For disclosure, i pre-ordered the super duper deluxe edition of the game that came with the big Lim & Luffy figure, and the expansion content also included in the Deluxe Edition version, so i didn’t cash out extra to access the DLC story expansion for One Piece Odyssey that released in May 2023, Reunion Of Memories. Otherwise, to buy the DLC normally the MSRP is 25 bucks.
Keep that in mind because it will come back later in the review, but before beginning i will preface by saying while i will keep this DLC review spoiler free… i’d recommend either reading my full review of the base game or finish the game yourself before reading, because some plot details regarding the finale are simply impossible not to touch upon.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
In terms of how this DLC storyline fits into the narrative of the base game, it takes place after the Straw Hats saved the day by defeating the villian, BUT before the crew sets sail off of Waford, a “fake/evil Lim” appears and sends them back to Memoria, forcefully locking them into the Alabasta memory… but this time things have radicaly changed, heck, Crodocile has won and now rules Alabasta with both pirates and Marine defeated, and not only Alabasta is different from what they remember, as Enies Lobby is now being stormed by a powerful pirate for unknown reasons..
So the Straw Hats (thanks to Nico Robin’s gray matter and acumen) deduce that they have to fix the anomalies and restoring the memories to the original sets of events they entagled, to mend the timelines if you must put it that way.
The good, first: this isn’t a retelling of the same old story arcs that weren’t included in the base game, it’s a what-if scenario, so ILCA didn’t opt for the laziest route here….
… or so i would say if this DLC/expansion story didn’t reuse the same locations/maps of the base game, instead of recreating Skypiea or Thriller Bark, i love that Perona is finally in the game but i would have traded her and Mihawk for actual new locations, instead of just having them appear.
One could excuse this frankly lazy move if the new story added was good enough, but despite the premise of a what if scenario being not bad, this DLC story feels very tacked on, especially compared to how conclusive was the finale of the main game, and what it adds to the lore of Waford is minimal, superfluos at best and honestly very fakey, desperatly added in a rush and in an effort to justify the existance of this story, because Namco Bandai didn’t give them any time or something.
Heck, i’d say it detracts from the overall story the base game had explored, just for the sake of videogame cliches, cheapening all the good work done by the base game’s story and explanations.
Even worse, it raises some questions as it basically ignores big ass implications about the Divine Breath’s nature, at best, or straight up seems to ignore/retcon what actually happened with Adio in One Piece Odyssey’s finale.
Yes, the DLC prefaces itself with the disclaimer that this is a “hidden and separate story of interwoven memories”, but it’s not a real excuse in my eyes, it’s just more telling they were ready to disown the story presented as non-canon to this game’s continuity, like they knew they were gonna push out a stinker from the outset.
Seriously, this reeks of rushed content for the sake of content, of something slapped together in a hurry because Namco Bandai wanted something out as DLC, not because the developer wanted to have a proper expansion-continuation of the story, or ever intended to.
Or wanted to but didn’t have anywhere near the needed time to accomplish it.
I mean, it wouldn’t be a stretch since sometimes you can spot the “animal taxi” travel points signposts assets, clearly left there by accident as you can’t really explore the recycled locations in this EX chapter, heck the description/hints of the Limited Order battle with a Sabo simulacrum is so copied and pasted from the one of the Crocodile re-re-match…. as in they left the first phrase from that Limited Order Mission requirements then added the new text for what Sabo can do if you don’t destroy the black cube when it emerges during battle.
If the story already didn’t amount to a filler episode in terms of quality, there’s also the fact gameplay is now worse, as the exploration has been gutted almost completely.
Yep, you will revisit ALL the big locations of the base game, BUT you won’t be able to explore them anymore, in what it’s one of the most incomprensibile choices i’ve seen in a while, which also means there’s no quests to undertake, how could those exist when you can just roam around the often tiny areas you’re expected to move, do a thing, then have the story proceed automatically by fading to black and describing “The Straw Hats moved to the Alabasta’s royal mausoleum, eluding the surveillance by taking a short cut north” like this is a text adventure from the days of gaming yore.
One thing that could be cool is that dialogue responses from NPCs vary by the character you’re using, so to make a conversation proceed you must use Sanji to speak to a guy about recipes instead of Luffy. As in, it’s cute but remember, this DLC basically moves on rails and gives you very small portions of the recycled areas from the main game to even move in… so it doesn’t amount to anything of substance, it just boils down to intuing which Straw Hat you should use to resolve that dialogue/issue.
And it happens in a single sequence in Alabasta, to boot. So whatever.
Combat is the same but there’s a singular new feature: Limited Order Battles.
It’s basically the same as the Dramatic Scenes System from the base game, but now instead of netting you extra xp for achieving the objectives, you MUST clear all conditions of that battle to win it. That’s it.
I understand why they would do that, to address the complaints of the game being on the easy side and give you some challenge, but it ends up just forcing the use of specific strategies at the cost of anything else, removing much of the fun you could have with the combat and the varied approaches you could find for the various situations, making battles more frustrating than actually challenging, especially if you already powered up to the max the characters, though if nothing else this DLC serves to level up big time as it’s 90 % battles that net insane amounts of exps, so that issue from the base game resurfaces but it also kinda becomes a non-issue due to the already discussed – and disappointing as hell – nature of the content.
I mean, i get the idea and it does some extra challenge, but it feels a bit cheap, especially when they pull shit like “must protect an ally in battle but can’t use items or cure abilities on him”, come on.
And to be quite honest even with the short length of this DLC campaign, by the final chapter (or earlier) you’ll be quite ready to get this thing over with, especially as the ideas for limited conditions and restrictions and rules to the battles run out fairly fast and then it’s the same shit over and over, even more since there’s nothing aside from battles aside from the talking to NPCs into a very small space, as exploration – i remember you – has been gutted.
Kinda surprised that there are battles that AREN’T Limited Order Battles, to be honest.
Also, in this DLC the game lets you sell/buy items from the save points, which makes sense as they FF XIII’d the experience, so might as well have this feature, alongside the ability to go back to main game, which is useful if – like me- you didn’t do the post-game fights and quests to grind EXP, since the content of Reunion Of Memories from the start ask for a recommended level that most likely you won’t have reached by the end of the game, but to be honest they tell you about this.
To make matters even worse, it’s a short, short experience too, as it has basically 5/6 hours of content, and it’s attempt at replaybility it’s laughable: at certain points of the story you can make a choice between two options, and that ultimately decides the kind of finale that you get, but it’s a Telltale affair, so it’s just the illusion as the diverging path lead to the same destination anyway with barely any substantial or worthwhile differences.
It’s just a cheap band-aid to inflate the incredibly short lenght of this story DLC
And you know, i’m gonna be angry about this being not only a pointless middling DLC story addition, but also being incredibly short and insanely overpriced, you don’t ask 25 bucks for just this. It’s not even a piece of the bigger content roadmap like the DLC packs for World Seeker, because there’s is no season pass or more DLC story content planned as of now.
Just 5/6 hours of filler for 25 bucks. Just… fuck you, Namco Bandai.
This should have been 5, 10 bucks max.
But even leaving money aside, this is beyond a simply “lackluster” addition to the base game, one that removes exploration completely, barely adds anything to the combat (in a cheap way too) or anything else of substance, recycles way too much content from the base game, and while the choice of telling an original what-if scenario is laudable…. i would have rather have new locations altogether, as ILCA Team cheapened out by reusing the same recreated locations of the series already seen in the base game and stapled a shitty expansion to the story that is middling filler at best, and honestly hurts the overall narrative.
Even more as the base game’s story was quite conclusive, didn’t need to be forcefully continued by torturously retconning or ignoring events so it can reveal some hackneyed “secrets” that exist only to excuse this extra chapter existence and garble together some “more definitive” conclusion that raises some serious questions and implications more than it answes the new questions it raises.
Honestly it feels incredibly rushed, like a 3 months development cycle or something, which wouldn’t be surprising as the team didn’t even properly removed all the warp point signposts and their assets from the recycled locations, or proofred the Limited Order Battle info boxes, as one was clearly copied from an earlier one against a different boss character, with his name still in the text.
Maybe if you’re curious and when the DLC/expansion pass goes on sale for 10 bucks max, but i wouldn’t bother if you want to keep the story of One Piece Odyssey in a good, complete state.
Disappointing and overpriced, at best, more like a sucker punch cashgrab.
Save your money for better DLC content, or maybe a direct sequel to Odyssey, if that ever happens.
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