Alright, admit it: raise your hand if you didn't think Odama would actually be released. It's a forgivable offense. Nintendo is notorious for showing off quirky concept demos at their E3 booth year after year, then never bringing them to fruition: witness Stage Debut or Kirby Tilt and Tumble. Odama -- a bizarre blend of military strategy and pinball from the creator of Seaman -- seemed headed for the black hole of unfinished games, but here it is. And it's actually pretty good.

This is My Odama, This is My Bell

Since designer Yoot Saito has yet to make a video game that falls into any established genre, it's impossible to sum up Odama in just a few words. Here's the long-winded version. The year is 1539. You are the heir of a once-proud feudal lord whose power has been usurped. You vow to lead an army into battle and take back your kingdom. The odds are against you, but you have two secret weapons: the mystic Ninten Bell and the great Odama.

The Odama is a massive ball that you roll around the battlefield by hitting it with two massive flippers. See where this is going? Yep, the battlefields are one large pinball arena, complete with bumpers, obstacles, and power-ups. But you won't win just by slamming the Odama around. To complete a stage, you have to guide your troops (and the giant Ninten Bell that they carry) up and through a gate at the top of the playfield.

You do this by shouting commands at them. Literally. The GameCube Mic -- formerly the exclusive domain of forgettable Mario Party minigames -- is included in the box, and you'll strap it to the top of your controller so you can bark orders to your men, sending them around the battlefield. People in the next room will wonder what on Earth you are doing, because all they'll hear is "Press forward! Press forward! Rally! Rally! Press forward!"

Hard Little Ball

Or actually, what they'll hear for the first few hours will be more like "Press forward! Press forw- oh, for the love of *bleep* you stupid mother*bleep*ing piece of *bleep*!" That’s because Odama is hard. Really hard. Like, throw-the-Wavebird hard. If you think it's easy to play a complicated pinball game while ordering soldiers around to accomplish various tasks, then you are a moron. For the first four levels or so, you'll wonder who put cigarettes out on Yoot Saito as a child and turned him into such a sadist.

But eventually -- I promise -- it does click. Soon enough you'll get really good at clicking the cursor around, sending your men to accomplish various objectives around the board while simultaneously juggling the pinball. It takes a bit of trial and error to figure out how to clear each stage. Sometimes you can't just rush the goal -- you'll have to take out an enemy general first, by slamming him with the Odama then sending your troops to kick his ass while he's stunned.

But once you figure out the intricacies of each stage, success all comes down to one central factor: getting as many troops as possible. This is done by powering up your Odama so it turns green – then, any enemy it touches will be added to your reserves. Unfortunately, the frequency at which this happens is pretty random. If the game doesn't toss out enough of the little green power-ups that give your ball heavenly strength, then the battle is over before it's even begun.

Onward, My Liege!

What makes Odama shine, like so many crazy Japanese games, is the presentation. The design takes entirely fictional characters, places, and landmarks and renders them as if they were real historical artifacts. The level-select map is a beautiful landscape that looks as if it was lifted from a traditional folding screen. Your adviser speaks to you in sixteenth-century Japanese (subtitled in English).

And just when you begin to think you've got it all figured out, it starts throwing more intricate challenges at you. In one stage, you storm a castle town as the playfield moves around to adjust to your position, leaving you potentially vulnerable to attacks from behind unless you are judicious with your battle commands. In another, three sets of flippers are set around a mountain peak, and you rotate the playfield based on your ball's location. Then you fight a giant spider whose head looks like Seaman.

You Might Have a Ball

Odama's craziness is not for everyone. And even the people who like it won't find it to be more than a brief diversion. But it's great that it actually made it all this way, as the project could easily have been killed at any moment. The fact that Nintendo helped Vivarium see it through has paid off, as the companies have once again redefined what a video game can be. Odama won't shake up the world, but it makes it a noticeably more interesting place.