Sleeper of the Week: Arcus Odyssey (Sega Genesis)

[maxlords]

Sleeper of the Week: Arcus Odyssey (Sega Genesis)

Yep, another Genesis game. Sadly, it seems like a lot of really great Genesis stuff got ignored when it was released. I’m here to tell you that there are some really great games for the poor unappreciated little system though! Some of my favorites were printed by a small company called Renovation. Based in Los Gatos (near San Jose), California, they ported various Japanese titles under their own label. They released a lot of games, and mostly all games that would never have otherwise come stateside. This particular titles was ported by Renovation, but made by Wolfteam. Wolfteam made a ton of absolutely great action games in Japan, though all of their games that were released domestically were under the umbrella of localization companies such as Renovation.

Today, we’re looking at a little known action classic, Arcus Odyssey. Arcus Odyssey is an isometric action game similar in style to Gauntlet. You have four characters to choose from: swordsman, warrior-maiden, archeress, and “magic-stick fighter”. Hey, don’t blame me…I don’t write this stuff! Anyway, your goal is to recapture the Sword of Light and stop the dark sorceress Castomira. And you can do it with one or two players simultaneously. No split screen though, you’ll have to work together!

Sounds simple huh? Well…it is. It’s basic gameplay at its best. The music is nothing special, the graphics are basic 16-bit stuff, but the game in its entirety is something special. It’s damned fun in fact. You can power up your magic by picking up items in the dungeons. Each character has, of course, a different weapon. The swordsman has a simple energy blast, the warrior-maiden an extending flail that she can spin, the archeress has arrows that bounce off surfaces (great for shooting around corners!), and the laughably titled “magic-stick fighter” has fireballs. You can move in eight directions even though the game screen is angled diagonally. Basically, the plan is simple. Kill everything!

It takes a bit of time to get used to the gameplay however. Instead of A or B, attack is with the C button, and if you hold the button down too long, a magic shield blocks your enemies. Press the same button quickly enough and you’ll instead attack. The B button opens a menu where you manage your magic depending on how much you’ve built up, and view or use the items and keys you’ve collected. The A button does nothing but select things in the B menu. The battle system makes this a bit of a button masher, but you’ll get used to it fast.

A bit ahead of it’s time, Arcus Odyssey entails a few adventure elements as well. In dungeons you talk to people that have been captured and get bits of actual story that makes sense, rare for a title this old. The gameplay is fun and frantic on occasion, the bosses are cool, and the whole game is well-designed. More than a trip down memory lane, Arcus Odyssey is a fun, solid action game that warrants a second look if you’ve been passing it by!

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[CasualCoreGamer]

I've always had an appreciation for Renovation's product. They were kind of the Working Designs of the Genesis era with great localization. The only strike against them being the cover art for most of their titles (Arcus Odyssey being one of the few exceptions, but Elemental Master? Looks like David Copperfield's hairdresser). Well, since I'm at home sick with the flu right now, I think I'll revisit Arcus Odyssey now that It's been a couple years since I last touched it. Thanks, Maxlords.

[EnemyZero]

this is by far one of my top 5 genesis games, back genny just started slowing down and the CD based consoles were looking to take over, a friend of mine sold Arcus Odyssey to me for 5 dollars complete and i never parted with it :)

[Xexyz]

Poor underapreciated system? I never thought of the system in that way. Back in the day, most of my friends owned a Sega Genesis and very few had an SNES. This sounds like a cool game. I like isometric style games.

[esquire]

I've always had an appreciation for Renovation's product. They were kind of the Working Designs of the Genesis era with great localization. The only strike against them being the cover art for most of their titles (Arcus Odyssey being one of the few exceptions, but Elemental Master? Looks like David Copperfield's hairdresser). Well, since I'm at home sick with the flu right now, I think I'll revisit Arcus Odyssey now that It's been a couple years since I last touched it. Thanks, Maxlords.

Renovation is by far my favorite publisher for the Genesis. They made some of the best shmups for the Genny - Gaiares, Vapor Trial, Arrow Flash, Whiprush, Sol-Deace, Granada, Elemental Master, Final Zone and Gain Ground. I don't think anyone else put out that many shooters.

They also made some cool RPGs and Strategy games like Ys III, Traysia, El Viento, Exile and Master of Monsters. Other popular titles are the Valis series - Valis, Valis III and Syd of Valis.

I actually think they made some excellent cover art, save Elemental Master and El Viento. My personal favorites include Arcus, Traysia, Ys III, Exile, Vapor Trail, Whiprush and Gain Ground.

[maxlords]

For you Renovation fans, more than a few of the Renovation titles will eventually get covered by the Sleeper of the Week. There's a lot of good stuff that few people bought.

@ Xexyz: What I meant by underappreciated is that there are a lot of Genesis sleepers that didn't sell well but are great games. A fairly large number of collectors seem to ignore the Genesis except for a few main titles as well, and values are low on most of the games. Hence the games were underappreciated at the time, even though a TON of people had Genesis systems, and the many collectors underappreciate the Genesis now :)

[kainemaxwell]

Played around with the rom for this earlier today. Decent title, liking the grapihcs and the music's catchy.

[Crush Crawfish]

Man, I love these genesis renovation games...I played a bit of this on a ROM once and really liked it. I hope I can find a copy someday.

Oh, and I think you're right about the terrible renovation boxart...Valis 3, as brilliant a game as it is, the boxart is terrifyingly bad. Yuko looks like something out of hell...I can't imagine someone actually buying that game based on its art.

Genesis really does have a lot of underrated gems...seems like everyone who had a genesis only owned sonic 2 & mortal kombat. :/

[slip81]

I liked the little bit of this game I played a few years ago. Someday I'll have to sit down and go through it. I'm also a fan of Albert Odyssey

[Untamed]

Love this game. Have for years. Been trying to get a copy.

The whip girl is the best. :)

[badinsults]

I have played the prototype of the snes version. I think it got canceled when Sega bought renovation, but I am not completely sure if the cancelling occured after that or not.

[CasualCoreGamer]

I've always had an appreciation for Renovation's product. They were kind of the Working Designs of the Genesis era with great localization. The only strike against them being the cover art for most of their titles (Arcus Odyssey being one of the few exceptions, but Elemental Master? Looks like David Copperfield's hairdresser). Well, since I'm at home sick with the flu right now, I think I'll revisit Arcus Odyssey now that It's been a couple years since I last touched it. Thanks, Maxlords.

Renovation is by far my favorite publisher for the Genesis. They made some of the best shmups for the Genny - Gaiares, Vapor Trial, Arrow Flash, Whiprush, Sol-Deace, Granada, Elemental Master, Final Zone and Gain Ground. I don't think anyone else put out that many shooters.

They also made some cool RPGs and Strategy games like Ys III, Traysia, El Viento, Exile and Master of Monsters. Other popular titles are the Valis series - Valis, Valis III and Syd of Valis.

I actually think they made some excellent cover art, save Elemental Master and El Viento. My personal favorites include Arcus, Traysia, Ys III, Exile, Vapor Trail, Whiprush and Gain Ground.

Yeah, I was probably a little harsh about the cover art. I'll blame my flu. Traysia is one of my all time fave genny titles for sure. Funny no one's shown any love for infamous Earnest Evans yet. LOL I've been looking everywhere for El Viento for ages, though, leaving me to wonder if that title was Renovation's smallest (or last) production run.

[chrisbid]

i love rennovation games, i wrote an article on IGN a couple of years ago on the subject. when gameslop still carried genesis games, they often had rennovation titles for 1.99 (including Gaiares), now when genesis hunting, i often specifically look for those generic labels.

though they are not always a sign of quality, Beast Wrestler is awful ;)

[NeoZeedeater]

Arcus was pretty good although it wasn't one of my favorite Telenet/Renovation/Wolf Team games. I still have the Mega Drive version.

It hasn't been mentioned but for those that don't know it was later ported to SNES under the name Arcus Spirits.

[maxlords]

It hasn't been mentioned but for those that don't know it was later ported to SNES under the name Arcus Spirits.

It was never released though....was cancelled prior to release on the SNES. The ROM is floating around the net tho.

[Promophile]

I saw the title and I swear I read "Albert Oddessy", a AWESOME little Working Designs game.

[esquire]

A couple of you said you were looking for Arcus Odyssey. It just so happens that I have an extra Arcus Odyssey and Traysia, both complete, that I was about to list on ebay. Both carts are in mint shape, as is the cover art. The manuals are in decent shape with creases and tears and some codes written on the inside of Arcus's manual. PM me if you are interested.

PS for you other Renovation fans, I have loose carts of Gaiares, Arrow Flash, Vapor Trail and Sol-Deace that I am about to list as well.

[Aussie2B]

Why do the "Sleeper of the Week" games always seem to be games I don't have from my favorite little Japanese developers? :P First CyberConnect2, now Wolf Team. I'm still kicking myself for not picking up Arcus Odyssey when it was at my local Gamestop long ago, but at the time I knew little about Wolf Team. Since tri-Ace was formed by former Wolf Team employees, I have a great interest in the company. I've come close to buying the Super Famicom version of Arcus Odyssey a few times, but I haven't heard good things about its port so I'm holding out for the Genesis version. I'll probably buy Arcus Spirits someday, though, just to complete my Wolf Team collection on Super Famicom (already got Hiouden and Neugier).

It should be noted that Arcus Odyssey was just a sort of "spin-off" to the main Arcus series, which were dungeon-crawler RPGs. They were original released for Japanese PCs, but then a revised compilation of all 3 was released for the Mega CD.

Anyone who has interest in discovering more Wolf Team games and learning about the company should check out this site:

http://www.shadatannis.com/wolfteam/index.html

[drummy]

Does this have to do with Albert Odyssey at all? O_O

[Aussie2B]

Nope, Albert Odyssey is a SunSoft series. It has nothing to do with Abe's Oddysee either. ;)

[esquire]

Nope, Albert Odyssey is a SunSoft series. It has nothing to do with Abe's Oddysee either. ;)

Will any of these play on my Odyssey 2? ROFL

[maxlords]

Why do the "Sleeper of the Week" games always seem to be games I don't have from my favorite little Japanese developers? :P

Heh....glad to be helping! That's the whole idea here...find people games that they may have missed! Glad it's working!

[-hellvin-]

Strangely I have amassed quite a renovation collection. Don't know why but I always come across the games complete and there were so many of their titles in my box lot I bought. I got the box and manual to this one and found the cart at good ol' gamecrazy for 99 cents. Needless to say I was happy as I've heard this game is supposed to be awesome. Tomorrow on Saturday I will defenitely sit down and try it out.

[Tron 2.0]

Renovation did a pretty good job when it came to "publishing titles" by Telenet.
Other then that i use play, Arcus Odyssey on the Sega Channel it was a fun little action rpg in it's self.

[Aussie2B]

Why do the "Sleeper of the Week" games always seem to be games I don't have from my favorite little Japanese developers? :P

Heh....glad to be helping! That's the whole idea here...find people games that they may have missed! Glad it's working!

Well, I already know of the games, so it's more like you're mocking me by pointing out all the games I wish I had. :P Or maybe it's a sign to get me to get off my lazy butt and track them down one way or another, hehe. :)

[Kroogah]

A fairly large number of collectors seem to ignore the Genesis except for a few main titles as well, and values are low on most of the games. Hence the games were underappreciated at the time, even though a TON of people had Genesis systems, and the many collectors underappreciate the Genesis now :)

This is exactly why I got into the Genesis. Genesis didn't have Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear, GTA, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, or many of the other franchises people always look for. You gotta dig for great Genesis games, and that adds to the fun in my opinion. Stuff like Dragon's Fury and Championship Bowling are some of the best games I've ever played, and most people don't even know they exist.