One Piece Odyssey Preview – A Promising Maiden Voyage Through Well-Charted Seas

I have completed the Arlong Park Arc. One Piece anime this year and took a break to watch some other shows on my lists and play through some games I’ve been meaning to finish. That’s to say, I went into a hands-on preview session with One Piece Odyssey with just a dash of One PieceThis knowledge is a result of knowing that I have over 1,000 episodes to go to catch up. After roughly two hours of playing Odyssey, I am rearing to jump back into the anime, and that’s the best compliment I can give the game. It doesn’t hurt that Odyssey is shaping up to be a great JRPG with some unique systems that will make playing easier for newcomers to the genre and more dynamic for fans of these games. 

I was worried about my lack of knowledge heading into this preview, but it’s clear in One Piece Odyssey that it was important for the team to design an RPG that appeals to all players, not just One Piece fans. 

Logs inside Odyssey are also used to fill in for other players. When I reach Nanohana in Alabasta, these logs help me understand the location’s importance. They don’t provide the full story of Alabasta, though, which I think is great. I don’t even feel spoiled of that arc; Odyssey gives me just enough information to understand the importance of reaching this place in the game. Some games that are based upon popular anime fall into the trap and retell stories from those anime. But not always. That’s not the case with Odyssey, though, and I think it’s a great foundation upon which this story builds in-game. That’s because instead of retreading classic tales fans already adore, Odyssey uses those arcs to tell new stories in familiar places. 

For example, upon reaching the sandy desert city of Alabasta, the Straw Hat crew – captain Monkey D. Luffy, Brook, Franky, Roronoa Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Nico Robin, Usopp, and Tony Tony Chopper – is aware of their adventures here. Talking about their experiences, Luffy reminisces about his fondness for Spice Bean, and many other topics. They talk about past experiences, Luffy comments on his love for the Spice Bean Restaurant and more. One PieceThe past has been a part of the adventure, the future builds upon it. 

Odyssey causes a lot of havoc for both the Straw Hats crew, and the Thousand Sunny vessel it sails on, before they reach Alabasta. Cinematic footage shows how a strong storm has thrown the Thousand Sunny out of its track, and crashing it on the beaches of an unknown island. The Straw Hats are split up by the shipwreck, so I take control of Luffy and attempt to locate everyone. It’s here that Odyssey introduces its unique, flashy, fun, and surprisingly in-depth combat system to me. 

This crew is now level 40. They are trying to prove their abilities as pirates. And each member has nearly a dozen skills at their disposal, too, like Luffy’s various Gum moves. At its core, Odyssey as a turn-based RPG, and people familiar with the genre will quickly pick up on how the game’s combat works. Looking deeper, however, I see mechanics that were inspired by Pokemon along with dynamic scenes and menus based on the Persona series. 

In a Scramble area battle, each enemy will be encountered. The system distributes the enemies according to field placement. Luffy may be facing two enemies in front of him. Sanji might not have any enemy within his area, but Luffy’s long-range maneuvers allow him to attack them. Nami is able to ignore enemies near her and help Luffy or can be focused on those directly in front of him. I pay attention to every enemy on the field not just because they can strike at me from any position but because each has weaknesses and strengths dictated by a Pokémon-esque, rock-paper-scissors-like system. 

Power-type characters or enemies (and subsequent Power attacks) are powerful against Speed. Speed is stronger than Technique. However, Technique is most effective against Power. The game demonstrates effectiveness by using red arrows pointing up when aiming for an enemy with a specific move type or blue arrows pointing down to let you know that move isn’t effective. Certain actions can also have status effects like fainting, paralysis and bleed. The skills that are based on the anime and manga characters will use Tension Points. However, a very effective move could easily earn you enough TP to upgrade to another skill. 

Dynamic Scenes allow for the introduction of objectives at any stage in combat. In one story instance, enemies paralyze Usopp with a surprise attack, and the Dynamic Scene tasks me with defeating the enemies before they defeat the paralyzed Usopp, who can’t do anything to fight back or defend himself. He is the enemy’s only focus, so I need to move fast in order to beat his attackers. Each Dynamic Scene is worth the effort. It also offers extra rewards and experience. 

It’s a dynamic combat system which I was hooked on halfway through my first encounter. It’s fast-paced, easy to understand, and features minor tweaks like being able to swap party members on the fly without a cost that makes combat frantic and exciting in a way that I think will keep genre newcomers enticed. The UI and menus, especially in presentation, are seemingly inspired by Persona, too, making Odyssey’s combat a feast for the eyes. The animations are dynamic and beautiful, with colorful and stylish menus. Persona 5’s post-battle summary screen has characters that appear stylishly while a catchy song plays. 

On the note of music, it’s fantastic; perhaps even the stand-out feature of this entire preview for me. It’s adventurous, piratical, and precisely what you’d expect from One Piece. It’s no surprise, though, considering Dark Souls composer Motoi Sakuraba, who also has credits within the Tales and Super Smash Bros. series, is composing Odyssey’s score. Sakuraba’s score that I’ve heard thus far in Odyssey is a significant departure from what I know of him best – the Dark Souls series – but it wraps up everything going on in the game in the same sense of adventure the anime’s score does. I’m excited to hear other tracks within the game. 

The game’s opening moments are about teaching you its combat system, but shortly after, you’re free to explore the starting areas of this mysterious island, which Robin determines is Waford, a location new to this universe. It’s shrouded in mystery, naturally, because the crew has never been there, and only Robin has heard of it, but it’s home to strange relics and artifacts covered in ancient-looking symbols. 

Soon, I discovered that they are connected to a brand new character. One PieceLim was created by Eiichiro Oda. Adio, another Oda creation is just before this character. Lim determines the Straw Hats to be pirates and, before introductions, uses her strange power to take the crew’s skills and strength and turn them into cubes that she mysteriously scatters around the world. The level 40 cushy characters that I once used to crush my enemies have been replaced by level 2. Their powerful skills and abilities are also gone. My standard attacks are all that I have left. It is funny to see how enemies who used to do hundreds of damage take only a few. 

It’s a fun spin on the typical “how do we make this strong party no longer strong” formula seen in RPGs, and I like that it’s woven directly into the story. It also makes collecting these cubes, which is at the story’s core, fun because with each successful mission might come the prospect of a new cube and, subsequently, some of my previous skills and strength. For more of these cubes I will have to go to the World of Memories. While I don’t get to see how this world works, it seems to be a portal of sorts that transports me to famed places from One PieceHistory, such as the mentioned Alabasta. 

Lim takes the Straw Hats’ powers because she fears they’re criminal pirates, the kind she has problems with, but she soon discovers that they’re “good” pirates and regrets what she’s done, informing them of what they need to do to return to their former selves. The World of Memories is now open. 

In Alabasta, I do some standard questing – defeat an enemy holding a mission item, return it to this person, collect some ingredients so crew cook Sanji can whip up a tasty soup for a local, and more. The individual objectives aren’t the most exciting, but looking at the beautifully-rendered world of Odyssey makes it easy. You can control multiple crew members simultaneously, which keeps it exciting. Some players likely won’t agree with the 3D aspect of the game, but it works for me, as does the odd but quaint painterly visual style. It also runs smoothly.

Side content in Odyssey isn’t doing anything groundbreaking, although I admittedly only dabbled in it during my hands-on time. But I don’t necessarily need it to be groundbreaking, and the same goes for even the golden path. Odyssey is the original One Piece Turn-based RPGs of this calibre break the mold of anime games that go either the route of 2D/3D fighting or action.

Even though I have very little, One Piece knowledge, it’s easy to see how much care developer ILCA has put into taking this franchise into RPG territory. The success of the franchise in RPG territory remains to been seen. One PieceOdyssey as a franchise is. But if my two hours of hands-on time demonstrate anything, it’s that Odyssey is shaping up to be a unique and exciting JRPG, and one players should keep an eye on, One PieceFans, or not.