For a creature that's supposed to bring about the apocalypse and features a moveset full of One-Hit Kill attacks, baby Levanthan is surprisingly easy to deal with thanks to his extremely long tells and ease in which he's knocked down (one of said One-Hit Kill attacks even ends with him tripping and falling over all by himself).
Onyx, who otherwise hits like a truck and is difficult for anybody except Mercedes, is surprisingly vulnerable to the Ooze potion, which stun-locks him for as long as an Ooze is onscreen. Said tactic no longer works in the remake.
Awesome Art: As per Vanillaware tradition, the designs of this game ranging from the characters to the stage designs are absolutely gorgeous. The 2D setting makes it look like the game came out from a pop-up storybook.
Tunes like "Rise to Action and Invasion" or "Valkyrie March" really hit home.
The arranged tracks in the OST for Leifthrasir are downright gorgeous. Of particular note is the version of "Battle in Ringford ~Second Movement~" found on the soundtrack.
Complete Monster: The Three Wise Men are a group of powerful old wizards consisting of Urzur, Beldor, and Skuldi. Servants of the previous King of Titania, they were tasked with researching about the Beast of Darkova, which lead them to learn about the prophecy about Armageddon, which told about how the ones who survived it would supposedly rise unto power. To bring about Armageddon, the Three Wise Men would, among other actions, control the benevolent dragon Belial into devouring hundreds; manipulate the Kingdoms into wars against each other; and strike deals with many other characters in order to get what they want, often backstabbing them when their deal was over. Beldor would eventually play a key role when Armageddon happened, awakening the beastly King Gallon from the Underworld, and taking control of Ingway, who transformed into the Beast of Darkova shortly after.
Cry for the Devil: King Onyx. The guy is a Stalker with a Crush towards Gwendolyn, but you can't help but show some pity for the guy in Oswald's story, just as Oswald himself ultimately refuses to kill him out of pity. He's in love with Gwendolyn, but like Oswald has a crippling fear of being rejected for being a monster. And if Gwendolyn fights him in the Armageddon book, he ends up killing her and in his grief, allows himself to be swallowed up by the ocean so that he could be together with her in death. For a guy prophesied to bring about the world's doom, these moments really give him a human side that makes him pitiable in a sense.
The Wizard enemies in Titania Capital, who combine Status Effects and their ability to summon more Mooks with Teleport Spam, that effectively prevents you from hitting them more than once at a time. The "proper" way to combat a Wizard is to deflect one of their swords back at them to stun them — but the game doesn't actually tell you this until you fight Beldor (a boss-caliber Wizard, wielding the same attacks cranked up to eleven), long after you've either figured it out for yourself or died trying. Hitting their swords back at them is easier said than done. It's easiest when they spawn swords right in front of them, but rarely will they actually do that, and there's usually so much stuff flying at you from all directions that even when it does happen, you probably won't be able to take advantage of it in time. And make sure not to hit the wizard at the same time you hit the sword, or he'll just teleport away anyway (if he doesn't take the sword in the face and then just instantly teleport just to be an ass).
Any enemy with a stomping attack is usually this. Bonus points to the guards in Titania (or the "Butt Brigade") for appearing alongside the Beldor boss fight having the quickest and hardest to dodge stomp attack.
The Wizard Eyes, in large numbers. Their shots home in one you and have a high chance to stun you if you're hit by them, they fire frequently, and to top it all off, they fly. Pray you don't get stunlocked by them.
The remake generally toned down most of the original's Demonic Spiders (most notably the wizards, who are nowhere near as annoying as they used to be), but it added a new one in the form of the Volkenon Phoenix Riders. One of the most difficult mini-boss fights in the game, the Phoenix Riders have a series of very nasty attacks, but probably their most reviled is one that raises a large plume of lava right in front of them (right about where the player is standing to hit them), which then starts spewing exploding fireballs everywhere. An inattentive or overly-aggressive player can lose most of their lifebar to this single attack.
Designated Villain: Odette. On the one hand, she's a massive bitch who tries to murder Cornelius simply because he's trying to leave the Netherworld after he was thrown inside while unconscious and innocent of wrong-doing and she was just as much in the dark as Cornelius himself that King Valentine used this opportunity to escape. On the other hand, all she really does in-game is try to enforce death's finality, and even tries to avert the Armageddon. She has even less ambition than Elfaria and, aside from Oswald's case, wouldn't come into conflict with the heroes at all had they simply stayed in the land of the living.
Difficulty Spike: The final book, Armageddon. While you can easily tackle the character's individual story books by level 35 or so, don't expect the same on the last book. The five disasters all have high HP and deal higher amounts of damage. Expect some Level Grinding after finishing all first five books so that you can comfortably go through the sixth one.
Ending Fatigue: The Book of Armageddon, if you're going for the best ending. You need to see every scene possible, even the ones where you pit the wrong character against certain bosses. This requires a minimum of four playthroughs, although thankfully you can cut the second and third short in the remake after beating the third boss without missing anything if you don't make any redundant character choices.
The Adversity Ring is far and away the most powerful accessory in the game, capable of giving your characters a MASSIVE damage boost when their HP is low. Especially considering it STACKS with the Overload spell.
Mercedes + Unlimited Power potion = Nonstop magical machine gun of pain.
Mercedes is even more broken in the remake, as she no longer needs to remain fully stationary to reload / recharge.
Genius Bonus: The reason you can plant seeds that grow into fully-grown lambs? It's based on the old legend about Barometz, a plant that would supposedly grow into sheep because of mistaken belief about the origins of cotton that was a completely unknown plant in parts of Europe at the time.
The fireball and ice crystal enemies tend to pop up at the worst possible times during certain boss battles.
The animal ghosts in the underworld. Be sure to use Blizzard Potions!
The Wizard Eyes with the stun ray attacks. A tough boss fight is turned BRUTAL by those guys.
The fairies, whenever you're fighting against Ringford — flying, almost impossible to hit, and they fully heal whatever you're fighting. When you fight a boss that has fairies supporting it, you want to throw something straight through your TV.
Goddamned Boss: The Crystallization Cauldron. It's a massive Damage-Sponge Boss that requires you to take out the eye first in order to expose its weak point. You have a limited amount of time to throw as much damage as you can on said weak point before it retracts, and every time it appears, mooks are spawned that you'll have to take out as well if you don't want to get shot to death or stunned while wailing on the weak point. That on top of a recurring attack that requires you to stop what you're doing, hop off, and wait for it to finish means this is a boss that takes a long time to kill. And in order to get the best ending of the game, you have to fight it with Velvet, who's the mechanically weakest character in the original game, and whose talents in the remake aren't really useful against it.
Ingway. He's selfish and manipulative and instigates quite a bit of trouble, but not entirely without reason: he caused the destruction of Valentine to save his father, Demon Lord Odin, who promptly rejected him. He was forced to choose between betraying his mother and claiming he didn't love her or most likely being executed along with her, and believed for years afterward that his mother had cursed him and died hating him. Despite the awful crap he pulls throughout the game, he demonstrates that he carries a tremendous amount of guilt over his past actions, and genuinely cares for both Velvet and Mercedes. Ultimately, he tries to sacrifice himself to stop Armageddon by becoming the Beast of Darkova to stop the Cauldron, only for the effort to go horribly wrong in almost every way.
Oswald may be a cold-hearted and ruthless warrior, but he's shown to have a lot of issues deep down. He was raised by the fairies believing that his biological father had abandoned him but was in fact assassinated. Growing up in the fairy kingdom, he's constantly treated as an outcast its denizens who feared his reputation as the Shadow Knight. Then, he learns that his adopted father Melvin whom he served loyally had sold Oswald's soul for power, who then proceeds to call Oswald a mere tool. Afterwards, he's constantly pursued by the Halja who come to claim his soul and haunted by the many souls of those he claimed under Melvin's orders. When he discovers that Gwendolyn had given away the ring he had given to her, Oswald's left heartbroken believing that the only person he had left to live for only saw him as a tool like his adopted father did.
Wagner is an arrogant, hot-tempered dragon who has a Fantastic Racism towards anyone who isn't a dragon. But he had seen how the other races have horribly treated his kind, including murdering his friend for the pettiest of reasons.
Low-Tier Letdown: Velvet is generally-held to be the weakest character mechanically, relying on her high speed and homing attacks to compensate for weak attack power and slowly whittle enemy health down. This has the side effect of being as much of a test of the player's patience as their skill, and as her story is the last one played, she fetches up against some of the roughest bosses in the game, many of whom are painfully hard to deal with using her schtick. Other characters find that blitzing their health down quickly is often a better defense than trying to deal with their attacks by dodging or blocking. Velvet never has that luxury. The remake comes to the rescue in this regard: Velvet now excels at damage over time tactics and comes with plenty of ways to make those effects more deadly. Also, fire magic has a respectable base damage output.
Most Wonderful Sound: The sound effect that plays when time slows down for the brief moment before the player character delivers a critical hit. Even more satisfying is when the critical hit connects.
Narm: The English voice acting in the game is mostly excellent. However, the dwarf at the start of Gwendolyn's story has a voice that's hard to take seriously.
Also, the "It hurts, it hurts!" NPC at the start of Cornelius' story in the original version. Tellingly, it's one of the few performances to be redubbed in Leifthrasir.
Gwendolyn and Oswald is arguably the most popular ship in the fandom. The fact that they end up married in the game, go to great lengths to protect each other and stay together, and have the most developed relationship that essentially formed the basis for Odin Sphere's plot results in many fans latching on to them easily.
Ingway and Mercedes. Their interactions during Ingway's time as a frog are very cute and funny and their relationship development shows the compassion Ingway is capable of despite his usual dicking around. Many fans were greatly saddened by their deaths and the fact that they never were able to officially get together in the canon ending leaves a lot of fans wondering what could have happened between them had they lived.
Cornelius and Velvet aren't nearly as popular as the above two ships since their pairing is arguably the least focused on in the story. Still, it's undeniable that their interactions are very sweet and loving with them essentially acting like a set of high school sweethearts.
To get 100% Completion, the player needs to unlock every cutscene. This means intentionally choosing the wrong order in the Final Book and watching the Bad Ending at least three times. Myris's sobbing while the world collapses and the oceans are rising to kill her while asking why someone would choose this horrible fate hits especially hard. Fortunately, in the remake, you can cancel out once you've viewed the scenes you needed by saving and returning to the attic, so there's no need to actually watch the Bad Ending more than once.
Sending Mercedes to fight the beast of Darkova in the Armageddon book is guaranteed to make you feel like an asshole. Her fate in the good ending isn't much better, either.
Generally speaking, the unique False End cutscenes for each of the characters is a punch in one's gut. Both Darkova endings with Mercedes and Velvet make you feel even worse for them and Ingway, Cornelius's ending against King Gallon is pure Nightmare Fuel, and, depending one whether you face him with Oswald or Gwendolyn, you will either hate Onyx or somehow pity him.
Polished Port: So much so that Leifthrasir easily outclasses the original game in numerous ways and most class it as a Video Game Remake. 1080p, 60 FPS, numerous amounts of new or redrawn artwork that makes the game even more gorgeous, and a complete overhaul of the battle system that transforms it from a slow-paced action game into a much faster hack-and-slash (or shoot-em-up in Mercedes' case). It even fixes numerous issues like streamlining the leveling and food systems to be far less obtuse and bloated, to the point of getting quick food safe rooms throughout areas to level mid-dungeon instead of leaving the whole dungeon to go chow down. And in case one prefers the original Odin Sphere setup? Classic Mode has all the original game design intact.
It has been long held by fans that Mercedes and especially Ingway received too cruel an ending in the True End of the game when compared to Gwendolyn/Oswald and Cornelius/Velvet. The Updated Re-release provides a new screen after the shot of the World Tree (Mercedes' reborn form), showing Ingway in the Netherworld and a root with Mercedes' signatue flower blooming from it reaching him, which will allow him to be taken to her so they can be Together in Death.
One of the biggest complaints of the game even back when it released was that the battle system was clunky, slow-paced, and an absolute slog to work through and level, especially with the food system. Leifthrasir completely reworks the system from the ground-up, not only improving the pacing significantly but also allowing for command shortcuts for your various skills, turning the game into a fast-paced action title worth its salt, on top of the streamlining of the extraneous mechanics like food.
Onyx's inferno charge can cross the entire arena (twice) and leaves a field of damaging flames in its wake; in addition, Oswald can't jump high enough to clear it. He also lunges at you if you try to jump to stop you. Heaven help you if Onyx decides to spam it.
Brigan's grab attack isn't a One-Hit Kill, but it may as well be, dealing insane amounts of damage and dizzying you afterwards. Unless you've been chowing down with Gwendolyn to raise her max HP, if he grabs you, it's over.
Belial's inhale attack, where he attempts to suck the player in and eat them for a lot of damage. This usually comes after he's filled the arena with junk, so there's lots of things to hit the player as they're trying to run away and knock them backwards (and of course Mooks aren't affected, so they're free to further help knock them into Belial's maw). On the plus side, if the player managed to get far enough to get behind him, they can wail on him with impunity.
In Leifthrasir, the Phoenix Riders in Volkenon. There's an attack that they do that causes a pillar of lava to shoot out of the floor and send flaming debris everywhere. Since the pillar is almost as tall as the stage itself, expect a lot of rage if you get caught between it and the rider.
That One Boss: Another proud Atlus tradition. * Technically, Atlus was only the publisher, but as hard as these bosses are, you'd swear their influence snuck in the development anyway.
King Gallon. His heads constantly try to devour you, and the only way to defeat him is to strike his heart. Which will only appear after you've sufficiently damaged the heads. And when it does, you've opened a whole new can of worms.
Any time the player squares off against the Three Wise Men, a boss-caliber Palette Swap of Titania's resident Demonic Spiders with the same Teleport Spam and attack methods (but channeled up to eleven). And that's not counting who they bring in to accompany them: Mercedes has to contend with two midbosses with axes and Death from Above jumping attacks; Oswald has to deal with three midbosses (minus the jumping attacks, very fortunately); and Velvet has to stare down a freaking dragon, all while fighting their respective Wise Man. Velvet's version of this fight is especially trying, because not only is she tasked with taking down an enormous dragon and wizard at the same time, the wizard has a healing spell. And if he uses it, he can restore said dragon, which has a buttload of HP, from near-death to full HP.
As well as the sheer amount of lag when fighting Odette, Queen of the Dead, forcing much of the battle to proceed at an insufferable crawl, and that's not including when she knocks you across the room to start healing herself.
Fighting Belial as Cornelius, where the game just turns right into a Bullet Hell game. Along with Belial's own massive amounts of projectiles and melee attacks that draw the player in and do massive amounts of damage, he's also accompanied by a respawning elite wizard enemy to add even more projectiles. At this point, the lag is practically a mercy as well, just because it makes it slightly easier to dodge the ridiculous amount of things falling on you and flying at you. In fact, one could argue one of the best ways to survive this battle is to buff Cornelius with Overload, equip the most powerful offensive and health items, and just charge right at the dragon and pray the Pooka's health is high enough to last out the inevitable rain of death coming at him.
The King Ooze in Leifthrasir. It spawns regular Ooze enemies as you damage it, and eventually splits up to boot. If you're not careful you can easily be overrun.
The Frost Ben in Leifthrasir. Its weak point is its glowing horn, and it has many ways to keep you off of it. It even starts with three trolls on its back who throw snowballs at you. It gets even worse during the trial stages where you have to fight two of them at the same time.
Titania Capital, for every character. This level tends to come with some of the worst Goddamned Bats and Demonic Spiders in the game. It's pretty much quasi-impossible to beat without very good preparation. It could explain in gameplay terms why Gwendolyn, the first playable character, never has to go there. Adding to that, every single boss fight in Titania is That One Boss. The Three Wise Men are fought there, along with the aforementioned fight with Belial, and the fight with King Gallon. Thankfully, the Updated Re-release balanced things out and made many of the enemies much easier to deal with, so it no longer quite qualifies.
Cornelius' version of Titania Capital is especially difficult. While the game expects you to fight the purple wizards and slimes in a specific way, with the other characters, there's at least a special attack you can use to bypass that and just cheese them to death (Mercedes' charge attack, Oswald's shadow form, Velvet's homing attack). Cornelius, however, doesn't have one, meaning you have to fight them in the intended manner, which relies on preparation and limited resources. It doesn't help that Cornelius is the first one to go there, so you probably don't know what hell is in store for you unless you looked it up ahead of time. Once again, the Updated Re-release comes to the rescue, specifically with the fact that slimes can be killed normally, though still a bit harder than most enemies.
Vanilla Protagonist: Cornelius is likely the least popular of the playable characters due to being a mostly standard fantasy hero with little interesting plot development when compared to the more dynamic other four. He's not at all hated, but he's often ignored.
Wake-Up Call Boss: Baby Leventhan hits like a truck despite his small size. If your main strategy for dealing with enemies is hitting it until it dies, he will punish you heavily for it. Once you learn his tells and can reliably dodge his attacks, though, he's easily the least challenging in the game.
Subverted. Oswald's Death by Despair when Gwendolyn hands the ring he gave her over to Odin seems kind of wangsty at first, until you finally get to play him, and learn about the kind of stuff he had to go through. Namely, learning that his adoptive father sold his soul to Odette to give him the ability to wield the Belderever, and only cared about him as a tool. For all he knows, the girl that he loved, and really the only other person he really cares about, just used him as well.
Same can be said for Ingway. Outside Mercedes's book, he pretty much takes every opportunity to groan and complain about how horrible his and Velvet's lives are. When The Reveal happens at the end of Velvet's book, though, you pretty much understand why he's so bitter all the time.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: If the game takes place in a storybook, it might be too mature and tragic for a girl Alice's age. She seems to be okay by the end, though, as she does say it's pretty sad, but doesn't believe it actually happened.
Belial. One of the characters with the most tragic backstories in the entire game. Dragons already have a hard time in this game, being universally feared and hunted by pretty much every sentient race, but Belial spends the entire game under submission by the Wise Men and forced to battle the heroes against his will. He even thanks Cornelius for mortally wounding him after their fight, since it allows him to finally be free from the Wise Men's control.
Mercedes. While somewhat immature at the beginning, Mercedes is a genuinely kind individual who cares greatly about her mother's kingdom and does everything to ensure it survives. For some reason, the story takes every opportunity to turn her into a Chew Toy for the other protagonists, being fought by Gwendolyn, Cornelius, and Velvet in their stories as a boss and subsequently beaten to a pulp as a result. It doesn't help matters that those fights treat her in a negative light as to why they happen, which has caused some people to label her as an annoying brat. Ultimately, for all her accomplishments such as quelling Melvin's rebellion and defeating Odin, during Armageddon she dies convinced she's a failure as a queen, with her country in flames and everyone she's ever cared for dead.
Velvet qualifies as one as well. She was Forced to Watch as her mother was strangled to death by her insane grandfather, who proceeded to abuse her throughout her life. Then, her whole kingdom was destroyed by her brother and she never figured out the truth until much later on. Afterwards, her lover Cornelius was transformed into a Pooka, and she fails to stop her brother from sacrificing his soul to get revenge on their father. Then comes Armageddon, where she loses both her brother, grandfather and her beloved people in one fell swoop.
King Edmund also qualifies as well. Prior to the games events, he was forced to slay his own father who was driven insane by the power of the Darkova. The experience was so traumatic that the sight of the very sword he used was enough to break him. Then in his old age, he's reduced to a mere Puppet King to his own advisor who drove his kingdom into corruption and is blamed for it. Afterwards, his own son was transformed into a Pooka and forced to leave the kingdom, meaning that Edmund had just lost his whole family. Just as he finally comes around to win back the hearts and minds of his people, his undead father returns leading the Netherworld's armies and proceeds to slaughter the entire population. Then, the insane Gallon proceeds to eat Edmund alive.
Woolseyism: Averted, oddly enough for Atlus. The game was a strange case where the seemingly Shakespearean dialogue was almost entirely the result of direct translations rather than adjustments. In fact straying from the original script was what made for awkward, toned down parts such as Mercedes's Rousing Speech. This might make it an inversion.
, a plant that would supposedly grow into sheep because of mistaken belief about the origins of cotton that was a completely unknown plant in parts of Europe at the time.