Squids Odyssey (Wii U/3DS) Review

While it is arguable how much Ringo Starr actually contributed to The Beatles, Octopus’s Garden absolutely was his work and so was Yellow Submarine – how he ended up voicing Thomas the Tank Engine and not a Somalian sea Pirate is simply beyond me. Anyway… for as peaceful and as calming a song it is, it does not represent the on going battle under the waves between all manners of sea life at least that is if this game is to be believed. Where the Odyssey comes into the title is beyond me, I do not recall Homer ever mentioning Fish in Odyssey or Iliad, maybe that is just me however.

Taking place on the ocean floor you are introduced to an aquatic paradise, a paradise with a destructive black goo invading the inhabitants lives, I could be using the word paradise wrong. To make matters worse, you will be facing off against all manner of nasty sea life out to take your wallet or seashells or something like that. The solution is to fight back by flinging your gelatinous body’s at the enemies in a style similar to Billiards combined with Angry Birds.
The entire gameplay takes place in a top down view across a large variety of various environments, it is from here that you control your squad of fishy friends. The control system is very simple to control but as it is all done with the stylus in a fashion similar to the aforementioned Angry birds, do not let this simplicity fool you however as this game is tough but in a very good way.

You pick a character and can fling them in any direction towards items and enemies, you only have a set limit on movement per each character per round and it is used based on how strong the fling is. With it being replenished each round you have to ration out and plot your moves to ensure you can make attacks and retreat to safety before the enemies round.

This system makes use of the touch screen in brilliant fashion on both WiiU and 3DS with your squid/fish/amoeba’s strength and direction determined in a single movement based on the direction and distance form the character you release your shot. While off screen play is available and this can be controlled by directly touching the characters to perform the same action, that said it is definitely better with the original setup that makes the most of the asynchronous nature of the platforms.

Using this system you are essentially thrown into a series of battles similar in style to a modern RPG, flinging and slamming your way to victory. It is hard to describe the entire play system but this is a perfect example of a game that is easy to pick up while difficult to master.

A big part of this is that as you progress you will also pick up and recruit new members of your troop, each one has some wildly different attribute which you have to balance for each battle. Do you favour speed or damage, do their unique additional attacks favour the situation? Additional shots, medics and so forth keep it all very interesting. It is a brilliant touch that gives this game a much large scope than one would initially think. This is also what makes this title so difficult. Figuring out what tactics and skills work against each enemy type is where the real joy is.

High difficulty so not a negative in this instance since it is due to the complexity of the title and not because of imbalanced scenario’s, do not expect to get though most level on your first attempt but each failure is a learning experience this is a title that is out to give the maximum effort to reward ratio possible. This is a trail an error experience that isn’t present in most modern games, its a welcome return – please stay! You will be taken on a big adventure and while the story is somewhat unimportant as a whole, it’s inclusion in this title is very welcome and does give this title an extra dose of character and some extra charm.

To tie this all together is some very clean and excellent presentation. The visuals all have a somewhat water colour style to them while having an incredible amount of detail in all elements. It all moves very smoothly regardless of the platform it is running on, this is partially because it is an entirely 2D experience but that is not a detraction in any fashion. The colour palette on show is both bright an vibrant without going over the top in a headache inducing miasma of colours that would make the 1960’s violently sick.

Audio is also a reasonable effort but I will stick to reasonable because it is somewhat forgettable, at the very least it is not annoying that generic stereo type of an Japanese RPG with the same track repeated for 200 hours – yes I am going to pull a ‘it’s good because it’s not terrible’ review of this element but it is sometimes better to subdued than annoying.

Now to make this package even better is that if you purchase it on 3DS then you will be given a Wii U download key for Free! Nothing! Gratis! Zilch! While this is not an official Nintendo cross-play like system it is great to see 3rd Party developers delivering this system in their own way – it shows the demand that customers want for a system that respects people’s choice of multiple platforms.

If this review has come off as a somewhat generic overview of what this game is then I am not surprised, this is a title that does not do anything new and I’m sure there have probably been other games that have attempted some very similar play mechanics and in that sense it is hard to well highlight the strong points. The overall strength however is that every element of this game is executed brilliantly and is balanced to near perfection. It is not friendly to newer game players, despite the easy controls, it is however a great experience for any players out for a tough but rewarding experience. Even if you don’t like some of the genres that this title is utilizing I am sure that almost everyone will find something they will like in the game.

Rating: 4/5