![]() When traversing the world between levels, I can click on the left stick to make my party leader automatically run. My favorite touch, though, is a small one. ![]() There’s no punishment for not being able to read a random number generator’s mind, which can be an annoyance in traditional RPGs. ![]() Anytime I walk into an encounter and find I have a party with the wrong attack type equipped, I can simply switch to someone else and still attack on that turn. For instance, players can swap characters with another party member as a free action. Image used with permission by copyright holderĬombat itself is just as player-friendly, taking great care to remove a lot of frustration from battle. The visual information is all crystal clear, taking out any guesswork. When I choose a move and hover over an enemy, I also get arrows telling me if the attack will be effective or not. The chart of strengths and weaknesses is always displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen during battles, so I’m never left trying to recall what Power moves are weak against. Combat, for instance, uses a “rock paper scissors” system akin to Fire Emblem. Little touches like that are present throughout the game, making it easy to put down for a long period of time and return to. I can press a button to close the menu, but I can pop it back out at any time. I first got that sense when exploring in the third person, as a sidebar on the right side of the screen clearly lays out what every single button does. In fact, it goes out of its way to make sure players never feel lost. It’s a relatively straightforward turn-based RPG that isn’t bogged down by dozens of complicated systems. ![]() Sure, the item drops can be used to cook healing and stat-boosting foods, but those start to feel less important once you rack up enough of them.If you’re not a fan of the source material, One Piece Odyssey is defined by its quality of life decisions. The excessive number of pointless fights further bogs down the already sluggish pace of the game. These variations on the core gameplay loop are fun, but too few and far between over the course of dozens of hours. Elsewhere, you’ll need to fight solo as the type-disadvantaged Usopp. You also have the option to directly approach a dragon-like monster to steal its treasure. At one point, Luffy’s teammates warn him not to step on the animal corpses in the desert, because the crackling bones might start a fight with one of the hovering bird monsters above them. As the hours drag on, it grows tiring to have enemies pecking at your feet around every corner, especially with all the backtracking Odyssey requires. Most of these chumps can be knocked out with one or two multi-hit attacks, so long as you switch teammates to take advantage of their type differences. This wonky world features an encyclopedia of enemies from Kung-Fu Dugongs (kung fu seals) to human bandits, all of which charge at you if you appear in their line of sight. Grinding through the grunts – or running away from them so you don’t have to - quickly starts to feel like a chore that drags down the overall experience. However, the wandering low-level enemies do. It features a “rock-paper-scissors” system that deals more damage if you lean into type advantages. One Piece Odyssey has a surprisingly robust turn-based combat system for a game that’s clearly aimed at fans of the anime and manga rather than RPG diehards. But actually playing the game for more than a few hours revealed that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It seemed to have everything a fan would want in an RPG, including intuitive combat UI and an original story. So I was excited to play through One Piece Odyssey when I tried the promising demo at PAX West earlier this year. The long-running pirate adventure series, which boasts more than 1000 manga chapters and anime episodes, has only gotten more popular in the years since its 1997 debut. It doesn’t get much bigger than One Piece.
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