Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey Review

It’s not every day that a JRPG is built from the ground up specifically for mobile platforms. In fact, aside from ports from Square Enix’s library, the number of recognisable JRPGs on the platform could be counted on one hand. Unfortunately, while Kobojo’s efforts are admirable to bring the genre to mobile, Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey has several key issues that make it hard to recommend.

As far as plots go however, it’s fairly barebones for a JRPG, focusing on world building more than characterisation. It’s a classic tale, where a group of heroes are sent out by the newly elected leader of the Sirius Organisation to fight against a villain escaping from prison and proceeding to wreck havoc across the land. However, I personally found the story to be rather uninspiring. It didn’t really do much to make me care about the plight of our heroes or the world, with little motivation to take down the antagonists.

Relatively long load times are somewhat forgivable here, as the game frankly looks gorgeous. Its storybook-like art style is something to behold, even on a smaller screen. That said, the in-game art style has more visual flair than the cutscenes, which actually look watered down in comparison. On top of that, a lot of enemies seem to be variations on the same few designs. That’s not necessarily a deal breaker, as they all move fluidly and altering existing enemies is something that JRPGs have been doing since their inception. Overall, the visual design is the biggest highlight of Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey.

Sound, however is an area with startling omissions, with attacks in battle devoid of impact and cutscenes feeling like they were rushed in at the midnight hour as no sound effects play in any of them. While the music does feel whimsical at times, there is an air of dissonance that feels just a bit off. It’s far from Final Fantasy Tactics composer, Hitoshi Sakamoto’s finest work, which is surprising as his music usually gets the tone just right for the situation at hand.

As you take on quests and explore the various locales, you trace your finger around the screen to direct where you’d like the griffin-like creature to fly to. Tapping icons and speech bubbles can open dialogue options or pick up items. However the fact that these areas a largely empty corridors that are sparsely populated makes exploring each area dull, even with difficulty levels increasing replay value. Normal RPGs have you walk around, discovering treasure and puzzles, and while Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey does do this, it feels soulless given the approach they have taken.

Battles, for example, are simple turn based affairs that require you to fly into one of the dark bubbles in the world to initiate. Characters have moves that can inflict status effects, such as weakening foes defences, causing burns, or even boosting your allies’ stats. The control method involves either dragging icons over enemies or allies to use skills, or tapping one then the other. You do need to explore the menus to find out exactly what things do, but with only a few skills it should be easy enough to memorise.

Battles are generally over within seconds unless they’re either boss battles or you don’t abuse moves that stun foes, which for a mobile game is fine for gaming on the go. Navigating the item menus is also not all that smooth when playing on phones, with the potential to accidentally use an item when attempting to scroll down the menu being quite high.

There’s also very little in the way of character progression, as only the main protagonist, Cael, is able to change class or use job points accumulated to upgrade his class. The range of job classes are drip fed as you progress, but you can quickly get your lad up to speed. As Cael’s abilities are upgraded, they deal more damage or inflict more status effects. Combine that with weapon upgrading or forging new ones in town and this is the entire extent of party customisation, which feels like it’s lacking somewhat.

The fact that Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey looks as polished as it does, it’s difficult to imagine the rather scatter-brained approach the developers have used for the mechanics. Some of these criticisms have been noted by Kobojo since its launch, but there are other criticisms that are fundamental to the overall enjoyment of the game.

Even though the game does a relatively okay job at teaching you the combat mechanics, it does a poor job with everything else. Not once did I see any prompt telling me where I can store items should my inventory get full or if I wish to switch my party members. Maybe this is something I missed, but this could have been easily avoided with an entry in the journal for reminding players about key parts of the game. It doesn’t help that item storage has to be done one at a time, rather than have a button that can split crafting tools off from your inventory and into storage.

Other problems have persisted throughout my time with the game. For some reason, my character has stopped levelling up at Level 27. There is no explanation I can muster as to why this is. Is it something that was explained before? Is it a bug? At this stage I just don’t know. Other than that, the game has crashed multiple times at random places, losing vital progress as a result.

For a mobile game, the lack of a decent saving system is the biggest issue with Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey. The use of waypoints and occasional auto saving means that should you open other apps and come back to it later, your progress will be lost. Taking all the bugs and design choices into account, it’s clear that this is an unrefined app, which considering the premium price point is eyebrow raising at best.

Glaring issues with Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey can be summed up by remarking on just how dull and unfinished it feels. RPGs are all about discovery and fighting, yet the fun is sucked out of the experience with its plodding pace, empty dungeon areas and boring, frequent combat. The story does little to entice me and despite some very nice visuals and decent combat, it’s very hard to get past the various bugs. With Zodiac’s recent announcement for PlayStation devices and plans for expansions in the mean time, hopefully they will fix all the issues players have had with the game in time.

Score: 4/10

Version Tested: iOS (iPhone 6)