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The History of Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean

A Super NES game that lost its platform, rebuilt for the Saturn around a live orchestra. The reviews could not agree on anything except the music.

Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean (Sega Saturn) is the third Albert Odyssey and the first to leave Japan: a gaiden, a side story, to two Super Famicom tactical RPGs that were never released in English. Released in Japan on August 9, 1996 as Albert Odyssey Gaiden, it reached North America through Working Designs on July 23, 1997, and it remains the only game on this shelf whose review scores argue with each other from 91 percent down to two stars.

THE MAKING

Sunsoft, by way of a cancelled platform

Sunsoft developed Legend of Eldean, produced by Kiharu Yoshida, designed by Yoshiaki Iwata, with character design by Toshiyuki Kubooka, originally for the Super NES. When the Super NES release fell through, the game was ported to the Saturn late in development, and the chief change the new hardware bought was the soundtrack: composer Naoki Kodaka, who had scored the two earlier games, rebuilt the music as an orchestrated score mixing Saturn synthesis with live recording at Music Farm Studio in Japan. Pony Canyon released the two disc soundtrack album on March 21, 1996, before the game itself.

THE DESIGN

The series changes its own genre

The two Super Famicom Albert Odyssey games are tactical RPGs. The gaiden is not: Legend of Eldean plays as a traditional turn based RPG, the first in the series to do so and the first released in English, which means Western players met the series in its side story, in its other genre, with no access to the main line it branches from. The design is deliberately conventional, towns, dungeons, and random battles in the classic mold, carried by its presentation and its script. Whether that conventionality is purity or plainness is precisely the argument its reviewers had.

THE EDITIONS

One painting, two publishers

Kubooka's cast, Sunsoft to Working Designs

The art crossed unchanged; the byline tells the story

Albert Odyssey Gaiden Japanese Saturn cover — **Japan · August 9, 1996**The Japanese jewel case under the Sunsoft name, the cast around the Legend of Eldean banner, Gaiden marked in the title art.

Albert Odyssey Legend of Eldean American Saturn longbox cover — **America · July 23, 1997**The Working Designs Ultra Series longbox keeps the same painting. The publisher's banner replaces Sunsoft's.

Japan also received a budget rerelease in the Saturn Collection line on June 20, 1997, at ¥2,800 (about $24 at the era's rate), unusually early for a game still selling its American edition at full price.

Japan · 1996

Albert Odyssey Gaiden: Legend of Eldean, August 9, 1996. A side story to two Japan only Super Famicom tactical RPGs.

Saturn Collection · 1997

Budget rerelease in Japan on June 20, 1997 at 2,800 yen.

North America · 1997

Working Designs, July 23, 1997, in the Ultra Series line, with the script and gameplay adjustments its reviews noted.

Rereleases · None

No port, no remaster. The two disc Pony Canyon soundtrack remains its most reissued artifact.

THE RECEPTION

The split decision, kept whole

RPGFan · 91%

The high verdict: the story, the script, and the orchestrated score carried the game for its defenders.

EGM · Editor's Choice Silver

An aggregate of 33 of 40. Dan Hsu called it "not only beautiful" but holder of "one of the best, most involving story lines seen in an RPG," and praised the witty dialogue.

GameSpot · 7.6 / 10

The middle position: praise for the Working Designs script and the North American gameplay improvements, against a design it called "unimaginative."

Next Generation · 2 / 5

The harshest dissent on this shelf: "downright painful to look at" and "regrettably forgettable," while crediting Working Designs for polishing it.

The aggregate, 75 percent on GameRankings from six reviews, hides the spread. Game Informer's 7.25 cited the slow pace and monotonous battles; IGN's 7 called it "a mild appetizer for Lunar and Magic Knight Rayearth" and "pretty good" in the same breath; GamePro liked the cast and story and still consigned it to "the realm of rentals" for its shortness and thin gameplay. Read together, the reviews describe one game accurately from different tolerances: a beautiful, well written, entirely conventional RPG. Which side of that sentence you live on decides the score.

THE LEGACY

The appetizer that stayed on the menu

Albert Odyssey never received another Western release, and Legend of Eldean has never been rereleased anywhere. Its afterlife is as the Saturn's honest middle: the Working Designs shelf piece that documents how the era's localization houses built the American Saturn RPG catalogue one licensed Sunsoft, Sega, and Game Arts title at a time. The orchestrated score, the part of the game its platform change actually bought, is the piece that outlasted every argument about the rest.

The Saturn RPG Gallery