one piece turns 25, and on the occasion of this umpteenth milestone, the video games inspired by him change course and offer something different from the usual. One Piece Odyssey it is the willingness of the developers to explore new territories and, if in the past the video game series was mainly famous for throwing us into chaotic musou arenas or into one of the worst open world adventures ever (World Seekerslet’s talk about you, HERE the review), now is the time to rewind the hands of time and try something more classic, but perhaps even more effective.
One Piece Odyssey in fact, it looks like an old school Jrpg: an RPG full of menus, numbers, equipment and static rounds. Something unexpected perhaps, especially for a brand that is now synonymous with frantic battles, but which manages to give new life to the brand after a few too many failures.
We managed to grab the full game well before release, scheduled for the day after tomorrow January 13th, and we can give you our opinion after completing everything there was to complete. We’ve seen the end credits, we’ve hung out in the endgame and, somewhat surprisingly, we have to admit that we’ve found ourselves faced with an honest game that certainly exceeds expectations.
Basic, One Piece Odyssey it does nothing to rewrite the canons of the genre and establish itself as the new benchmark of the Jrpg. On the contrary, we are talking about a product that is certainly derivative and without any courage or will to innovate. This is certainly his greatest sin, but in a world where licensed titles rarely manage to be just experiences worthy of our time, a derivative product but still with its own dignity is much more than we ever dreamed of. ask.
One Piece Odyssey is an honest jrpg, which draws heavily from the classic canons of the Dragon Quest and throws us into an adventure with quality art direction, well-shot cutscenes and gameplay halfway between open maps and labyrinthine dungeons.
Basically, the narrative wants Luffy and his crew to land despite them on yet another mysterious island and not tracked on the maps. Here, they meet Adio and Lim, two survivors with too many secrets. For a series of vicissitudes that we do not anticipate, the Straw Hat crew will end up losing their powers and having to relive the memories of old adventures to get back in strength.
The tale is a continuous ping pong between the history of the peculiar island of Waford and memories of four of the most famous sagas of one piece paper: Alabasta, Water 7, Marineford and Dressrosa. An excellent compromise between news and fan service; fan service that we can also excuse, given that the only reason for the game’s existence is precisely that of self-celebration.
Not all sagas are treated with the same care, but in general you can rest assured that you will find yourself in front of a dive into memories made with heart and a lot of care. The ILCA developers are not the latest arrivals on the market (only recently have they given us the excellent remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl), so it was also reasonable to expect the actual quality.
As for the game itself, there isn’t much to report other than what you’d already expect: an alternation of wild lands and cities to explore, shops to shop in, skills to upgrade and sought-after secrets to collect bounties from. The various intrinsic abilities of the crew will allow us to explore normally inaccessible places, while the unique peculiarities of each of them will have to be kept in mind when creating the formation.
A bit like seen recently in Monster Hunter Stories 2, we are talking about a battle system on par with rock-paper-scissors. Each character, as well as the enemies he will face, can belong to one of the three existing categories: Strength, Technique and Speed. Each of these is strong against one type and weak against another. This means that based on who we have against, we will have to think about who to take on the field. Nothing too complex to tell the truth, especially against small groups, but particular care is required instead in the more advanced stages.
Basic, one of the problems of One Piece Odyssey is the difficulty line, really too soft for an excessive number of hours. In the prologue it’s even possible to take down entire bosses before they have a chance to attack us once. The more we go on, fortunately, the more things change.
The game is long enough, it takes about forty hours to see the end credits of the main campaign, so we can also say that he takes his time to accommodate us with the various mechanics. I like the fact that each arena is divided into several areas: in fact, we are not talking about clashes made up of the classic two lines, the allied and enemy ones, but about real micro-islands where everyone will find themselves face to face with only a part of the opponents.
This means that before being able to help companions in difficulty, we will have to get the better of who we are already facing, or perhaps take advantage of special techniques that give movement on the field or even bypass this rule. When some heroes find themselves in the same area, among other things, it is possible that gags are staged that change the cards on the table a bit: for example, if Sanji and Zoro end up fighting shoulder to shoulder, they could challenge each other to count the number of enemies killed from there on, thus boosting the attack of both.
Similarly, a girl in trouble might force Sanji to become more active, and so on. Nothing transcendental, but many small unexpected events that can keep the attention highespecially in a genre already based on repetitiveness.
In most cases, however, also given the ease of the vast majority of random encounters, you just need to activate the autopilot and let Artificial Intelligence do the rest. Proof, this, that maybe a little difficulty rebalancing couldn’t hurtespecially in the first half of the story.
Note on a couple of dungeons which, due to their complexity and imagination, actually surprised us; and to the care placed in the animations of each protagonist, enemy or secondary character. All the group’s most famous moves have been recreated with painstaking carefurther reinforcing our belief that we are dealing with a work of art that is faithful, conscientious and full of respect for the original work.
Definitely, despite One Piece Odyssey you don’t reinvent any style of the turn-based Jrpg, it is inspired by the right ones anywaypositioning itself as an honest choice for anyone looking for a worthy turn-based RPG without too many frills, and a must buy for all those fans who still follow the adventures of the Mugiwaras and have a great desire to take a good dive into their past .
One Piece Odyssey, as a setting, goes up against sacred monsters who have been offering similar experiences for decades and, precisely for this reason, it will hardly be remembered for anything in particular. At the same time, however, it has no glaring errors that send it back to the level of classic tie-ins without art or part.
All in all, a good game who doesn’t show who knows how much courage but who isn’t even interested in doing it. He could have gone much, much worse.