One Piece Odyssey | Combat guide
The turn-based combat in One Piece Odyssey is arguably the best part of the game, but I don’t think the game does a great job of explaining how all the systems work. I played the first few hours of the Luffy’s adventure through twice because of last month’s preview, and it was only during the second run through for the review that everything clicked. If you need a bit more of an explanation then stick around and prepare to talk about mechanics.
Before anything else, it’s important emphasise quite how necessary it is to attack enemies who are weak to your character’s attack type. Especially in the first half of the game you’ll often be able to kill a weaker enemy in a single hit if you use the right character to take them out, so if there’s an option to do that on your turn then bloody do it. There’s an attack triangle in the bottom left of the screen that you can reference if you forget that Power beats Ranged and Ranged beats Technique, but enemies you highlight for an attack will display handy arrows to let you know if an attack is a good idea too. If you have no enemies worth attacking at all you can also switch in characters from your bench without any punishment. If Usopp’s slingshot is useless in a fight then don’t hesitate to tag Sanji in for some power attacks, there’s no reason to avoid doing this as all EXP is shared.
The biggest combat mechanic you’ll need to learn more about to survive in One Piece Odyssey is the Scramble Battle Area system. At the start of each encounter each of your characters will be put into a different area, and they can only move to another area if the one they’re currently in doesn’t contain any enemies. This doesn’t mean you can’t attack enemies in other areas though, you’ll just need the right special abilities.
One Piece Odyssey combat guide: Use the TP
Each character has a wide range of attacks that use their TP to deal damage to different enemies and areas. Luffy for example has a powerful attack called Gum-Gum Gatling that deals damage to all enemies in his area. He also has a ranged attack that hits one enemy in any area called Gum-Gum Pistol which is perfect for taking out weaker enemies blocking your other allies. Some fights you’ll want to focus on making sure Luffy is free to move area so that on his turn he can clear out some Ranged enemies grouped together somewhere else, others you’ll need to use him to free up other allies by picking off the enemies bothering them.
Nami’s attack that hits everyone is very useful early on
When switching characters and using your best abilities isn’t helping you win a fight, you can always fall back on your items. Sanji’s cooking can provide hugely powerful healing when all else fails, from full party health boosts to resurrecting downed allies. There’s also the trick balls you can craft with Usopp that can weaken the attack, defence or even stun enemies that are giving you a hard time. There’s no shame is using those consumables to get the edge in battle, and they make a huge difference in boss fights.
