One Piece Odyssey has landed, bringing fans of the hit anime and a brand-new story from creator Eiichiro Oda, and there is so much to learn as with any new JRPG. While there are plenty of things to learn for the endless battles, there are lots of tips for exploration and quality of life also. As with so many RPGs, there are plenty of items to find and side quests to complete, it can get a little overwhelming.
This One Piece JRPG is quite linear in its exploration, with each area fully contained. There's no proper open world to explore, and the game tends to signpost quite a lot of the content. With this in mind, you'll find some things feel quite obvious, while some features need a little guidance.
Gum Gum Grab
Each team member has a unique ability to use outside of battles. The first you'll be introduced to is Luffy's long-distance grab. This allows him to reach out and grab items by stretching his arm. You'll often find upgrade cubes and random items way off behind a fence or across a gap. There is no notification for when these items are in the area, so you'll need to keep your eyes peeled.
If you spot an item you can't walk up to, enter aiming mode and hover over the item before tapping the 'interact' button. You'll find a lot of the upgrade cubes can be found in this way. Check out rivers and clinging to the walls of cliffs. You might need to position Luffy as close as possible before the grab icon will be available.
Team Comments
The team abilities are used increasingly often as the game moves on. When to use some of these are obvious; for example, switching to Chopper to squeeze through small gaps in the area. However, other characters will signal you randomly. Sanji, Robin, and Nami will call out audibly while showing a prompt on the screen. This is your cue to switch to them and uncover what they've found.
It's no big deal if you miss a few of these, but catching when to switch out will bulk out your item stash, as well as your bank balance. Switching characters is quick and simple; just tap left or right on the controller and select who you need. You don't have to control Luffy constantly, choose your favourite.
Overpowered Introduction
It's worth noting that the introduction to the game shows you the Straw Hat Pirates at their most powerful. You'll get to use them like this for a couple of hours, giving you an idea of what's to come, before all those powers are snatched away as part of the storyline.
This is a great opportunity to see the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the crew. Most importantly, it shows each of their battle abilities, which will help later as you choose which of these abilities to upgrade. Find your favourite characters and the most powerful special abilities and make note of them.
Check Your Objectives
It's not specifically mentioned that there is an objectives screen in the pause menu that you'll need to check often. As you play, the game specifies certain objectives for you. These can range from having a set number of battles in certain areas, or fulfilling side quests. When you complete one of these objectives, you'll be rewarded with an item, a cooked meal, or even a bonus payout of berries, which is the game's currency.
You need to actually click these completed tasks in order to receive the reward. If you leave them unchecked you'll be missing out on some helpful items. While you're accepting your rewards, check out which other objectives need to be completed. The menu shows the rewards before you complete the task, so if you're low on an ingredient you can see which objective to meet.
Auto Dash
Whichever character you're controlling to move through the world can sprint by holding a trigger button. This doubles movement speed. However, there is an option in the pause menu to switch this on permanently. Not only does this prevent you from having to constantly hold down a button, but it speeds up exploration and escaping from battles if you don't feel like fighting.
Head into the settings menu when paused, or at the start of the game. Under game settings, scroll down to the 'control' section, where you'll find the Auto Dash option. You'll also find some helpful options for mini-map rotation and changing controller vibration.
Night/Day Cycle
While it's not specifically noted, One Piece Odyssey features a night/day cycle that impacts the world around you. Sometimes a quest giver only appears at night, or a monster you need to hunt will only come out of hiding when the sun is shining. These details can be found in the quest menu within the quest description.
To switch time, you'll need to find a campsite where you can activate a party. While your crew is partying away, you can control Luffy to craft items, cook meals or chat with your team. Selecting the central campfire will prompt you with a question of whether you want to sleep until evening or morning.
Item Pickups
There are several ways to find items in One Piece Odyssey and all of them are well signposted for you. You won't know what the item is until you pick it up, but it will appear in several ways. As you can see from the image, items can be hidden within breakable objects like jars and crates, they can also be found lying around randomly as a golden sparkle. Both Zoro and Usopp can also find items in metal crates and bird nests respectively.
Once you've been through an area, many items will respawn for subsequent journeys. Any sparkles you see will be a guaranteed item, however, crates and jars that reappear won't always contain an item. In fact, most of the time they will be empty. This also goes for metal crates that only Zoro can open. Don't waste your time smashing these open.
Check Your Map
Your mini-map is always a good guide for finding your way around the area, however, utilising the full map within the pause menu is always worthwhile. The full map will not only give you a great overview of the area, but it will also show side quests and frayed memories. If you want to see everything the game has to offer, check here whenever you enter a new area to avoid missing out on quests.
It's on this map that you can also access fast travel. In order to quickly travel to previously visited areas, simply select the 'Yoisa Travel' option which will bring up a selection of previously visited Yoisa signposts. This is perfect for traveling back to quest givers once you've finished their requests.
Save Points For Health
One Piece Odyssey uses a save point system, like many JRPGs. You'll need to find a save point before you can save your progress. One thing you'll notice early on is that each time you access the save point, it will replenish your health. You don't have to actually save the game, simply interact with the pillar.
Refilling your health in this way doesn't refill your TP, which is the resource used when activating abilities in battle. You will need to top this up through items and meals.
Skill Up
As you collect the green upgrade cubes while playing, you'll be introduced to the 'Skill Up' screen. You can place the cubes into battle abilities in order to increase the damage dealt when used. However, you can move these cubes around freely, at any time you want. If you feel you're leaning on one ability more than others, just move the cube to the favoured ability.
For Sanji, these cubes can be placed into his passive ability of cooking allowing him to cook more meals. The cubes are found throughout the world of One Piece, if you've managed to collect all of them, your move set will likely be fully upgraded.