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Rolling, rolling, rolling...
April 17, 2006 | 3:44 PM PSTby: Shawn Sinclaire
Odama is like rubbing your belly and patting on your head at the exact same time. In perfect sync with each other. Really quickly. Okay, now you got it. This is like playing Odama. You feel silly and for the first minute or so, you’re pretty flustered and can’t really get the hang of it. However, when you do, it’s a glorious sense of accomplishment. Okay, well maybe rubbing your belly and patting your head isn’t that big of a deal, but people shouldn’t write off Odama for its steep learning curve. Once you get past that, you have an experience that is ultimately entertaining and challenging.
Certainly can’t knock the game’s box art, because it’s pretty cool. Once you pop open the game and get the microphone setup on your controller, you’ll be greeted by an opening CG that is an excellent collage of ancient, Japanese style artwork that flashes by like a slideshow. An elderly sounding Japanese man speaks in a deep Japanese voice that will make the surround sound bass shake the walls a bit. The basic gist of his somewhat lengthy speech is that you are the son of a fallen emperor and your empire lay ravaged by enemy forces. You have one chance to recover your empire and restore the pride to your family name, and that’s to mount an all-out offensive. Thankfully, you have the power of the Odama, a large pinball that can be hurled at enemy foes and contains many mystic powers. You also have the secret doctrine, Ninten-do: the Way of Heavenly Duty and the Ninten Bell. Striking the Ninten Bell with the Odama is supposed to bring miracles. By forcing your way through the enemy ranks and carrying the Ninten Bell to your enemy’s headquarters, you will achieve victory.
As per most modern games, the first level is very basic and has a simple tutorial that explains what you need to know: Ninten Bell good, enemies bad. By using the flippers to bounce the Odama around, you can roll over enemy forces; knock down their towers, open flood gates, and more. Additionally, what makes Odama more than your ordinary pinball game, you command and entire army through a series of voice commands. The sole purpose of this army is to protect the bell crew: A set of four men in their underwear carrying the Ninten Bell. You can direct your men to charge through enemy ranks, press forward into them, fall back, rally around a specific object on the map, etc.
In addition to tracking where they’re going, you need to know how they’re feeling as well. You army’s morale is important because when high, they can effectively repel a large enemy force but while low, they will refuse to listen to your voice commands. Morale is increased by either releasing more troops or by tossing a rice ball in their direction and instructing them to eat it but drops if you, say, crush them with the Odama. It tends to make them moody. Additionally, anytime an enemy force pushes the bell back, the army loses a little faith in your ability to lead. Then they’re really screwed. As far as troop numbers go, you can have as many troops in reserve as you wish and release them in small batches with the Z button. You replenish your reserves by turning the Odama green and rolling over enemy soldiers, which is quite handy. As a bonus, a green Odama will not crush allied forced. You can turn the Odama green by either finding the green powerup, or by collecting to hearts that will turn the Ninten Bell white. Once that happens, hit it with the Odama and knock over all of the enemy troops and turn the ball into a raging mass of recruitment power.
After the tutorial level, things stop being so cut and dry. Suddenly, you have multiple paths to victory to choose from. For example, in level three you can either have your troops cross three raging rivers to get to the main exit, or they can knock a ladder across a southern river and escape via a western route. Using the D-pad, you can control where to focus the troop’s efforts by telling them to rally. So to cross to the west exit, you would use the D-pad to cycle through various on screen objects until you got to the ladder. Once there, yell “rally” and watch as your men scramble to knock the ladder down. Once it’s down, you have to have them rally around a key that unlocks the gate. Once they have the key, you have to direct your Ninten Bell force to start moving left towards the new exit. While you’re doing all of this, you’re still knocking around a giant pinball that will fall through a crack and cause defeat if you don’t pay attention. Plus, you have to worry about a time limit too. This is pretty complicated for a pinball game.
And herein lays the major problem with the game. It’s so complicated and difficult to keep track of everything on screen at once. Here’s the scenario for level three, as an example: There are three rivers lined up horizontally and one going vertically that all of the water drains into. There are two exits, one directly north and the other skewed to the West. The first river, you strike a pulley and the river flow stops, so the troops can cross. Then you accidentally hit the pulley again, and wash your whole force away to their death while they scream little quips that, while sad, are mildly entertaining. They cry out things like “I can’t float!” and “Does this mean I don’t get my bonus?” Once you recover and get the river under control, the second one requires you to have your troops rally around a pulley and place it into position so you can open the dam.
You get across that river, and you still have to knock down a ladder to get over the last one, but in doing so you create a bottleneck where your 10 or so troops that can fit on the ladder are fighting 50 enemies who are guarding the bank. You have to deal with all this while keeping in mind the time and while avoiding crushing your forces with an ill-shot Odama.
But for those who stick with the game and really try to learn all of the possible controls and such, there is a rewarding experience to be had. Odama presents a real challenge and that in of itself is appealing. Aside from the first two levels, each level is pretty intricate in its design and you will always face new situations that you must confront with your army. Some levels have catapults, some flaming archers and hot buckets of tar. Then you have your boss battles where there is a general reigning over the map. If you send your troops after him while he’s up and about, he’ll crush them quickly (he’s about the size of ten of your men stacked on top of each other), but if you knock him over first? Your army can literally crawl all over him like army ants and drain his health. Oddly enough, as they drain his health they disrobe him so in the end you have a defeated general in his underpants.
Graphically, there’s not a whole lot here to boast about. All of the maps are well-designed and feature flowing rivers, towers that collapse based on where you hit them, but the detail is all very small so it’s kind of hard to appreciate the beauty. And, if you zoom in close to the soldiers, they all look like odd polygon-action figures anyways. Good news for all three of you who managed to find GameCube component cables: The game supports progressive scan. The audio is somewhat more notable in that the soundtrack is quite good and entertaining. The sounds of war come out crisp in 5.1 surround. The Odama has quite a powerful bass when it rocks into various things, so it gives you quite the feeling of power. Overall, the audio is done very well.
Odama is quite the mixed bag. Initial frustration is a must for this game, as it is very complex for a pinball title. Reading the manual is a must, so all of you hardcore gamers (myself included) who tend to skip the manual, you better back up and read it. It helps a lot. Once you conquer the first 4 or 5 levels, a lot of the complexity melts away and what you’re left with is a chaotic challenge. Suddenly you’re strategizing where to hit your Odama, when to release reinforcements, which paths to take. You’re decided whether or not to attack the general directly, or try to sneak by. And no matter what path you decide upon, it won’t be easy to finish it. You will die in this game. You will die a lot, actually. But when you complete the missions, you will be left with a sense of accomplishment absent from most titles in this day and age. Gamers who like complexity and challenge should give this game a look over. Everyone else? This game is likely to go over your head.
Certainly can’t knock the game’s box art, because it’s pretty cool. Once you pop open the game and get the microphone setup on your controller, you’ll be greeted by an opening CG that is an excellent collage of ancient, Japanese style artwork that flashes by like a slideshow. An elderly sounding Japanese man speaks in a deep Japanese voice that will make the surround sound bass shake the walls a bit. The basic gist of his somewhat lengthy speech is that you are the son of a fallen emperor and your empire lay ravaged by enemy forces. You have one chance to recover your empire and restore the pride to your family name, and that’s to mount an all-out offensive. Thankfully, you have the power of the Odama, a large pinball that can be hurled at enemy foes and contains many mystic powers. You also have the secret doctrine, Ninten-do: the Way of Heavenly Duty and the Ninten Bell. Striking the Ninten Bell with the Odama is supposed to bring miracles. By forcing your way through the enemy ranks and carrying the Ninten Bell to your enemy’s headquarters, you will achieve victory.
As per most modern games, the first level is very basic and has a simple tutorial that explains what you need to know: Ninten Bell good, enemies bad. By using the flippers to bounce the Odama around, you can roll over enemy forces; knock down their towers, open flood gates, and more. Additionally, what makes Odama more than your ordinary pinball game, you command and entire army through a series of voice commands. The sole purpose of this army is to protect the bell crew: A set of four men in their underwear carrying the Ninten Bell. You can direct your men to charge through enemy ranks, press forward into them, fall back, rally around a specific object on the map, etc.
In addition to tracking where they’re going, you need to know how they’re feeling as well. You army’s morale is important because when high, they can effectively repel a large enemy force but while low, they will refuse to listen to your voice commands. Morale is increased by either releasing more troops or by tossing a rice ball in their direction and instructing them to eat it but drops if you, say, crush them with the Odama. It tends to make them moody. Additionally, anytime an enemy force pushes the bell back, the army loses a little faith in your ability to lead. Then they’re really screwed. As far as troop numbers go, you can have as many troops in reserve as you wish and release them in small batches with the Z button. You replenish your reserves by turning the Odama green and rolling over enemy soldiers, which is quite handy. As a bonus, a green Odama will not crush allied forced. You can turn the Odama green by either finding the green powerup, or by collecting to hearts that will turn the Ninten Bell white. Once that happens, hit it with the Odama and knock over all of the enemy troops and turn the ball into a raging mass of recruitment power.
After the tutorial level, things stop being so cut and dry. Suddenly, you have multiple paths to victory to choose from. For example, in level three you can either have your troops cross three raging rivers to get to the main exit, or they can knock a ladder across a southern river and escape via a western route. Using the D-pad, you can control where to focus the troop’s efforts by telling them to rally. So to cross to the west exit, you would use the D-pad to cycle through various on screen objects until you got to the ladder. Once there, yell “rally” and watch as your men scramble to knock the ladder down. Once it’s down, you have to have them rally around a key that unlocks the gate. Once they have the key, you have to direct your Ninten Bell force to start moving left towards the new exit. While you’re doing all of this, you’re still knocking around a giant pinball that will fall through a crack and cause defeat if you don’t pay attention. Plus, you have to worry about a time limit too. This is pretty complicated for a pinball game.
And herein lays the major problem with the game. It’s so complicated and difficult to keep track of everything on screen at once. Here’s the scenario for level three, as an example: There are three rivers lined up horizontally and one going vertically that all of the water drains into. There are two exits, one directly north and the other skewed to the West. The first river, you strike a pulley and the river flow stops, so the troops can cross. Then you accidentally hit the pulley again, and wash your whole force away to their death while they scream little quips that, while sad, are mildly entertaining. They cry out things like “I can’t float!” and “Does this mean I don’t get my bonus?” Once you recover and get the river under control, the second one requires you to have your troops rally around a pulley and place it into position so you can open the dam.
You get across that river, and you still have to knock down a ladder to get over the last one, but in doing so you create a bottleneck where your 10 or so troops that can fit on the ladder are fighting 50 enemies who are guarding the bank. You have to deal with all this while keeping in mind the time and while avoiding crushing your forces with an ill-shot Odama.
But for those who stick with the game and really try to learn all of the possible controls and such, there is a rewarding experience to be had. Odama presents a real challenge and that in of itself is appealing. Aside from the first two levels, each level is pretty intricate in its design and you will always face new situations that you must confront with your army. Some levels have catapults, some flaming archers and hot buckets of tar. Then you have your boss battles where there is a general reigning over the map. If you send your troops after him while he’s up and about, he’ll crush them quickly (he’s about the size of ten of your men stacked on top of each other), but if you knock him over first? Your army can literally crawl all over him like army ants and drain his health. Oddly enough, as they drain his health they disrobe him so in the end you have a defeated general in his underpants.
Graphically, there’s not a whole lot here to boast about. All of the maps are well-designed and feature flowing rivers, towers that collapse based on where you hit them, but the detail is all very small so it’s kind of hard to appreciate the beauty. And, if you zoom in close to the soldiers, they all look like odd polygon-action figures anyways. Good news for all three of you who managed to find GameCube component cables: The game supports progressive scan. The audio is somewhat more notable in that the soundtrack is quite good and entertaining. The sounds of war come out crisp in 5.1 surround. The Odama has quite a powerful bass when it rocks into various things, so it gives you quite the feeling of power. Overall, the audio is done very well.
Odama is quite the mixed bag. Initial frustration is a must for this game, as it is very complex for a pinball title. Reading the manual is a must, so all of you hardcore gamers (myself included) who tend to skip the manual, you better back up and read it. It helps a lot. Once you conquer the first 4 or 5 levels, a lot of the complexity melts away and what you’re left with is a chaotic challenge. Suddenly you’re strategizing where to hit your Odama, when to release reinforcements, which paths to take. You’re decided whether or not to attack the general directly, or try to sneak by. And no matter what path you decide upon, it won’t be easy to finish it. You will die in this game. You will die a lot, actually. But when you complete the missions, you will be left with a sense of accomplishment absent from most titles in this day and age. Gamers who like complexity and challenge should give this game a look over. Everyone else? This game is likely to go over your head.
November 20, 2009
