Ragnarok Odyssey is the Vita's hunter of monsters

 It is finally here, the action RPG title that most of us Vita owners have been waiting for, the release of Ragnarok Odyssey. Odyssey is built around the world of Ragnarok Online, where a battle is taking place between the humans and the giants. Players will take on the role of a human and have over 20,000 character customization options available to create the hero of your liking and a total of six classes to chose from, all in which play very uniquely. Lastly, and this is a big one, is the online play, RO supports up to four player coop gameplay for when the quests really get  troublesome. Now that the game is installed, my hands are cramped and the battery is dead, lets see how it fares.

I will get this out of the way early, this is similar in gameplay and style to the Monster Hunter titles, by way of collecting items through missions across an original world based on Norse mythology.  There is large monsters, there is a lot of refining, so of course there is to be just as much grinding. I however preferred it to the latter due to the gameplay, Odyssey is fast, while the combat is fairly simple, you will start remembering devastating combos based on the class and you will very likely test multiple classes before even diving into the story. At least that is what I did, each of them are so unique, that curiosity got the best of me and now I focus on two classes, Sword Warrior and Hunter, depending on if I am playing single or multiplayer. On top of all that, the graphics and the load screens were very surprising, one is fast while the other is stunning.

While the graphics are stunning, you can not see monsters in the distance if your life depended on it, and it usually does. Enemies often didn’t appear until I was just about on them and if it was a group of four or more, it usually didn’t end well. The camera, was not bad, actually worked very well I thought, however, if you are locked on to an enemy, the camera was not intuitive enough to adjust its location to target my victim. Lastly the online, much like the camera controls work great...at times. My only issue is the lag when there is a lot going on at once, like when you are playing with a full party and the enemies keep coming, you will likely see lag unless everyone has a strong connection.

Ragnarok Odyssey is a great game, from it’s fast paced action to the online, it is beautiful from start to finish, and finish is nowhere to be found. It is great to either pick up and play a mission, help others, or to farm for weapons, items, and cards if you are looking to kill time here and there or to pass the day away. While the story was lacking, the gameplay was the reason I was skipping the text to get to the action. The most fun I had was spent online, however if that isn’t an option the single player is almost equally entertaining, and quite a bit more challenging depending on your class.