[PSVita] Ragnarok Odyssey Review

[Vardas]

Ragnarok Odyssey Review by Vardas

I'll post it in three parts, Story Gameplay and the Rest because it is a bit long

Ragnarok Odyssey is an Action RPG game of the “Monster Hunter“ type set to be released in October 30th in NA and sometime later in Europe. It's already out in China and Japan and the Chinese version has the english translation so many of us have bought and played it.

Players of MH will definitely find a LOT of stuff similar from one game to another. However there are some major differences which make for a very different experience, and in my opinion a more pleasant one. Keep in mind that any comparisons with Monster Hunter are in reference to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, as that’s the only one I’ve played.

I broke this review down to sections so they might be easier to find and read. Just press CTRL + F and type the number(e.g 4.0), it’ll take you to the relative section straight away.

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Review Sections:​

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1.0Story​

1.1 Synopsis​

1.2 Summary​

1.3 Conclusion​

Score: 7/10​

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2.0 Gameplay​

Score: 8.5/10​

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3.0 Difficulty​

Score: 10/10​

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4.0 Graphics​

Score: 8/10​

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5.0 Audio​

Score: 8.5/10​

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6.0 Misc and Overall​

Score: 9/10​

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1.0 - Story​

I want to address this first because many people believe that since it is similar to Monster Hunter the logical thing is that it has no story and is focused solely on gameplay content. But this is not true.

Ragnarok Odyssey DOES have a story, just not as deep and powerful as traditional RPGs.​

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1.1 - Synopsis​

Despite the spoiler tag this synopsis DOES NOT contain spoilers, it's a summary of the setting and background story that you can learn as soon as you start the game. I only added the spoiler tag to keep it neater and make it seem less freakishly long. It is directed at people who'd like to know the story behind the story.​

Spoiler

Ragnarok Odyssey takes place in a world after Ragnarok has happenned, the Norse Mythology’s “End of the world”. The gods are supposedly dead and humans have survived. But they’re not alone… Giants have also survived Ragnarok. If you are familiar with Norse mythology you’ll know of the Fire and Frost giants. These play a major role in the story. Read on for more.

In this game you start out as a freshly hired soldier who goes to fort Farthest to serve the interests of the Kingdom. Fort Farthest is a key location in the world and if it falls, the Kingdom falls. It is basically a gateway, the one thing that lies between the Kingdom of humans and the Sundered Land. The Sundered Land is a land uninhabited by humans and filled with all kinds of monstrosities which want to wipe them out. For this reason humans had never set foot in it before, until recently. By the time you get to Fort Farthest, it has already been attacked multiple times by Giants who try to destroy it, and subsequently the Kingdom.

Until now, the fort was manned mostly by the “Order of Knights”, protectors of the kingdom.
But in the last attack (made by the “Boss” of the enemies himself) half of the Knights were killed, and they barely managed to drive him away so now the humans are seriously backed into a corner. Should he attack again, they are now undermanned and in a very tough position.
So as a solution the Kingdom (which thankfully is rich) is now hiring mercenaries, because they are easy to find and expendable. And you, the player, are one of those mercenaries. When you first go to the fort, you are assigned to a commanding officer by the name of Eadgills (although he is more of a General than an officer). Eadgills is organizing raids into the Sundered Land, because after the last big attack humans decided to take the offensive and destroy the Giants once and for all.

Now as mentioned before, humans had never set foot in the Sundered Lands until the plan changed from Defence to Offence. That means that most areas and whatever’s in them is a mystery. Eadgills is trying to gather as much information as possible to find out where the Giants’ capital is and attack there, in order to destroy them once and for all at the source.
As a front-line soldier you will be sent to “investigate” and “explore” areas of the world in order to gather information. Consecutive attacks slowly show that the Giants are not just dumb brutes as humans thought up until now, but that they have plans and make strategic moves, such as using other monsters as decoys to keep the main forces out of the Fort. As such, finding their capital is now much more important for the humans’ survival because they’re basically at war with huge and clever enemies.

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1.2 - Summary​

This is basically the setting of the story of Ragnarok Odyssey. You are a mercenary, a hired soldier at war. And the enemy is not a human nation, but a nation of smart, big and very strong Giants. Your missions (which are basically kill orders) will slowly reveal further information on the Giants’ plans as well as rid the world of some other menaces, huge monsters which have claimed many of your comrades’ lives. They will be at key locations which the human forces need to secure or investigate. Usually before or after key missions Eadgills will give you a debriefing when you talk to him and tell you what was there and why what you did was important, revealing how it helps towards the final goal, which is winning the war.

However the story is not shoved down your throat and is purely optional. It comes mainly in text form. There are very few cutscenes to show the things described here. You learn it if you want to by talking mostly to Eadgills and then to other people around the fort. You can go through the whole game by just playing the missions just fine. In my opinion this detracts from the game experience as you’ll be in a different state of mind and will face battles with different awe if you know the story behind them, but the option is there.

For example when the time comes to face the “Boss” of the Giants he’ll just be a big giant if you don’t know the story (although he will kill you very quickly). It’s one thing to just go in battle against a big monster and a totally different thing to know that this guy has wiped out half of the Knights’ order.

1.3 - Conclusion​

This game has a nice and interesting story. You will not get a piece of the story after every single mission, because some missions are just for gathering materials and killing monsters for area control, but the story you get is good enough to follow in my opinion.

But, do keep in mind that there is little character development, and whatever there is usually does not concern you. You are the “faceless soldier” protagonist, and although people will say “Oh (X) you’ve come a long way” and “Wow you handled that very well” you will not be the focus of the story, at least for most of the game. You are a soldier at war with Giants and that’s what the story is about. Although by the end you’ll play a pretty big part, it will always be as “That guy”.

But this is a big improvement from Monster Hunter in my eyes, where you just live out the life of a guy who hunts monsters for sport and clothing.

Story Score: 7/10
Continued...

 

[Vardas]

2.0 - Gameplay​

Moving onto what is basically the key element to a game, Gameplay. Here I will compare this game with Monster Hunter many times and explain why (I believe) one is superior to the other. As much as I love MHFU, in most cases Ragnarok wins. I’ll mention most of them as we go along, but before that I must make one comparison which makes the biggest difference for me than all others.

2.1 - Materials Gathering​

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To make your armour and weapons and even potions you will need materials. Unlike Monster Hunter however where you are required to tediously gather them manually from the field or from a farm in this game
YOU GET (nearly) ALL THE MATERIALS BY KILLING MONSTERS, and the rest of them by destroying crates.
Point is there is NO GATHERING which is a huge relief. I like Monster Hunter and have spent countless hours on MHFU, but the gathering is just tedious, and so is the carving. It is always better to kill or destroy stuff and have it drop what you need rather than kneel down and gather it yourself like some witch doctor. It is less realistic to have crates in an unexplored monster land sure, but who gives a damn? It’s way more fun and quicker as well. Big points to Ragnarok there.

2.3 - Fort Farthest​

As I’ve mentioned above you are based at Fort Farthest. All your preparation for missions and everything you can change about your character happens here. In Fort Farthest you’ll find many things to customize your character and make him fit your style.

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2.4 – Battle & Movement​

The main focus of the game. As a soldier you have but one goal. Battle.

Battle in Ragnarok Odyssey is similar to Monster Hunter in mechanics, but again with key differences which make for a unique experience.

Boss Hitzones – Once again Monster Hunter players will recognize this and once again there’s an improvement here. Each boss has zones on its body that take different amounts of damage. The difference can sometimes be massive, but in Monster Hunter you can only tell by the sound, and it’s pretty subtle. Here there are numbers popping up when we land a hit, so we know what damage it did. If it does a consecutive 1 damage, it is obviously not a good place to attack. The sound for the good hitzones is also much clearer.

Breakable Parts – Like in MH, there are parts of a Boss that can be broken in order to get specific materials. These can be anything from horns, to tails, to feathers or even limbs. And unlike MH you don’t need specific weapon types to break them. You attack them, and after a while they break and drop materials or gems.

2.5 - Multiplayer:​

This takes place through the Tavern, as mentioned above. You can play Ad-Hoc with other people near you, or Online with people from around the world. It’s not confirmed yet whether we’ll be able to play cross-regional from EU to NA, but the Japanese and Chinese servers are separate.
Multiplayer definitely increases the fun factor, but has some fundamental flaws like the lack of a filter to keep higher chapter people from entering and joined KO chances. They might implement it sometime but I wouldn’t count on it.

Gameplay Score: 8.5/10

3.0 - Difficulty​

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As I consider myself a longtime gamer I enjoy a BIG challenge. Not stupidly impossible levels of difficulty but not the handholding ridiculous ease of most AAA games out today. On that front Ragnarok Odyssey delivers 100%. It is pretty simple initially, but from chapter 5 onwards the difficulty increases significantly and beautifully if you ask me. It doesn’t start abruptly from Ch.4 to 5 but slowly. From mission to mission you can see they might take some more time and more care to complete than the previous ones. Whereas in the first chapters you can go in guns blazing and just button spam, you need to be more careful and methodical later on. And that’s really the kind of thing considered balanced in a game. The first missions should be introductions and the challenge should slowly grow. And for those looking for especially hard and rewarding challenges you can complete the Extra Quests as soon as they show up.

Ragnarok Odyssey is easy where it should be and hard where it should be. When it’s very hard (Extra Quests), it doesn’t force you to go with it, but if you do it rewards you immensely so it is worth the effort. Even in the hard Main quests of later chapters you can go Online and find three people to help you out. Truly difficulty for all tastes.
Difficulty Score: Solid 10/10

 

[Vardas]

4.0 - Graphics​

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The Graphics are very good in my opinion, because what showcases graphical power is colour and vividness. Realistic games like Call of Duty and the like don’t impress me much because everything is dark and grey. To see graphics and to see beautiful rendering you need colour and contrast. Ragnarok Odyssey has this. It has bright and colourful backgrounds and the monsters are of great variety which showcases the Vita's power quite well. The framerate is also very good so the game feels fluid and smooth. The Lighting is also very well done and gives all the areas of the game that otherworldly fantasy feel.

Honestly, when I saw Hrungnir I considered him one of the most beautifully made creatures I’ve ever seen in a game.

I won’t go into much detail about this as one picture equals a thousand words so you can check out videos of the game and judge for yourself, although they probably won’t do it perfect justice.

Graphics Score: 8/10​

5.0 - Audio​

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Another very important part of any game is of course music and sound in general, and Ragnarok’s audio is as it should be for this kind of game.

Music -There’s nice variety. You’ll get nice and more pleasant background music when you’re fighting in a colourful Jungle and slower more dragged out music when you’re fighting in a dry desert. The Big bosses have their own music themes and it’s the kind of music that gives you the feeling that you’re fighting a colossal creature. As such, it makes for some nice battles. Also you can buy the music tracks from a vendor and set your own to a quest. Pretty good.

Sound - There’s only one way I can explain this properly. If you’ve ever watched anime or some sort of superhero stuff you’ll have seen someone now and then who uses only sound to hear from where his opponent is attacking and evade him or cut him down before they have time to strike. This happened to me in this game. And it felt damn good.

Hunters need to be on their toes at all times, and we need to read enemy movements to exploit windows of opportunity. We need to know when to attack and when to run. This is a game that helps you in this respect. If you put on headphones and listen, you will hear the sound effects for each different attack, and you’ll know what to anticipate before you see it.
This goes for most of the fights, from simple monsters to the giant bosses.They will usually make a distinct sound before each attack, and if you listen you can fight them very well by using that to your advantage.
Music is nothing mind-blowing but fitting to the game(7/10), but the sound is exactly what it should be like in this kind of game(10/10).

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Audio Score: 8.5/10 ​

6.0 – Miscellaneous and Overall: ​

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Although not very important there are two things that are very nice to have in a game like this.
Miscellaneous:
1. 1. This is one of the few games that makes good use of Near. You can send cards and Weapons through Near, which are basically the two most useful things in the game.
2. 2. You can backup your save file online, through the game. Which means that you won’t lose progress even if your Vita itself fails.

Overall Impressions:

This is a very fun Action RPG title. It is similar to Monster Hunter but boiled down to the most fun parts, with all the tediousness taken out. So if you liked Monster Hunter but thought it was too complicated, then this is the game for you. A very enjoyable experience, and definitely worth retail price at least as far as content goes. You won’t run out of stuff to do for a good while, especially compared to other Vita games out right now. Also since each mission is 30 minutes MAX you can easily turn on your Vita, play a mission and move on. These are the kinds of games we need on this console, games that can keep us entertained and hooked on our 5 inch OLED screen for hours upon hours, but which we can also jump on and play to kill 20 minutes between bus-rides.

Overall Score: 9/10
A must-have for any Fantasy RPG fan and as far as I’m concerned one of the best Vita games out there right now.

Constructive criticism is always welcome if you bothered to read my huge review
Anything you disagree with I'm always up for discussion.

 

[Monte]

Just wanted to say what a great review that was. Really detailed and genuinely informative.

I never liked Monster Hunter to be honest but I think I'll give Ragnarok a go. It does sound very interesting.

Any idea when the European release will be? It pisses me off the way we have to wait for games like this and Persona for ages when they are already out elsewhere.

 

[Floydstrife]

Hmm this review seems rather....weird..ill be going to actual sites that are paid to give realistic reviews from now on thank you

 

[Monte]

Hmm this review seems rather....weird..ill be going to actual sites that are paid to give realistic reviews from now on thank you

Just curious mate but what strikes you as weird about this?

 

[Floydstrife]

Just curious mate but what strikes you as weird about this?

np monte ..i find it to long to read.. reviews shouldn't be short ether but with his constant need to express every single thing ....leaves me bored and wanting less..til the point i could not..would not read the entire review ..lucky for me i have a staff that will make videos reviews of games

 

[Monte]

np monte ..i find it to long to read.. reviews shouldn't be short ether but with his constant need to express every single thing ....leaves me bored and wanting less..til the point i could not..would not read the entire review ..lucky for me i have a staff that will make videos reviews of games

A fair point well made!

 

[Floydstrife]

A fair point well made!

as always monte thanks for asking smart questions and not being bias about it ^.^

 

[Vardas]

Just wanted to say what a great review that was. Really detailed and genuinely informative.

I never liked Monster Hunter to be honest but I think I'll give Ragnarok a go. It does sound very interesting.

Any idea when the European release will be? It pisses me off the way we have to wait for games like this and Persona for ages when they are already out elsewhere.

Thanks! Unfortunately we don't have a release date for Europe yet. They said it'll be withint 2012 so we'll see.

Hmm this review seems rather....weird..ill be going to actual sites that are paid to give realistic reviews from now on thank you

If you have a specific point you'd like to address I'm all ears. But generally this review won't do for you Floyd. I'm well aware that you don't read posts more than 10 rows in length

 

[Floydstrife]

Thanks! Unfortunately we don't have a release date for Europe yet. They said it'll be withint 2012 so we'll see.



If you have a specific point you'd like to address I'm all ears. But generally this review won't do for you Floyd. I'm well aware that you don't read posts more than 10 rows in length

was it necessary for you to be disrespectful? ..you call this a honest review? its rambling Vardas..constant

rambling about what you think of a video game..you could of shorten it but as always you write way to

much..how can someone even try to understand you when you write way to much..its boring and tiresome

and no real website would ever pay you for this ...book of a review ..people complain about IGN and game

informer and other video game review sites..at least they write less then you

 

[Monte]

Thanks! Unfortunately we don't have a release date for Europe yet. They said it'll be withint 2012 so we'll see.

I would love to see it this side of new years but I'm not holding my breath seeing as we are already in mid October and nothing official has been announced.

Shit! Just realized it'll be christmas soon...I'm gonna treat myself to a huge pile of Vita games his year

 

[MadMike]

I thought it was very well written Vardas. Too many "professionals" just do the bare minimum without putting any real feeling into their writing. It's certainly better than some Youtube channel that takes copyrighted videos such as trailers and just adds their illegal logo to the front end of it, and puts out terrible quality videos full of background noise with people who can't speak clearly or form complete sentences.

 

[Floydstrife]

I thought it was very well written Vardas. Too many "professionals" just do the bare minimum without putting any real feeling into their writing. It's certainly better than some Youtube channel that takes copyrighted videos such as trailers and just adds their illegal logo to the front end of it, and puts out terrible quality videos full of background noise with people who can't speak clearly or form complete sentences.

and at they same time they are professionals..if you and others honestly feel his long reviews are magazine worthy ...why hasint he published any yet? ..

 

[Vardas]

I thought it was very well written Vardas. Too many "professionals" just do the bare minimum without putting any real feeling into their writing. It's certainly better than some Youtube channel that takes copyrighted videos such as trailers and just adds their illegal logo to the front end of it, and puts out terrible quality videos full of background noise with people who can't speak clearly or form complete sentences.

Thank you, good to know some people at least appreciate effort and passion

 

[MadMike]

and at they same time they are professionals..if you and others honestly feel his long reviews are magazine worthy ...why hasint he published any yet? ..

I don't recall saying that it should be published in any magazine. I merely noted that professional game journalism has seen a major slip in quality in recent years and this review is a nice change of pace. It's nice to see a real gamer put forth a little effort and passion instead of some talentless hack doing the bare minimum just for a paycheck.

 

[Lazerith]

Hmm this review seems rather....weird..ill be going to actual sites that are paid to give realistic reviews from now on thank you

Reviews at places like IGN and what not where the reviewers get paid are completely biased as hell so that they get more views and thus get paid more. If a game deserves a 9 but will get more views on the site by giving it an 8 because it will be a controversy, they will gladly give it an 8.

That and most review places, especially IGN, have reviewers that typically only play one genre but get forced to review a game of a genre they don't care about. Because of that, the reviewers tend to rush the game and give a sloppy review.

If you ask me, it is better to read a review from someone who is doing the review out of sheer enjoyment and not to get paid. Although most of the time these reviews may not sound as professional as other reviews, they tend to be more honest and more reliable because they aren't doing it for views, and they aren't forced to review a game they don't want to play.

Anyways, I thought this was an interesting review. I look forward to this game now. I've never played Ragnarok Online or RO2, but this game looks pretty fun itself.

 

[chrisobsession]

i agree it was long .. but someone like me that played MH for like 6 mins ... he had me get a real in-depth view of the game .. def. a lot to read but i def. got everything i need to make my decision ... i pre-ordered this game fricking months ago when the release date was for the end of august ... and i still have my pre-order going cause it seems like a fun and good game with lots of re playable feel to it.

 

[Vardas]

Thank you for your comments. And it definitely is very long, perhaps a bit too much. It was spurred by how much I like this game, but I'll try to compress my enthusiasm better next time.

 

[Monte]

Thank you for your comments. And it definitely is very long, perhaps a bit too much. It was spurred by how much I like this game, but I'll try to compress my enthusiasm better next time.

Cutting the length may not be a bad idea but make sure you don't loose the enthusiasm and passion for gaming that comes accross in the way you write.

These are the things that make your review better than any souless corporate professional review in my opinion.