One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda has compared the visuals in the upcoming One Piece Odyssey video game to that of one of the animated movies. One Piece Odyssey is an upcoming JRPG with a story that was created by Oda, which follows the Straw Hat Pirates on an adventure to a mysterious island.
Oda created the One Piece manga as a weekly series for decades, which is a difficult schedule to manage. It's only in the past few years that he has started to relax the schedule, taking at least one week off every month. Despite his busy schedule, Oda has been involved with different One Piece media projects over the years, including the upcoming One Piece Film: Red and the live-action One Piece series that is being developed by Netflix. Oda was especially involved with One Piece Film: Strong World, as he wrote the script, and created a prequel chapter in the manga that lead to its events.
There is a new One Piece video game on the way and Oda is involved with its design. The first trailer for One Piece Odyssey has been uploaded to the official Bandai Namco Europe YouTube channel. The trailer starts with a message from Oda, where he mentions creating designs for the game three years ago. Once he finally saw the game in action, it was like watching a movie.
The visuals in the One Piece Odyssey trailer do match the visuals of the series, even if it's odd seeing the Straw Hats in their time-skip outfits, after seeing them wearing their Wano arc clothing for so long. The visuals in the One Piece Odyssey trailer evoke another JRPG, as they look like Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. This is especially true for the monsters, which look like they could have stepped out of a Dragon Quest series. The creatures in the Dragon Quest series are designed by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, who is one of Oda's main inspirations.
One of the complaints that fans have had about the live-action One Piece TV show is that the world cannot be translated to the screen in a way that's believable, without looking silly. This isn't an issue with the One Piece video games, many of which have done an amazing job bringing the characters and setting to life, in a way that matches the anime. It's debatable whether the One Piece Odyssey game looks as good as any of the One Piece movies, but it's clear that a lot of work has gone into the game and that it's not just the standard anime video game adaptation.
One Piece Odyssey will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022.
Source: Bandai Namco Europe/YouTube