One Piece Odyssey: Gorgeous style, but not enough substance
- Developer: ILCA
- Publisher: Bandai Namco
- Release date: 13th January 2023
- Genre: Adventure, JRPG
- Platforms: PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, Windows PC
- Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
- Game Supplied by: Publisher
One Piece Odyssey Review
The One Piece Odyssey franchise is one of the most successful anime and manga series of all time, and it is still going strong, eclipsing the 1000-instalment mark of shows and books. Despite the wealth of material to fall back on, the video game tie-ins have never quite hit the mark. One Piece Odyssey does a fantastic job of visually recreating the series’ excitement, but ultimately it doesn’t quite fulfil the potential the series deserves.
The story synopsis revolves around Luffy and his crew crashing upon a strange island called Waford. Upon being shipwrecked, an inhabitant of this island steals the crew’s powers and scatters them (in the shape of cubes) all over the island. To escape the Island Luffy and his crew have to regain these cubes by exploring and entering dimensions that will take them back to their memories (where they replay battles from the manga’s past) to get them back. Once they have located enough of these cubes, they can solve the mystery of the island and escape it.
The overarching story is actually a neat take on how to replay and view old scenes from the series in a new way, but this ultimately means there is nothing really new here for long-time fans. Series writer Eiichiro Oda was a consultant for this game, but let’s be honest; when you have already written over 1000 episodes you might start to struggle to find new story ideas to take things forward; That becomes evident here, as the game relies on rehashing old storylines.
I have read the first 9 volumes of the Manga, so I knew who was who in the game, but there were a lot of references that went right over my head. Players of the game will need to have reached at least episode 750 of the manga to truly experience (and understand) the full power of the story. If you haven’t got that far in the series, you can still enjoy the game, but it won’t resonate with you as much as someone who is totally invested in this world.
However, the worst aspect of this 30-hour game is not the overriding story, it’s the dull padding it receives from mind-numbing fetch quests: You’ll be just about to reach a save point when a monkey-type creature steals one of the team’s wallets and you have to go and get it back; Just as you reach one part of the map, you may have to go all the way back to the start just to pick up an item. There are simply too many occasions where these boring missions arrive, breaking up the flow of gameplay. Without them, yes, the game time would have been slimmed down significantly, but it would have led to a much more engrossing experience.
The visuals of the game are absolutely stunning, which goes some way towards masking some of the game’s shortcomings. The movements, artwork and detail faithfully recreate the anime with such panache, that in my opinion, this is possibly the best-looking anime tie-in game of all time. They have most certainly captured the essence, fun and excitement of the series in its visual style, especially in the combat attacks.
The worlds you explore in the game are interesting to look at, with great textures and rendering of the landscape, and they are filled with movement and life. There are options to play the game in 4k at 30fps or in the performance mode which lowers the resolution and increases the frame rate to 60fps. Seeing as this is an anime game and not an uber-realistic real-world one, there is no real need for the 4k option so we would highly recommend playing the game in performance mode and taking advantage of the super-smooth framerate.
The artwork of the world is superb with accurate renditions of Luffy and his crew alongside some interesting worlds and scenes to view. There are quite a lot of close-up cut scenes that capture each character’s own individual visual quirkiness, alongside some more traditional cinematics of old scenes. Everything is presented very clearly, even the menus and options in battle – It’s eye candy wherever you are looking, and none more so than in combat.
Combat is turn-based with a twist, but it is extremely accessible to anyone who hasn’t played these types of games before. When entering a combat situation the basic premise is that there is a team of four in battle, and each member has their own square. The game will randomly place enemies in the field so that one battle might have 3 enemies with one teammate, or one enemy in each box of each team member. To move to help a teammate you have to defeat any enemies in their own square first. Once you have done so you are free to then target enemies in another teammate’s square.
The battles themselves utilise a simple rock-paper-scissors type scheme, where each team member and enemy has a strength or weakness that is always ready to be exploited. Seeing as you can freely swap members in and out during combat with no downside, it was easy (maybe a little too easy) to simply change the team to use whoever had the right attack style to take advantage of an enemy’s weakness.
Each crew member has a basic attack and a special attack. Basic attacks are unlimited but the special skill attacks use points up, and are so visually gratifying to watch you could be forgiven for spamming these far more often than needed! Some of the best animations are for Luffy himself, launching a Gum Gum Gatling attack with a blur of rubber arms smashing enemies thousands of times! Part of the fun of the game was finding each team member’s most stylistic attack, however, the visual treats didn’t end there.
Bond attacks can be performed if enough bond points have been raised through attacking in battle and the correct members of the team are in play. They can combine to launch their own spectacular high-powered attack in a three-person cinematic takedown; One Piece Odyssey gushes with visual excitement!
To help with combat even more, the game highlights enemies’ weaknesses, Which simplifies encounters. Also, there are skill buffs, gained by finding more cubes, and items to equip that make the team more powerful. I played the game on Normal difficulty and found a lot of the combat to be very simple and easy, but a little more challenging for boss fights.
Unfortunately, when you take away the visual glitz and glamour, the combat is a little too easy and repetitive. As the game mechanics help you so much it was never too much trouble to put the right members in to win battles with ease. As the whole team gets EXP, whether they are the ones in the field or not, there is no downside to doing this. Conversely, there were too many times I’d go from one battle to the next facing the same enemies in the same positions, basically repeating the same battle I had just moments before. This is made worse as there aren’t enough enemy types to mix things up either, so it became easy to remember an enemy’s weakness and which crew member to use without having to think too much.
Boss fights were the highlights of the game and were the moments I savoured, as the sense of the unknown and their superior power and strength made them an interesting challenge.
Exploration is also a bit of a mixed bag. Each crew member has a special ability in the field to find, locate, traverse or open up new paths: Luffy is the only crew member that can reach shining items with his stretchy rubber arms, Usopp is the only crew member who can shoot down items hanging above, Nanni is the only member who can spot treasure items, and so on. It is simple to swap out team members to use the right person with a simple click on a sub-menu, but it became tiresome having to continually switch characters. However, the reward for doing so meant that you could use team members to unlock new areas and find new loot, enemies and cubes, so it ultimately made doing so feel more rewarding. The game also has some rudimentary puzzles in some dungeons to break up the gameplay loop, but none of the puzzles was particularly taxing.
While out in the field, you are able to set up camp at various points, which will then encourage you to “have a party” where you can regain all the team’s health and skill points. It’s also a time to interact with the team and cook items to be ready for the next set of encounters. To start with the waypoints were few and far between, but once you unlock the ability to fast travel this is alleviated quite a lot.
Finally, the audio of the game is fantastic. The in-game effects during combat have depth and power, which encouraged me to experiment so I could see and hear everything. Although there are many moments of tedium in the story, the voice acting and banter between the crew are superbly produced, with all of the emotion and presentation of the anime itself. Other incidental sound effects such as footfalls and the sounds of metal clashing against metal elevate the foley work further, taking the audio to another level.
Summary
One Piece Odyssey is one of the most visually stunning and exciting JRPGs on the market, with visuals that truly complements and in some ways excel over the source material. Those visuals however mask some of the game’s faults. It’s let down by the average combat, mind-numbing fetch quests, and the need to have been heavily invested in the series to really understand the full gravitas of this game’s story. It can be used as an entry point for anyone new to the franchise, and JRPGs in general, but only the true hardcore fans will get the most from this fairly simplistic, albeit very flashy, game.
