Howdy hidey ho! I’ve never played a One Piece videogame, but I’ve watched hundreds upon hundreds of One Piece anime episodes. That, at least, gives me the necessary background to understand the characters. Sure, I might resonate with Sanji for many reasons, and you might think that I’m reviewing One Piece Odyssey just for the big boo-
GAMEPLAY
You really won’t be impressed with the gameplay…
There are major issues in the gameplay department pretty early on. For one, the combat layout of areas never really feels polished or amounts to anything other than an odd need to swap characters around. This doesn’t stop it from working, mind you, and the combat itself works at a simple triangle level… TOO simple, in fact: there’s virtually no real difficulty and everything is a breeze as if the game is designed, dare I say it, “for kids”. There are a few randomly inexplicable spikes in difficulty, but it really is clearly aimed at a young audience. To the point where more complex systems like accessory fusion are completely a waste of your time and you’ll just use accessories you find or buy. Then, we move into the exploration and it’s as draconian as it gets. We’re talking linear, hall-running, corridor exploration to a painfully simple degree… so simple it includes unnecessary backtracking even in the late game. You really won’t be impressed with the gameplay in any aspect, especially in the face of more modern JRPGs. The focused simplicity, once again, comes off as aiming the game towards a very young crowd as evidenced by puzzles that can be solved with your eyes closed. While that in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem, it wastes your time with things that simply do not pan out into anything useful in the grand scheme. You basically walk around and fight, and nothing else between the nearly constant dialogue interruptions. Yea, there aren’t even minigames or anything to break up the monotony…
CONTENT
…it’s all by the numbers.
If you can stand the monotony, the credits roll in about 32-35 hours. While this is still on the short side for a JRPG, it’s also still a healthy length. There’s side content, naturally, but of the bits I did, it’s also just as draconian as it gets. We’re talking collection, or killing something or someone, and it’s all by the numbers. And while there seems to be an endgame mission in particular, the truth is that the vast majority of people will bin the game when it’s done.
PRESENTATION
…clear effort to make everyone sound, behave, and feel authentic…
This is becoming all-too common: thanks to modern technology, many games make up for themselves a bit in the presentation arena. This game is no exception, and while graphics aren’t everything, authenticity is worth a lot. So while the game may look last gen, it’s clean and colorful. You might have some qualms with the running animations (based on the quality of overall animation, it’s clear the running animations are purposely done this way), and you might really, REALLY have qualms with the total lack of boob physics, but that doesn’t take away the shockingly accurate 3D representations of these iconic One Piece characters. To top this off, the combat animations are lively and feel like what one would imagine these moves looked like if performed “for real”. And then comes where I give them brownie points for authenticity: as far as I could tell, EVERY voice actor was the actual one from the anime! Yea, that’s quite the pleasant surprise! Then, on top of that, the lines are all written and acted EXACTLY how you’ve come to know the characters from the anime. This is the crazy part: I think this might just be one of THE most accurate anime-to-videogame adaptations. There’s clear effort here to make everyone sound, behave, and feel authentic, and I give brownie points for this. Of course, then we shift into the story, and I can summarize this in a very easy way: it’s like a greatest hits soundtrack, except there’s only a handful of songs. You relive some of the greatest moments, but if you’ve watched as much One Piece as I have, you’ll quickly recognize just how little you actually get, and then there’s the “bonus” track (the game’s own story)…
CONCLUSION
…the stiffest boobs this side of 2023.
If you’re a One Piece zealot, then you likely already bought this game. But if you’re more of a passive enjoyer of One Piece, then this game will be rather disappointing. It leaves a lot to be desired when stacked up against the JRPG scene, and it boils down to a problem of being fundamentally designed for a very young audience. It thus tosses systems your way to little effect, and finds itself designed after JRPGs of yester-decade. However, it does absolutely nail the One Piece authenticity factor in a way few game adaptations do, and it does it in a clean-looking, well-animated combat package, albeit having the stiffest boobs this side of 2023.
I give One Piece Odyssey…
ZyroXZ2 Entertainment Gaming 