One Piece is a massive franchise that began with the first Weekly Shonen Jump one-shot Romance Dawn by Eiichiro Oda in the summer of 1996. From there Oda’s manga would have a proper start in Weekly Shonen Jump #34 in July 1997. Having run for nearly 26 years, One Piece is still going strong at 1,074 chapters and 104 manga volumes released as of this writing. On the animation side, One Piece was adapted into an anime in 1999. Like the manga, the series is ongoing and has over 1050 episodes to its name with no end in sight. To say One Piece is popular would be the understatement of the last two decades. Along with anime, manga, and movies, video game adaptations are a given.

The first One Piece game released was From TV Animation – One Piece: Become the Pirate King!. This turn-based strategy RPG was developed by Soft Machine and Published by Namco Bandai on the WonderSwan. (The “From TV Animation” title would be kept for games for roughly three years before it was mercifully dropped.) The franchise would see more than 50 games released on numerous platforms in a period spanning nearly 23 years. The franchise has mostly stuck to RPGs and fighting games, which are fitting considering how much exploration and fighting are done within the world Oda has created. The newest game in the series continues this tradition.

One Piece Odyssey is a new JRPG released by Bandai Namco Entertainment and developed by ILCA, Inc. It tells the story of the Straw Hat Pirates, who were shipwrecked on the mysterious island of Waford.

As you progress through the game, you will encounter new characters as well as flashbacks to canonical One Piece moments in order to connect the story of One Piece Odyssey to the anime.

This article will focus on seven beginner tips when you first start out in the game, and hopefully, this guide will make your life a little easier.

 

1. Cube Fragments and Skill Upgrades

The story manages to make a believable nerf to the Straw Hat Pirates during one of the cutscenes in the game, where their skills are taken away in cube fragments and scattered throughout the island. You must search for these skills and skill upgrades as you travel the map, which is similar to solving a puzzle in some ways. That is because some skills are easy to find and others are difficult to find.

Because these cube fragments glow and float above a surface, they are easy to spot. Some of these fragments may be difficult to obtain, but that’s where Luffy comes in, as he can grab them as you target them with the game’s aiming feature and interact with the item from a distance.

These fragments will be assigned to a specific character, and you can use them to level up one of their skills. What’s amazing about these fragments is that you can respec them in One Piece Odyssey with no consequences, which means you can remove and assign them as you please. This is a nice touch.

In addition, as you progress through the game, more fragment slots will open up for your use.

 

2. Straw Hat Pirates Field Skills

You can interact with the environment as you travel the island in One Piece Odyssey, which may reveal a hidden path leading to treasures or cube fragments. Each character has a distinct field skill that will be extremely useful during your journey through Waford.

Luffy, for example, as previously stated, can grab items from a distance and use them to move from one location to another. He also has access to Haki, which detects enemies with high EXP and hidden items. Chopper can travel in small spaces, whereas Zoro can slice doors.

The ability to use these and other field skills will greatly increase your chances of finding treasure, cube pieces, and new routes through caves and other locations.

 

3. Auto Dash Makes Backtracking Easier

This is a straightforward feature that works wonders when playing One Piece Odyssey. It essentially makes your character run straight, and you assist them in changing direction by moving the camera.

It will lighten the load because much of the game’s exploration consists of backtracking from places, especially if you don’t want to miss any treasures or cube fragments.

 

4. Know the Rock-Paper-Scissors Battle Mechanic

Many JRPGs use a Rock-Paper-Scissors battle system in which one class deals more damage to another class, and so on.

It is easily discernible in One Piece Odyssey because it will show you before you confirm your attack. This is whether you will deal more damage, the enemy has a weakness towards your skill, or it will be resisted and deal less damage.

This allows you to change characters to a better fit, which you can do with your turn without losing the turn. This feature can be useful, especially later in the game when enemies have higher HP and deal more damage.

 

5. Auto Battle for Grinding your Levels

To tell you the truth, the game is not particularly challenging, especially if you choose to participate actively in each and every battle. However, if you are attempting to level up your characters, the Auto-Battle feature is a welcome addition to the game.

Based on the name, it basically allows AI to do all the work during battles. So it is only useful if you are grinding for levels because the AI does not dynamically change characters to take advantage of the game’s rock-paper-scissors mechanic.

When you get to the later stages of the game, where the difficulty level can be quite high, I would not recommend turning it on.

 

6. Fulfill the Dramatic Scenes

One Piece Odyssey utilizes a turn-based combat system; however, the game adds its own unique spin to the formula by including a feature called Dramatic Scenes. It is a chance occurrence that may occur during any given battle. If you complete it, you will receive substantial experience bonuses after the fight.

Grinding will go more smoothly as a result of this, particularly in the game’s early stages, when you can easily advance in level simply by grinding. Once you see the warning that indicates there is a Dramatic Scene that you need to complete, turn off auto-battle so you can complete actions on your own.

 

7. Take Advantage of Camping

Camping offers a lot of benefits, especially before continuing on to the next chapter of the story. Doing it once in a while is a good idea to take advantage of all the benefits.

In the first place, it will give you an EXP bonus for the subsequent battles, which will help you level up more quickly. Additionally, this section allows you to personalize the outfits that your characters wear, but take note these changes are all cosmetic and does not affect skills.

There are other features such as Sanji’s Kitchen, Usopp’s Factory, and Robin’s Mystery craft. Each has its own set of benefits, such as getting meals that buff your characters or debuff your enemies.

 

Conclusion

This is our guide for those who are just starting out with One Piece Odyssey. We hope we were able to ease you into this massive open-world JRPG, as it is a really fun game with fantastic visuals. You can find this title on various platforms, but if you’re thinking of getting it for Xbox, make sure to get an Xbox Live Gift Card from OffGamers here.*

If you have any ideas for additional hints and suggestions, please share them with us in the comments section below; we would be very interested in hearing about them.

 

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