- Hero of Another Story: You can chat with other mercenaries at the fort, and they will sometimes regale you with tales of their adventures.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Several of the outfits that Rune can tailor for you fall under this. A good example is the Acanist outfit, with a part that's just floating in midair.
- Item Crafting: Outfits and headgear must be crafted from the loot you find throughout the quests of the game. Additionally, when you refine a weapon up to +10, you can dismantle it to obtain the weapon’s abilities and use them as cards.
- King Mook:
- Orc Kings are the kings of Orcs, naturally.
- Orc Heroes are the King Mook of Orc Kings, if that even makes sense. They have the exact same attacks and attack patterns as Kings, but have much more health, hit harder, and summon a swarm of Orc Chieftains every time they enrage.
- Lightning Bruiser: Hati and Skoll definitely fits this, especially when they can put you on ice and burn your HP away, respectively. The Orc King and much faster Orc Hero also make their mark here.
- Meaningful Name: Later in the game, Rune can tailor outfits which she calls “Twilight of the Gods” set.
- Microtransactions: Introduced in the Prison Of the Gods update, you can spend real money for additional tries at a special card album, or on some Too Awesome to Use items.
- Old Save Bonus: If you have a save from the original Ragnarok Odyssey, you can import your base characters and any non-Near, non-DLC cards into ACE.
- Play Every Day: For ACE, the Prison of the Gods update added daily quests and a bonus for simply speaking to Norn each day.
- Post-End Game Content: Some quests aren't available until you beat the final boss. ACE adds even more things, like a Bonus Dungeon and a Boss Rush, that you can't access until after the last chapter.
- Power Copying: In a way with the Cards—obtaining cards from enemies and bosses will usually have effects that reflect their fighting style.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Your gender makes no difference gameplay-wise.
- Randomly Drops: Every enemy and breakble object in Odyssey will drop items neccessary to futher your crafting needs, but Cards are definitely the Rare Random Drop. In order to get good cards, you'll find yourself doing a lot of singular-monster grinds for that right card.
- Serial Escalation: It starts with you killing common monsters and orcs, and ends with you going toe-to-toe with giants many times your size. ACE takes it even further, having you battle dragons, going to the spirit world, and eventually fighting the Lord Of Death.
- Silent Protagonist: Averted, as you can choose the voice of your protagonist. During battle, they’ll sometimes throw out a Battle Cry here or there, and while at HQ, you character gives out a voice while doing certain gestures.
- Socialization Bonus: The Near application can be used to send and receive cards and weapons to others. You just might luck out and get a very powerful one.
- Spoiler Opening: The opening features a Badass Crew going toe-to-toe against the looming Hrungnir, successfully fending it off from the Mercanary HQ until they get the cannon ready to blast it into glittering dust! ...but in the game, it walks off. Looks like the fight’s not over yet...
- Too Awesome to Use:
- In the original game, you have the ability to change your name once. Better make sure you like it after that change.
- ACE, along with the rename (which is a rare item now), adds a whole host of new items like this.
- The Mercenary book gives out rewards at certain completion rates. The catch is that the rewards are redeemable only once, ever, so only one character can get them. You have to delete your entire save file if you want to reset it.
- The Yggdrasil Flower gives you additional tries beyond the three you normally get. Sure, you can use it for a hard fight, but what if there's a harder fight waiting in the next mission?
- The Weapon Skill Tickets allow you to change a weapon's skills. Better make sure the weapon you're using it on is one you plan on wielding for a long time.
- The Outfit Expansion Ticket lets you increase an outfit's card capacity for free. Deciding which outfits to use it on might be some trouble.
- The Halomonas Reset Ticket reverts a Halomonas weapon to its base form. Deciding whether to use it on the one you messed up, or just farm for another can be challenging.
- Underground Monkey: Though there are quite a few enemies, most of them are Palette Swapped with status effects.
- Virtual Paper Doll: You can change your character's outfit and headgear.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: The Orc King at the end of the first chapter has much more health and hits like a truck, compared to the more manageable enemies beforehand. Hitting certain parts of the boss to get different materials and interrupting the boss' attacks are introduced here too, so this is the point where the game demands that you be patient and through.
