Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean

Before Final Fantasy 7 there were a few gems that came out right before for the Sega Saturn one of them was Albert Odyssey. Albert Odyssey is a traditional RPG that was a blessing for RPG strapped Saturn Owners back in 1997.

From the Folks that brought the Lunars and Vay, Working Designs delivers an RPG designed for the Old School Final Fantasy Die-Hard. Albert Odyssey features a riveting soundtrack, which is better than either one of the Lunars. The characters are quite memorable, due to their sometimes-obnoxious personalities. As the Hero, Pike you can often say something downright rude as the story develops. The many references to Pop Culture make you feel that this game is taking place in the present, which seems to fit in with the Castles, Dragons, and Old Fashioned Women.

At first the game treats you to a very interesting introduction, however wandering around, as a single character was quite mundane at first. The fights suffered from frustratingly bad load times. There were delays between character commands. Also the computer minions parried way too much slowing down combat to a snail-race. Luckily the game picks up its pace when new characters are entered into Pike's Party. The gameplay is much of what you'd expect from Lunar or Final Fantasy 2 or 3. You can attack, defend, use magin/techniques, items, and run away when you feel the heat.

The graphics are nicely drawn sprites with a very colorful scheme. The towns were very well designed but the dungeons were too small and simplistic with the exception of the last. The game can be finished between 25-35hours depending on how much you would need to build up. The Story was decent and rewarding and plot at times was stellar. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot a spoken dialog however, which is strange since this was the Sega Saturn after all. Strangely enough the game only requires 17 blocks to save your quest, which was an added bonus. Albert Odyssey is a fun Old School RPG that warrants one decent play through. Lunar and Old School RPG fans should make it priority to snag a copy off Ebay and enjoy this forgotten Gem.