One Piece Odyssey is the newest upcoming game in the popular franchise but does things a bit differently. This isn’t a fighting game or Musou, it’s a traditional JRPG where you’ll explore a unique storyline with some of your favorite heroes. After spending some time with this game during Gamescom 2022, I can say for sure that this is going to please the fans. Want to learn more? Let’s jump in!
A new world to explore
One Piece Odyssey is going to be a very unique game in many ways, one of the biggest things about it is the fact that it comes with an entirely new story. That’s right, this isn’t another retold story from the manga, instead, you’re getting your hands on new lore. Monkey. D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Crew crashed on the island called Waford where they’ll meet with two new characters. Adio is very energetic and fits the overall feeling of the franchise a lot while Lim is more like the silent type and keeps things a bit more mysterious. Both characters are completely new and are designed by Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece. During their new adventure, the crew must travel through the island where they’ll face off with raw nature and powerful enemies. But, they are not alone, during the adventure you’ll also have a lot of interaction with the inhabitants of the island. In order to achieve the goal, you’ll need to work together as a crew in order to get your ship back in the water. During the presentation, I only saw fragments of the story but it’s shaping up to become a nicely made story, to say the least. It looks and feels like a playable episode rather than a game.
Traditional JRPG
After the introduction of the story, I went over to the Bandai Namco booth to play the game. Long story short, I loved the demo and I’m glad the team is going in a different direction for the One Piece franchise. At its core, this is a traditional JRPG with open exploration. Meaning that you’ll walk around the open world and go from point A to B with tons of extra things to do in between those points. The game focuses on the crew so you can constantly switch between characters, which will have a huge impact on the exploration side of the game. Luffy can stretch out and reach higher or more tricky spots on the map while Zoro can easily destroy objects and Tony Tony Chopper can get through narrow spaces. Getting to know the characters and their abilities is crucial if you want to discover every little secret and it also offers way more fun than having just one playable hero.
Controlling multiple characters also transfers to the combat mechanics. Like in many other modern JRPGs, the enemies are visible on the map, you can dodge them by walking around them but once you touch them, you’ll start the turn-based combat. It follows the formula of a classic turn-based game but adds in some interesting new mechanics. The first one is called Scrambled Battle Areas and this divides your team into smaller groups, each facing their own enemies. This is an interesting technique since some characters are stronger against different enemies. In these Scrambled battles, you’ll need to pay attention to two battles at once, which might become rather challenging a bit further into the game. To make it a bit easier, you can swap out your characters with characters who aren’t currently on the field. It will cost you a turn but it might save the battle when you’re using the strengths of your characters against the right type of enemy.
The other mechanic is called Dramatic Scenes and can change the flow of combat a lot. Most of the time something special will happen to cause one of your characters to freeze. Since you’ll need to help out your crew, you’ll need to perform a couple of tasks and special attacks to break those Dramatic Scenes. The harder it is to break those, the better your rewards will be. It’s a fun new mechanic that really alters the flow of combat and it makes the game really different from other JRPGs.
Early conclusion:
I love this new direction of One Piece Odyssey and I can’t wait to see more. This is the game the One Piece fans have been waiting on.
