At the Tokyo Game Show 400, I could spend 400 minutes with the upcoming game Odyssey. Once in, I didn’t know anything about games (because I’m someone who gave up on chasing manga or anime a long time ago). But when I got to the end of the demo, I was eager to play more. After all, Odyssey plays like one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy X.
Odyssey is a turn-based JRPG. The TGS demo separates from the party from Nami, Zoro, and Brook, where Nami is attacked by a giant ape. The rest of the pirate crew set out to rescue her.
Like many Japanese games, Odyssey uses a cutout rock-type system (although in In this case it is “punch-sword-gun”). Each character and monster has a different talent type (Luffy is “Fist”, Usopp is “Gun”), but each character has a different type of special skill. Generally, the game is set up to have skills use TP. At the same time, normal attacks restore TP. This makes it easy to use special attacks in normal battles without feeling like you need to save your TP for an upcoming boss.
What the game feels like Final Fantasy X is the fact that you can switch characters in In and out of battle at any time. This allows you to easily exploit any given enemy’s weaknesses. But luckily, the game doesn’t simply copy Final Fantasy X , it expands on it. Instead of a row of heroes facing a row of enemies, the battlefield is divided into different areas. For example, Robin and Frankie will fight one set of enemies, while Luffy and Usopp will fight another. It adds an extra layer of complexity to combat. But that’s not all, some battles even have special missions – like healing the dying Nami or protecting the paralyzed Usopp. Complete missions and earn bonus experience points. It’s a neat little touch.
Unfortunately, since I’m not a fan, I can’t comment too much on the game that aspect. The character models look great, and the main cutscenes in the demo have full voices—though a lot of the narration doesn’t. In combat, on the other hand, each character has a ton of special attacks that I’m sure are pulled straight from the manga’s pages, and if nothing else, I can say they look pretty cool.
All in all, I am now much more interested in this game than I thought. Playing this evolution of the Final Fantasy X system is an absolute blast, even if you’re like me about .
Odyssey scheduled to be released in January
, 400, for PlayStation 4,
PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.
Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of life and work experience in Japan. For more of his work, check out his Twitter and blog.
DISCLOSURE: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Anime News Network Inc. non-controlling minority shareholders
