Opoona

The newest RPG to hit the Wii from Koei, Opoona, has finally made it’s way into my home, and slightly into my heart. Though flawed and given the nickname “Playskool’s My First RPG” around my house, I can’t help but recommend this not to hardcore RPG fans, but for those who dabble in the game type or maybe have never tried. Opoona’s story starts with his family on a ship that crashes, leaving Opoona without his siblings in a dome society called Landroll, but let’s skip the story portion of this review for right now, you’ll find out why…

The first thing I knew about this title, it is ‘Nunchuck only’ which already had me confused, but intrigued as well. With my nunchuck in left hand, right hand resting with the wiimote in case I want to change the camera view (which can be done with the nunchuck though), menu’s and battles are done with ease using these very simple controls.

As the game proceeds, I start to really appreciate the art style in this game. It is very clean looking and crisp. The music is nice too, I would dare say ‘perfect’ for this game, never annoying, just good background noise as you go on through this journey. Which at first you’d think would be locating your family, however you find that you must join Landroll’s society, including working jobs (so.. many.. jobs, wannabe Animal Crossing levels). The game has an odd humor about it that I like, not Adult Swim completely off the wall weird, just little things to make you smile as you sit through the boredom of the beginning of the game. A lot of side story and forced walks to specific characters back and forth back and forth which will allow you ample time to take in all the graphics, music, and humor.

Once you get yourself outside of a dome from all the jobs and chit chatting, you find yourself in enemy filled territories, where in a classic RPG way, random battles out of thin air occur as you are walking. The game differentiates itself by staying away from turn based battles and let the enemy attack as you are preparing/charging for your next move. You attack with a very bare bones fighting system, by moving the analog stick in different directions to fling that little ball over Opoona’s head (a “Bonbon”) at enemies. Once the battle begins, it is all action as you are forced to think fast on which enemies you want to aim for first and how you want to aim. The choice of how fighting is done is definitely one of the stronger points of the game the more I toy around with it. The downside is I am not a fan of random battles, but for those that don’t mind, it is prevalent (like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link prevalent).

As you know though, fighting is not the focal point of a role playing game, storyline is. Much how the new fighting style differentiates this title from your run of the mill RPG, lack of a really motivating story also adds a different flavor. What I would normally take in as side quests or optional work, becomes a good chunk of what this game is about, spending time doing chores.

The boring parts of this game are made easier by the nunchuck controls being used, leaving your other hand free to do other things (in my case eat). I did try out the alternate classic controller setup. I favor the nunchuck only usage based on comfort level, but you want to feel like you are playing an old school RPG with a SNES controller, the classic controller is definitely a doable option. There is one advantage with the classic control, is your camera control, using the right and left triggers and/or the right analog stick is perfect, but on the flip side to this advantage, it only angered me more when I was outside of a dome where you are not allowed camera control.

Take that as the real flaw with this game, lack of camera control outside domes. You play though a good part of a game stuck in buildings with rooms and elevators, so when you get out, its a treat. For whatever reason they have limited the camera control compared to what you can do indoors (full camera control). I really question why they chose to do this, as the backgrounds for the outside areas are beautiful and I find myself even walking towards the edges of cliffs just to see out as far as I can.

Character models are so rangy, from design to the graphics, you will find several that capture a personality for specific characters, others will be way too detailed random npc’s, and some look as though the developers got tired of creating. Enemies/creatures look very Earthboundish, which I am not sure is meant as a nice nod from Koei to HAL or just more of developers tired of creating. We have no new Earthbound in the US to look forward to (*cough Starman.net cough*), so I will move on, it was just worth noting. In the end though, most of the creatures are well done in the graphics department (with simplicity in mind) and in the variety of how they will attack you (speed/distance/movement).

Overall, this game gives me the very strong feeling it was made with a younger audience in mind, getting a player acquainted with RPG’s as though they may not have played them before (ie when you think of an RPG now, you think turn based, story, and cut scenes). The simple look of the game also adds to my thoughts that maybe Koei has been influenced by what the general view of how a Nintendo game should be. With that said, the game still is fun, and at the very least, worth throwing in your GameFly queue. As long as you go into the game knowing that it isn’t all about the grinding up of your character in the traditional RPG sense, you can probably get in at least 25-30 hours of real good game time. Don’t take this praise here at the end as endorsement for a $50 purchase, but if the game is discounted, check it out.