With Odyssey, announced as a game evolution of the One Piece brand, Bandai Namco wants to leave the last low of the series behind. The goal is to sail into a new virtual pirate age for the Straw Hats. The many enthusiastic reviews of the JRPG sound as if the project was a success. “One of the best One Piece games of all time,” they say. There should be a great deal of love for the template on board and a satisfying and complex combat system that even pirate rookies will enjoy. But we say: Enough with the hymns of praise! While One Piece Odyssey shines like Pirate’s Treasure in its few good moments, it drowns most of its time in the depths of the Grandline due to the frustrating build and heavy backtracking. It’s better than the last straw hat adventures, but that doesn’t mean Odyssey is any good.
If you prefer to get an impression of One Piece Odyssey in video format, we recommend our fresh review video for the JRPG. One Piece Odyssey is on January 13, 2023 released for PS5, Xbox Series X and S, PS4, Xbox One and PC.
A new ship made of scrap wood
The premise of the role-playing game is quickly explained: Instead of once again implementing the greatest adventures of the Straw Hat Journey, Odyssey offers a completely new story that is set in time before the events on the samurai island of Wano Kuni. After a violent storm, Monkey D. Luffy’s pirate gang is stranded and their ship destroyed on the shore of a mysterious island called Waford. The setting is pleasing at first sight with its typically wacky and varied flora and fauna. My goodness, what secrets and adventures await us here! Well, you think so, but more on that in a moment.
One Piece Odyssey in the test: stop with the hymns of praise! (1)
Source: PC games
In the further course of the game we get to know the two characters Adio and Lim, specially created for the game by series father Eiichiro Oda, who become the central confidants of the straw hat gang. Our task is to explore the mysteries of Waford Island, destroy four giant elemental behemoths roaming dungeons and… relive the greatest moments of the Straw Hats with nostalgia. Wait a minute, wasn’t it said that Odyssey features a fresh and brand new story about rubber captain Monkey D. Luffy?
Play the same stuff again!
We spend most of the almost 30-hour role-playing game in the memory world Memoria, which gives us access to four major story arcs of the story that has been told since 97. Right from the start, for reasons we won’t go into detail, the nine-strong squad lose their hard-won skills, which then have to be re-learned. That means Luffy doesn’t remember his Gum-Gum power and Zoro doesn’t remember exactly how the infamous Three Swords style actually works. You want to provide the mighty Straw Hat Pirates with a satisfying progression system – that’s understandable.
