Developer:

Publisher:

Genre:

Players:

Release Date:

Albert Odyssey is a traditional, turn-based role playing game and the best one on the Saturn thus far. When the CD starts you immediately sense a warm aura of a high quality 2D title. Unlike most 32-bit games, AO does NOT feel like an experiment. I completed the game in 15 hours, although I still have to go through the 3 side-quests.

Both the in-game and battle graphics are colorfully hand-drawn and very detailed. Each town looks somewhat different from another. Trees look one way in Gadel, and another in the oasis. It's good to see the programmers didn't just paste objects from one location to the next. The characters and enemies are well animated and even have distinct battle voices during the fight scenes. Only Chrono Trigger looks more detailed. I also like the music in this game, except for the annoying tracks when you battle each of the four tower guardians. The SFX are crisp, if standard fare.

Battling monsters is easy enough, and you're given just the right amount of weapons and items to keep you occupied w/o things getting overly complex. It's a breeze to equip, use potions, and choose battle commands.

AO's storyline is excellent, with WD's patented humor sprinkled about for good taste. Talking to people turns out to be fun, and not a chore. You'll want to see what happens next. You get 5 character in Chapter 1, and in the next section one of them leaves to be replaced by a little girl.

You might be asking if there's anything I didn't like about this game. Sure, there's always something and in this case it's the load times. Although I understand that WD cut the loading to 6 seconds (from 10 in the import version) before a battle + 5 seconds to get back to the map (vs 8), this is still significantly annoying, especially in the final Tower Fargasta where fighting is more frequent. Even if you're in the overhead world mode (exploring) and only want to check status or look at the map, the game brings up the menu immediately upon pressing start, but to get back to the main screen it loads and for 6 seconds and even the music is interrupted. It only does this when you're traveling outside - once inside a village the loading is less noticeable .Fighting is not too frequent overall however, so it's only a matter of getting accustomed to the pace of the game.

Words of advice? Yeah, get this game. The manual is again foil-stamped and beautiful, plus there's a quality game inside as well. How does AO stack up against recent RPGs? I'd say it's better than Shining the Holy Ark (which is a good game in itself), and more balanced and fun than Wild Arms (ugly battle scenes, repetitive gameplay, but decent RPG). Only Suikoden tops Albert Odyssey as far as 32 bit RPGs go. So, seeing that both Shining and Albert recently showed up at the #3 spot on Electronic Boutique's Top 10 seller list, you'd think that more companies will take notice and realize that gamers are starved for RPGs. I certainly hope they do, and soon. Can't wait for Rayearth and Lunar, another two A+ games from Working Designs.