One Piece Odyssey Review
Being a fan of One Piece probably means that I was likely to either be extra-critical of its RPG adaptation or alternatively more lenient with a personal attachment to the characters. Now after having played One Piece Odyssey, I think I'm leaning on the "more critical" side. Odyssey is the first major turn-based RPG for the series, with the mega-hit Shonen manga more often adapted into action titles instead. I was pretty excited about this game, with my only concern being that the main development team ILCA, was largely only known for their support work and more recently the Pokemon Pearl and Diamond remakes which got a mixed reception. I haven't minded their work on the Voice of Cards series, though.
The setup, and story overall, is pretty basic. Captain Luffy of the Straw Hat Pirates spots a strange island and demands they land there, before being pulled in by a storm. Shipwrecked, a strange girl called Lim separates the pirate crew from their powers, which is represented in this RPG framework by being set back to level one and having very few skills. The crew soon fights the island guardian Collossi and travels to Memoria, dream-like lands made out of their collective memories in order to regain their scattered powers. Though the events in these memories aren't always exactly the same as what actually happened in the past.
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I was also disappointed that certain moments were not made into cutscenes, or even playable segments. Such as one point where you save Princess Vivi it, merely tells you in text what you did. This especially agitating after all the time spent combing through the sand for minor things instead of playing what could have been a more fun rescue mission. Later on, these sorts of events shook things up a bit more, and there was one distinctly fun part (for a fan) in Dressrosa, and they just didn't do enough of that.
Through the animations alone I can see there was a lot of care put into creating this game, with some serious attention to detail (even down to Sanji refusing to damage the sole female enemy in the game). But there are some very basic design decisions, especially regarding game progression that hamper the experience greatly. The backtracking continues throughout even all the way to the very end, to the point that I really wondered what the extra padding was for. I'm not even interested in the post-game quest of fighting tougher opponents since all the boss fights prior were so basic. The great cast just isn't enough to not make certain parts of the game feel like a chore. For the One Piece fan who can handle a bit of tedium and lackluster bosses, I can recommend it, for anyone else I wouldn't suggest it.
Score: 6/10
