One Piece Odyssey

Something One Piece fails to grasp with its large IP status are good video games. They’ve ditched the Dynasty Warriors (Pirate Warriors games) style gameplay, leading to a mix of different style games. This also lead to original stories for each game rather than just rehashing the entirety of the One Piece canon. Now the movies also do original stories and they are technically not canon, though some of the characters that are the focus are canon. The thing is the One Piece movies are consistently good, the video games not so much. I am of the opinion that most One Piece games are pretty mid. It’s a real shame that One Piece Odyssey falls into the same category, despite it’s ambition. Despite Oda having a hand in the game there is some disconnect to how One Piece feels. You don’t get to have Franky in your party until after the halfway point, and Brook doesn’t get added until the last fourth of the game. This extends both to the exploration portion of the game and the combat of the game. All the immediate characters in your party provide something to the table when exploring the map. Zorro can cut through steel doors, Nami can find berries on the ground and Chopper is short. These characters are also playable when exploring the map. Franky does have an ability, he fixes broken bridges but he is not playable. You get a prompt to build a bridge and then watch a cutscene. Brook isn’t playable nor does he have an ability to use on the map. Franky does have a long list of abilities to use in combat but Brook only has 4, though Robin also has a small number of abilities.

Since Franky and Brook aren’t added until later in the game, a result of that is they don’t participate in the core story. One of the big draws of the story is that you get to explore old arcs. You go through the stories of Alabaster, Water Seven, the Summit War and Dressrosa. Now these are just memories of what happened and aren’t exactly the same as we remember them. This is explained in game as one of the new characters the Straw Hats meet takes away the Straw Hats powers and memories. It’s fun to revisit these old arcs even with the changes, for gameplay purposes these changes help abridge the arc. It is a shame that because of the lose of the Straw Hats abilities they are scaled down to wherever they were at the time of that story happened. So don’t expect to be in gear 4 fighting Crocodile or going through the Summit War with that. Though regardless of that there is something that feels right about going through the Summit War with almost the entirety of the Straw Hats by Luffy’s side, scratching that ‘what if’ itch we’ve all had when we got to that arc. The story outside of revisiting arcs is fine? I don’t want to get into spoilers, so I’ll just say the story was predictable and the ending was sorta left me wanting more. Though it did feel nice having a One Piece story that didn’t feel like I was being pulled in four other direction the current arc (Egghead Island) as an example of that. The combat system is very standard affair, following the rock-paper-scissors mechanic most RPGs follow to this day. The best part of the combat is how the energy to use special attacks regens by doing regular attacks. It makes doing the beefier attacks that cost more worth doing since you’ll never be caught needing TP (mana) if a boss fight comes up. It also makes having the supportive Chopper worth rostering most of the time. The rock-paper-scissors system does pose a narrative problem in the last fight. When the final boss becomes available to attack all the characters root on Luffy to deal with it. Only Luffy wasn’t in my party at the time because he would’ve provided neutral damage.

The game is filled with this kind of disconnect and makes it really hard to enjoy. At the end of it I just felt like I wanted to go back to the Pirate Warrior style games. I’ve had way more fun with those than I did with any of the other original story One Piece games. There was also so much more variety and replayability with those games that I sunk way more time into those games despite being done with the story. Though doing one every year and a half is a problem because of how long these arcs have become. The last Pirate Warriors game came out in 2020, and covered a little bit of Wano. Though the story in the game did not follow what happened in the manga, though funnily enough it did get Big Mom and Kaido teaming up right way before she made it to Wano. I just feel going from the start of Luffy’s adventure to as up to date as possible is the best course. One Piece games are just in this state of middling that the original story course isn’t the best idea. Maybe I’m just projecting here. One Piece Odyssey is worth playing if you are a One Piece fan.

In essence: One Piece Odyssey is probably the best One Piece game but the bar has never been high.