Squids Odyssey Review for Steam

Set in an underwater world where one’s presence of or absence of a skeleton indicates whether one is good or evil, Squids Odyssey, by developer The Game Bakers, allows players to control a spunky party of squid heroes battling a dark force known as “the ooze” in classic turn-based RPG style. Containing 90 playable missions, Squids Odyssey has the potential to provide players with many hours of gameplay even with its fairly simple game mechanics. Whether or not those hours are always engaging is debatable, but I believe that the game is definitely worth a try. 

Gameplay

Squids Odyssey’s main battle mechanics are very easy to learn. Players pull on the tentacles of one of their party’s squids to propel them in an intended direction for an intended distance. Bumping into enemy crustaceans does damage to them and pushes them away while the opposite happens if enemies propel themselves at you. Similar to the typical RPG party roles, Squids Odyssey also classifies squids into different classes (healers, snipers, AoE dealers, etc), each of which have a “special” move, but does not require the player to do anything extra beyond clicking on a target once or twice. There was an occasional problem where clicking to use a special move on an enemy when in very close proximity to them took multiple clicks to finally register. It was a slight annoyance, but did not detract too much from the overall gameplay.     

Although players may find some missions to be a bit monotonous, it is livened up by the inclusion of items and interesting stage obstacles in each mission. Items act both as power-ups and as fun wearable accessories for your squid party members. Unlocking items will permanently increase the stats for squids of a particular class; squids do not have to be wearing an item to gain its stat boosts. This goes against the grain of item functions as seen in other RPG games, where a (usually single) character must be outfitted with the item in order to be under its effects. I came to appreciate this aspect of Squids Odyssey after realizing that it gives value to all of the game items no matter how small their stat boosts, which incentivizes players to search for them more thoroughly

Arguably, the most stimulating part of Squids Odyssey was the navigation of its stage obstacles. Rather than just mindlessly bouncing your squids off of enemies until they die, you can use the components of the stage (spiky urchins, currents, etc) to defeat them more efficiently. This actually requires strategizing and highlights the importance of each squid’s role. Stage boundaries (both squids and enemy crustaceans can “fall off” of stages if they propel past the boundaries) are sometimes hard to see and can result in player frustration. However, I only encountered this problem a few times.

Story/Characters

Squids Odyssey has many of the elements of a typical RPG plotline: a band of unlikely heroes defeating villains while journeying together through various different settings in the game universe. Each mission has a backstory to it and a goal that the players must execute in order to progress the plot. Mission goals were thankfully not always “defeat all enemies!” and ranged from surviving for a certain number of rounds to getting to a certain location on the stage, which doesn’t necessarily require defeating anyone and provides for plenty of ways to pass a level.

The squid heroes all have distinct personalities along with plenty of entertaining dialog. Encountering new squids as I advanced through the missions was something I looked forward to, both because of the new character dynamic that they brought to my party and because of the potential for new gameplay (since even squids of the same class generally have different stats). To summarize it, the story and characters of Squids Odyssey employ many cliches, but does so appropriately; everything fits with the light-hearted, casual theme of the game.

Aesthetics

I had somewhat mixed feelings about the graphics of Squids Odyssey. The stage backgrounds were beautifully detailed. However, I felt that the models of the squid characters clashed against the rest of the art despite of their cute design. This is especially apparent in the “Base” area, where players can shop for new items and switch out squid characters. (Perhaps it is the shading of the 3D models? It is difficult for me to put my finger on it.)  

Rating

The gameplay I experienced was enjoyable and I would encourage other players to give it a try and come to their own conclusions. For this, I would like to give Squids Odyssey a 7.8/10.

Check Out the Squids Odyssey Steam Launch Trailer:

Squids Odyssey is available for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch via the eShop.