Where Sacred Odyssey‘s interface suffers greatly is in its hybrid method for determining camera angles, and most players will find its quirks more than a minor gripe. Gameloft made a wise design decision in giving the player direct control over the camera through swipe motions; why the camera continues dynamically rotating at the same time, however, is beyond me. While it’s not all that nefarious during regular adventuring – where the player’s attention is naturally on what’s in front of Ayden most of the time – the otherwise enjoyable boss battles can become an exercise in frustration as the player struggles to keep the camera focused on whatever giant beast threatens the hero.
From the get-go the player knows to expect aesthetic excellence from Sacred Odyssey, what with a main menu screen that’s accompanied by a rousing choral track. Its score consists of very compelling tracks with a bit of a Celtic-inspired feel to them; the game offers an option to silence its music and summon an iTunes playlist at will, but few will feel the slightest temptation to make use of this. Character models and environments are well textured and would fit snugly into the heyday of the PlayStation 2 and XBox.
Gameloft’s voice acting crew deserves kudos for performances that wonderfully breathe life into the script, delivered with accents convincingly suggestive of medieval England. An eyebrow or two might be raised at how Ayden’s voice mismatches his appearance to some degree, but there’s no question that the overall cast complements the environment perfectly and helps the player take Sacred Odyssey‘s plot seriously.
Depending on sidequests accepted, time spent on puzzles, and completionist searching for all the various tokens that strengthen Ayden during his journey, Sacred Odyssey should last a good ten to fifteen hours. Unfortunately technical requirements leave it out of reach for owners of 2G iDevices.
iFanzine Verdict: It doesn’t do anything particularly original, but Sacred Odyssey is a solid buy for fans of Action RPGs and more casual 3D adventure games alike thanks to variety of gameplay and the amount of polish Gameloft has poured into every area. Every area, that is, except its camera system; the player is sure to wrestle with this a bit during the game’s suitably epic boss battles. While this flaw doesn’t completely break an otherwise very enjoyable game, it will turn off sticklers for perfect controls.