Skip to main content

One Piece Odyssey’s streamlined RPG gameplay has me hooked

There’s no reason that I should enjoy One Piece Odyssey as much as I currently do. I’ve never seen an episode of the anime or read a page of the manga. The game itself isn’t a terribly good introduction to either one, tossing a whole cast of characters at me without telling me who they are. Within a few hours, I’m deep in a fan service plot filled with references to the series I don’t understand and in-jokes that go above my head.

And yet, I find myself drawn to the charming adventure. That’s not because I’m learning to love the world of One Piece (if anything, it confirms that the series just isn’t for me). Rather, I’m simply enjoying a user-friendly RPG that respects my time and energy. While our final review is still in progress, I’m personally already sold on what could be 2023’s first surprise.

Quality of life

If you’re not a fan of the source material, One Piece Odyssey is defined by its quality of life decisions. It’s a relatively straightforward turn-based RPG that isn’t bogged down by dozens of complicated systems. In fact, it goes out of its way to make sure players never feel lost. 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. I can press a button to close the menu, but I can pop it back out at any time.

Little touches like that are present throughout the game, making it easy to put down for a long period of time and return to. Combat, for instance, uses a “rock paper scissors” system akin to Fire Emblem. 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. 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 visual information is all crystal clear, taking out any guesswork.

A screenshot of Luffy in battle in One Piece Odyssey.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Combat itself is just as player-friendly, taking great care to remove a lot of frustration from battle. For instance, players can swap characters with another party member as a free action. 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. There’s no punishment for not being able to read a random number generator’s mind, which can be an annoyance in traditional RPGs.

My favorite touch, though, is a small one. When traversing the world between levels, I can click on the left stick to make my party leader automatically run. I simply point the direction I want them to move in with the right stick rather than holding down the right trigger to spring and controlling them with two sticks. It’s an incredibly simple feature, but one that highlights what makes One Piece Odyssey so pleasant to play compared to some of its more ambitious peers. It’s committed to reducing as much friction as possible for players, turning a genre that can often be overburdened with systems into something far more approachable. That lets players focus their attention on the colorful world of One Piece, from its over-the-top characters to its creative monster designs.

Zoro finishing an Onigiri strike in One Piece Odyssey.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

I imagine One Piece Odyssey could be a bit of a disappointment for hardcore gaming fans looking to sink their teeth into a complex RPG. It’s a brisk (for the genre) 30 hours, relatively easy thanks to its combat flexibility, and is limited in its customization. That’s exactly why I’m enjoying it, though. So far, I don’t feel overwhelmed as I juggle dozens of systems that I know I’ll forget if I step away for too long. Instead, I can simply focus on the simple joys of classic turn-based combat, where every battle feels like a puzzle to be solved via smart party juggling. Start-and-stop objectives and some early backtracking leave me feeling like I may not love the whole package top to bottom, but exploration and combat feel so breezy that I’m happy to go along for the ride as long as it stays fun.

It’ll be easy to sleep on One Piece Odyssey, writing it off as an IP project only meant for fans. However, if you’re the kind of person who loves the RPG genre on paper, but find complex behemoths like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 too exhausting to keep up with, its friendly design considerations make for a more casual experience that only trims out the excess fat. Embrace your inner Straw Hat and punch some monsters into oblivion.

One Piece Odyssey launches on January 13 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Giovanni Colantonio
Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…
Best Alienware deals: Save on gaming PCs, laptops, and monitors
Alienware Aurora R15 placed at an angle on a table.

Alienware has a reputation for making some of the most high-end and expensive gaming gear on the market, and it has a well-deserved reputation. That means a lot of folks have an interest in grabbing one of Alienware's devices, whether it's a laptop or a monitor, but they can be a bit out of reach for most folks. Luckily, there are always great gaming laptop deals and gaming PC deals to go around, and we've collected some of our favorites from Alienware, including some excellent gaming monitor deals.

Best Alienware Gaming PC Deals

Read more
Best gaming laptop deals: Razer, Alienware, MSI, and more
Razer Blade 17 angled view showing display and left side.

There has been a huge boom in gaming laptops in the past few years; once they were bulky, expensive, and not that good, we now have thin and lightweight configurations with lots of power. We're also seeing more and more powerful GPUs in gaming laptops, although it's important to note that even if laptop GPUs have the same name as desktop GPUs, they often aren't the same. Even so, having a laptop RTX 4070 or 4080, which are one step down from their desktop counterparts, are leaps and bounds better than a few years ago when we'd have to rely on the processor to do all the graphical lifting.
There's a lot of variety to pick from, and the market is saturated with deals, so to help you along, we've collected some of our favorite gaming laptop deals below. We've broken it up between Intel CPUs and AMD CPUs so you can pick the processor family you feel most comfortable with.

Best Gaming Laptop Deals (Intel)

Read more
Bethesda is responding to negative Starfield reviews. And that’s a good thing
An astronaut explores a planet's surface in Starfield.

Imagine leaving a bad review on Steam only to log on one day and find that the creators of that game had responded. That’s exactly what’s been happening to Starfield players as of late. Currently saddled with a Mixed status derived from over 80,000 user reviews, Bethesda has gone into damage control mode to respond to its harshest critics. Reviews that call the game boring have been met with direct responses as the publisher explains that perhaps that’s the point.

“Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design -- but that’s not boring,” one especially bold reply from Bethesda reads.

Read more