Last month we saw the release of a long-awaited RPG, as it was released One Piece Odyssey on Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PlayStation 5 and PC. This Bandai Namco title arrives to celebrate the 25th anniversary of One Piece and brings the franchise to the new generation of consoles, while offering an experience that only the most die-hard fans will be able to enjoy.
Since One Piece Odyssey was announced, it generated a lot of expectations thanks to its visuals, since they look quite good and are the best representation of Eiichiro Oda’s characters in 3D. However, the gameplay of One Piece Odyssey does not reach its full potential and in general the game offers us an experience that it can easily become tedious for who is not a real fanboy from One Piece.
The story of One Piece takes the Straw Hat Pirates to the mysterious island of Wafordwhere they meet the two original characters made by Eiichiro Oda for this game: bye and lim. These characters have mysterious powers that seem unrelated to the Akuma no mi, but Lim makes Luffy and his Nakamas forget most of his abilities, so they must recover them before they can leave Watford.
In order to regain their abilities, the Straw Hat Pirates must delve into their memories collectively, reliving some of the most important arcs of the One Piece anime and manga, though not exactly. One Piece Odyssey is a game made to celebrate One Piece’s 25th anniversary, so I don’t recommend it for someone who hasn’t yet delved into the amazing world that Eiichiro Oda created.
This is the basis of One Piece Odyssey’s plot, which serves as a justification for reviving the Alabasta, Water Seven, Marineford, and Dressrosa arcs. However, the drama that we saw in these arcs, either in the manga or in the anime, is not present in One Piece Odyssey, because on this occasion Luffy and the rest of the crew seem like tourists from their own memories.
An adventure that sins for its linearity
The memories of the Mugiwara take us to familiar places that we can explore in 3D for the first time with this detail, although the freedom of movement of the scenes is little. The structure of One Piece Odyssey is extremely linear, so many narrow corridors, alleys and paths await us with somewhat limited exploration. Occasionally One Piece Odyssey presents us with open locations filled with enemies that will feel familiar to RPG fans, but these moments are sadly rare.
One Piece Odyssey is full of cut scenes, although luckily the characters are well characterized and interact in the way we might expect, so almost all of these cutscenes are bearable. However, at certain times these appear very often and since the animations leave a lot to be desired when compared to the anime, they can quickly become tedious.
Sometimes linearity isn’t bad and I’m not saying One Piece Odyssey needed to be an open world game to be good, but the way the game takes you by the hand is what makes linearity tedious. Sometimes we come across rooms with multiple exits, which are apparently open on the map, but when we approach one that is not the correct one to follow the main story we are stopped, and not in a subtle way.
If you take the wrong turn in One Piece Odyssey or even approach the wrong door, the game cuts to a black screen followed by a short cutscene telling you that’s not the way before returning control to you. In the lower left part of the screen we can see a mini map, which generally consists of a single path that we must follow until the next cutscene is activated, indicated with a red icon.
Actually One Piece Odyssey feels like the kind of game that asks you to just follow the main quest prompt in order to continue, which is usually at the end of the hallway, so it’s just a walk forward, activate cutscene and repeat, with some occasional fights in between. In fact, the game offers the option to run automatically, so the developers must have recognized that it was tiring to simply push the stick forward and decided to take pity on us.
A combat system that does not reach its potential
The shortcomings in the story or the level structure of One Piece Odyssey would not be a problem if the game offered good gameplay, because when a JRPG does that they are usually highly addictive. When One Piece Odyssey’s combat system was introduced I got excited thinking about the possibilities, but it quickly became clear that there isn’t much depth.
Each character and enemy in One Piece Odyssey belongs to a category, which can be Strength, Speed and Technique and they work in a similar mechanic to the game of Rock, Paper and Scissors. This serves to differentiate the Straw Hat Pirates, since you will be able to make various combinations according to their categories and what the combat requires, especially taking into account that the game offers a total of nine characters.
The One Piece Odyssey combats consist of confrontations of 4 Pirates against a changing number of enemies, which can go from only one to a dozen. However, what is interesting is that the combats are divided into sections or zones and the characters cannot leave theirs until they have defeated all the enemies. In this way, we can come across scenarios with many different combinations, since the number of enemy zones and the number of combatants varies in each fight.
This combat system made me think of all the times One Piece presents us with multiple fights at once, with each Pirate facing a different enemy, which would have allowed for an interesting adaptation of the fights against CP9, to name a few. In addition, the characters’ abilities are perfectly adapted to this type of game, because while Zoro or Sanji can only attack in their zone, Usopp and Nami can attack enemies from a distance (in other zones) thanks to the nature of their weapons. .
The rock-paper-scissors system added to the different zones made me think that One Piece Odyssey had the potential to offer some very strategic JRPG fights that made us feel like in the anime, but since the game allows us to change the lineup of our characters on any given turn, the combat actually loses a layer of strategy.
A world made for the biggest fans
One Piece Odyssey’s visuals don’t look bad at all and the game is full of easter eggs for moments that didn’t happen in the aforementioned arcs, so the biggest fans of the series will surely have a great time recognizing every detail. One Piece Odyssey also has skins for our characters, but for some reason these are reversed when we enter cutscenes, taking half the fun out of the matter.
It is possible to change the crew member of the team we are using at any time, so you can go through the places we visited as Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Nami, Sanji, Chopper, Nico Robin and Franky, although he and Brook are not available for a large part of the game. Each character has a different ability that helps us in exploration, as Luffy is able to stretch his arms to reach inaccessible places, Usopp can use his shooter to knock objects off walls, Zoro can cut metal boxes to obtain more treasures and further.
It is also possible to level up and improve our statistics with the objects that we find both throughout the adventure and thrown in the world, which encourages exploration, although honestly the design of the levels and the speed of movement of the characters also it can get tedious.
Verdict: An RPG that only a fanboy can enjoy
If you don’t mind that One Piece Odyssey’s story doesn’t feel as original, or that its cutscenes don’t have the drama that characterizes those of the anime, or that its combat system doesn’t have as much depth despite its appearance, or that the level design doesn’t let go of your hand, you can probably enjoy any creation made in the world that Eiichiro Oda gave us, in which case don’t hesitate to try this new JRPG.
The best thing is that you can also try One Piece Odyssey thanks to its demo, which has transferable progress to the full version of the game, so judge for yourself if it is the type of experience you want to dedicate about 40 hours. In the event that you have not seen One Piece, this video game is not the right place to start, since you will be missing a lot of context and all the moments that make this work by Eiichiro Oda so good.
The good:
- Very good graphics and character models with a lot of fan service
- The seiyu of the anime are back for a more authentic experience
The bad:
- Too linear level design
- Lack of drama in cinematics
- an unoriginal story
