Tokyo Game Show 2022 Complete Coverage

Tokyo Game Show 2022 - One Piece Odyssey is One Piece Meets Final Fantasy X

At the Tokyo Game Show 2022, I was able to spend 20 minutes with the upcoming game One Piece Odyssey. Going in, I knew nothing about the game (as I'm a person who has long since given up on catching up with either the manga or the anime). But by the time I reached the end of the demo, I was eager to play more. After all, One Piece Odyssey plays similarly to one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy X.

One Piece Odyssey is a turn-based JRPG. The TGS demo begins with Nami, Zoro, and Brook separated from the party with Nami being attacked by a giant ape. The rest of the pirate crew sets out to save her.

Like many Japanese games, One Piece Odyssey works off of a Paper-Scissors-Rock-type system (though it's “punch-sword-gun” in this case). Each character and monster has a different innate type (Luffy is “punch” while Usopp is “gun”) but each character has special skills of various types. In general, the game is set up so that skills use TP. Meanwhile, normal attacks restore TP. This makes it easy to use special attacks in normal battles without feeling you need to save your TP for an upcoming boss.

What makes the game feel like Final Fantasy X is the fact that you can switch characters in and out at any time mid-battle. This allows you to easily exploit any given enemy's weakness. But luckily, the game doesn't simply copy Final Fantasy X, it expands on it. Rather than a line of heroes facing off against a line of enemies, the battlefield is split into different areas. For example Robin and Frankie will be fighting one group of enemies while Luffy and Usopp fight another. It adds an extra layer of complexity to battles. But that's not all, some battles even have special missions—like healing a near-death Nami or protecting a paralyzed Usopp. Complete the mission and you get bonus experience points. It's a neat little touch.

Unfortunately, as I'm not a One Piece fan I can't comment too much on that aspect of the game. The character models looked great and the main cutscenes in the demo were fully voiced—though there were many side conversations that were not. On the other hand, in battle, each character had a plethora of special attacks that I'm sure were pulled straight from the pages of the manga and, if nothing else, I can say they looked incredibly cool.

All in all, I'm now way more interested in this game than I imagined I could be. Playing like this evolution of the Final Fantasy X system was an absolute blast and might just make it worth playing even if you, like me, know next to nothing about One Piece.

One Piece Odyssey is scheduled to be released on January 13, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.