Tag: odyssey
Samsun’g ultrawide Odyssey G9 gaming monitor is only $900 for one more day
One Piece Odyssey: The Final Preview
After 25 years of hanging out with Luffy and friends, Bandai Namco aims to show the One Piece series still has a few tricks up its stretchy sleeves by converting the beloved pirate crew into a proper JRPG. But the challenge in taking one of the most popular names in anime and making it fit the mold of one of the most beloved game genres is not a small one, and so developer I Love Computer Art has switched up many of the fundamentals to make it better suited for the iconic pirate adventure. In my time with it, I was pleasantly surprised how many of these changes felt like improvements over the standard JRPG recipe, and more importantly, made things feel much more in line with what one might expect from One Piece. After three hours running around as Zoro and Chopper, I barely felt like I’d scratched the surface.
One of the major ways One Piece Odyssey mixes up the stock JRPG formula is by doing away with the standard turn-based battle system where your party squares off against a rival group of enemies. While combat is still turn-based with standard attacks, more powerful skills or special abilities that can be activated a limited number of times, and consumables that can be used up, each character was sorted into four different zones and faced their own slate of baddies instead of fighting as a group. Importantly, this did wonders to make combat encounters more closely reflect fighting sequences in the anime, where all members of the Straw Hat Crew are strong enough to swat aside numerous enemies on their own and show off their mad skills. It was also nice that every character got their time in the spotlight, as I was compelled to use them equally to get through encounters, whereas in traditional JRPGs it might be more expedient to just take out the enemy using my most powerful characters and make short work of the enemy. And luckily, if one character dealt with their enemies early, I was able to direct them to help out nearby allies and wrap things up more quickly.
Even more interesting though, was a unique new feature called “Dramatic Scenes,” that would sometimes occur during combat. These sequences interrupt your regularly scheduled butt-whooping to interject some drama that adds some special challenge or twist in the story, and it was easily one of the coolest things I saw in my time with Odyssey. In one example, Usopp was ganged up on by a group of enemies and I had to rush in and save him before he was taken out, and in another I had to finish off a boss using Loofy to prove my rightful place as pirate captain. I didn’t see enough of these encounters to get an idea of how common they are or if they’re randomly triggered, but the idea was interesting enough to keep me on my toes (and was a nice break from standard turn-based battles that can get repetitive).
Another great way Odyssey impressed me was in the variety of ways I was able to explore its areas, specifically the ability to instantly switch between One Piece’s cast of playable characters, each with their own abilities. Usopp had the ability to snipe things with his slingshot, making him very useful in knocking down items tucked away somewhere up high, while I was able to slash through troublesome obstacles using Zoro. Swapping between characters while running around Arabasta opened up completely new possibilities depending on who I was controlling at the time, and gave me plenty of reasons to backtrack in search of new pathways and hidden items or side quests. Plus, it was just nice to be able to switch between different characters to mix things up – sometimes you’re just in a mood to run around as a pirate reindeer, y’know what I mean?
But while I was mostly pleased by Odyssey’s efforts to mix up JRPG conventions with some fresh new takes, there were certainly other areas that made me raise an eyebrow, like their insistence on sticking with static save points – a JRPG mechanic I’ve long despised. I’m largely a fan of JRPGs, but part of me hopes Odyssey won’t stop at the few evolutions I got to experience so far. Either way, I’m looking forward to continuing my pirate adventure when One Piece Odyssey is released on January 12.
The strength of bonds in One Piece Odyssey
LG and MSI are taking on Samsung’s Odyssey G9 with giant curved OLED gaming monitors
My request has been granted: Samsung’s jaw-dropping lineup of ultra-wide, ultra-curved, ultra-fast gaming monitors is about to have much-needed competition. LG and MSI are both angling for your dollars, and unlike Samsung, they’re doing it with OLED panels.
On December 12th, LG will introduce the first 240Hz OLED gaming monitors we’ve ever seen, and it won’t just be the $999.99 27-inch flatscreen we told you about last week. The company will also open preorders for the $1,699.99 LG-45GR95QE, a 45-inch curved OLED beast. It’s a 21:9 monitor at 3440 x 1440 resolution, so not quite as wide or high-res as the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9, but it could make up for that in other ways.
Categorising Lilith Odyssey risks missing why you might love it
Survival games! Oh, the many disparaging remarks I could make if only I had time in between punching rocks and eating an entire deer. It’s not often that I recommend one here, and jokes aside, it’d be unfair and untrue to say it’s because there aren’t enough good ones. It’s more that I don’t have much room for new ones.
Lilith Odyssey is, if we must, a survival game and a roguelike (oh, the many dispara-[yeah alright, alright. Jesus. – ed.]), but that is reductive. This is a strange and somewhat contradictory game I feel uneasy comparing directly to anything, except possibly the wonderful Taxinaut (which is now on Steam, incidentally). Lilith Odyssey is very much what I’d call a vibes-based game.
Jumplight Odyssey is a sci-fi colony builder inspired by ’70s anime
Another day, another space disaster to solve – but fortunately, Jumplight Odyssey makes everything a joy to look at, even when the airlock seal is leaking. A sci-fi colony management game inspired by ’70s anime, Jumplight Odyssey will be coming to Early Access on PC in 2023, and developer League of Geeks has just debuted a lovely cinematic trailer that explains the premise.
RELATED LINKS: Jumplight Odyssey reveal trailer, Games like RimWorld, Best management games
Samsung’s Odyssey G5 1440p 144Hz monitor is just £180 at Currys with this code
The Samsung Odyssey G5 is a great value 1440p 144Hz gaming monitor, and today it’s even better value than normal thanks to a price drop and discount code at Currys in the UK. This monitor costs £209 at Amazon UK right now, but it’s a solid £30 less at Currys when you use code FNDDGAMING at the checkout – neat.
Samsung’s next Odyssey Neo G9 will be the ‘first’ 8K ultrawide gaming monitor
Now that AMD has unveiled Radeon RX 7900 GPUs that can output 8K video at high refresh rates, gamers will need displays that can handle them — and Samsung is happy to oblige. The company has teased a new generation of its Odyssey Neo G9 that will supposedly be the first 8K ultrawide gaming monitor. You won’t see a full launch until CES in January, but you’ll need a DisplayPort 2.1-capable video card to help that screen reach its potential. We’d also add that AMD bills the 8K as “horizontal only,” so you may not get as many vertical pixels as you might like.
Other high-res DisplayPort 2.1 monitors are coming from Acer, ASUS, Dell and LG starting in early 2023. AMD unfortunately didn’t share more details.
This will likely be an expensive monitor when the previous-gen Odyssey Neo G9 currently sells for $2,200 with ‘just’ a 5,120 x 1,440 resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate. However, the bigger cost may be the PC attached to that 8K panel. On top of one of the new Radeons, you’ll need a CPU that won’t create a bottleneck for the graphics hardware.
There’s also the question of content. Even many recent games can struggle at 8K, and older titles won’t benefit much. Do you really need to play CS:GO at that resolution? AMD has promised that some games will run well on its cards with the help of upscaling, such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Death Stranding, Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted, but it’s not clear how well native 8K will perform just yet. Samsung’s monitor may be more of an investment in the future than instant gratification.
Pick up the 34-in Samsung Odyssey G5 gaming monitor for £327 with this code
The Samsung Odyssey G5, one of the company’s latest 34-in ultrawide monitors, is down to £337 at Samsung’s UK store when you use code 25MONOFF at the checkout.
This is an awesome price for a 3440×1440 gaming monitor with a 1000R curve, 165Hz refresh rate, FreeSync and a VA panel with a quoted 1ms response time.