One Piece is pretty darn popular outside of Japan these days, but getting there was a long road. Seeing Monkey D. Luffy pop up in baseball stadiums of all places sounds absurd for someone like me, who has been following Eiichiro Oda’s swashbuckling pirate manga series since I was in high school. And even then, One Piece was already several years old! I couldn’t believe it when I first learned the series started all the way back in 1997, just a couple years after the original Dragon Ball manga run ended (and before that even took off worldwide). One Piece is easily one of the most popular and successful manga and anime franchises ever, but you wouldn’t have known in the western world until relatively recently. It's only partially 4kids' fault.
Okay, maybe it was a lot 4kids' fault.
2024 is One Piece’s 25th anniversary, which is why I’m here yapping about this. Just last year, Bandai Namco released One Piece Odyssey, the beefiest attempt yet of making One Piece a bigger deal in the gaming world. The series has often been a foundation for ambitions beyond the usual anime-licensed fighting game (plenty of those too of course), with action-adventure experiments like One Piece: Unlimited World Red and World Seeker testing the waters (the Musou games are bangers too, let's be clear). Odyssey has proven to be a highlight though, and even here at Shacknews the turn-based RPG telling an original story with the Straw Hat Pirates got a surprising 9/10. As the most degenerate Japanese RPG critic here though, take my word for it: Odyssey is great and that score is well-deserved.
So while One Piece Odyssey was meant to be an anniversary project, it did technically come out a little early. So you can’t exactly drop a brand new game less than a full year later. The last movie, One Piece Film: Red, just came out too so it’s too early for another one of those. Bandai Namco still managed to do something for the 25th though, releasing One Piece Odyssey: Deluxe Edition for the Nintendo Switch. Not only does this bring the game to a new platform to expand the audience, it also bundles in all the DLC, including Reunion of Memories, an additional scenario. Not bad for a little birthday bonus! I was worried though, as the words “Switch port” have taken on a turbulent meaning over the years.
The Switch is barely hanging on to life, and its replacement is right around the corner. It was also old tech when it launched! The early days of “port begging” are long behind us, mostly because either the kids either got exactly what they wanted (Persona 5) or the monkey’s paw curled one too many fingers (WWE 2K, Mortal Kombat 1, FIFA). Many games that are multiplatform on the Switch are lucky to have a stable frame rate, and in some cases even exclusives (Breath of the Wild, Shin Megami Tensei V) have glaring performance woes that are only solvable through emulation. Which was its own dramatic can of worms still spilling on our collective gamer carpets. Some Switch ports are great, though! There’s no denying the technological wizardry behind famous ports like DOOM, NieR: Automata, Dark Souls, and Dragon Quest XI just to name a few.
After spending some time with One Piece Odyssey on Switch, it’s safe to say this is one of the good ones. Great, even! I also have the game on PC, and I think I actually prefer playing it on Switch! There are obvious compromises, of course. The resolution is a little fuzzy, and the frame rate has no ambitions beyond 30 frames per second. But it’s stable, sturdy, and responsive. The biggest problems I have with underbaked Switch ports involve sluggishness and instability, which hurt far more than a dialed-down resolution. And since Odyssey is a slow-paced game anyway, the only difference that’s immediately noticeable is image clarity. And in some ways, this trade off makes playing One Piece Odyssey on my Switch OLED more appealing than on my Steam Deck or ROG Ally. Getting a solid, stable experience on those devices requires some tinkering, and you end up with compromises that aren’t too far off from playing on Switch anyway. Here, it just works.
If you’re a One Piece fan and you only have a Switch, this is great news for you. One Piece Odyssey’s new port is one of the best of its kind, and certainly takes advantage of Unreal Engine’s compatibility in a similar way Dragon Quest XI does. Nodding to that port in particular illustrates what you can expect here, actually. The bright colors, ridiculous monster designs, fantastical environments, and bombastic combat of both games shine on Switch almost as much as on other, stronger platforms. With the added bonus of portability and included DLC, it’s an easy win. Absolute One Piece sickos could reasonably justify double-dipping, even. After all, you gotta get Luffy a birthday present, right?
One Piece Odyssey: Deluxe Edition is available now on Nintendo Switch. The original game is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher for this feature.
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replyLucas White posted a new article, One Piece Odyssey on Switch is a great way to celebrate the 25th anniversary
