Opoona

This is certainly an interesting RPG, and mostly in a good way. Opoona is kinda like a hybrid of a traditional old skool Japanese RPG and a community game like Animal Crossing. You star as a cutesy alien kid named Opoona from the heroic planet of Tizia, who are a species that have special balls called "bon bons" that float on their head to fight with. While flying in space to a vacation destination with his family, the family's ship is under attack and Opoona and his brother Copoona and sister Poleena are forced to enter their own escape pods where they each crash land on different spots of the planet Lifeborn.

After recovering, Opoona finds himself awake in a fancy room of a huge futuristic community called Tokione. Here he is told what happened and is given an OMP, which is like his citizenship card that works as the game's system menu. He is instructed that all kids on this planet have to go to school and enter a career field. And given Opoona's strong Tizian background, he is to become a ranger. From this point on, you go on missions to increase your ranger rank and to locate the rest of your family.

You're not just limited to being a ranger though. You can, and will, become many different things, like a food server, a fisherman, or even a detective. This is where the community focus of the game comes in because much of the game consists on meeting and communicating with people so you can progress through the game. There is even a "Friends List" with each friend having their own star ranks, which actually serves a neat and important purpose for the end of the game. Most of the game takes place in huge, separate buildings working as cities that are protected inside domes, so you don't actually have a world map as a typical RPG would. Where the RPG parts do come in though are on your ranger missions, where you are assigned to go to fields just outside of the domes to accomplish various tasks, like find certain items or take down a boss, and random battles will occur along the way. Inside the domes is where you can do your typical RPG town stuff.

The battle system is one of the more unique aspects of Opoona. There are absolutely no motion controls in this game, but you don't fight in a traditional matter. To attack enemies, you first target who you want to hit and then with the analog stick, you pull away from it's centered position and hold it to charge up "energy" for your attack and when you're ready, you can let go to flick the stick so it can fire your bon bon (the special ball mentioned before). You are in complete control of the trajectory and speed of the ball, so most enemies have a sweet spot to hit. The energy meter isn't just for building up the speed/power of your attack, it also works as the timer for your character's turn. So depending on how long you let your energy charge for, you'll have to wait until it reaches 200% again until you can resume your turn. This new approach to battling feels strange and somewhat clunky at first, but I was able to adjust to it and enjoy it a lot, especially when I got other members in my party. Aside from this, the battle system is pretty much your standard turn-based system with various magic spells and items to be used in addition to your bon bon attacks. There is also a time limit for battles (usually 2 minutes) and you can't run away, which is kind of retarded, but you usually have a lot of time to spare.

So Opoona blends community and RPG genres, but does it mix well? Mostly yes. I'm pleased with how the game turned out as I became very skeptical when I discovered that it wasn't going to be a standard RPG. However one thing that will probably turn a lot of players off at first, including myself, are the size of the domes the game takes place in, particularly the one you start out in; they're friggin' egnoramous! These places are like the size of real buildings ranging from around three to six floors. The design of these buildings, again the first one in particular, aren't very organized either, not to mention that no one really gives you directions and your map is pretty much useless. When I first started the game, I felt completely and hopelessly lost and I spent much more time memorizing the area than actually making progress. Even when I went back to the first dome when I was at the end of the game, I was still having some trouble finding my way around. Fortunately the domes do become more structured as the game goes on.

The first set of ranger missions make the RPG portion of the game feel tacked on. I say this because the missions for each dome require you to explore the same dungeon/fields multiple times, whereas real RPGs are expansive. This does change though as the game goes on. In fact, by the time you get the third character for your party, the game mostly transforms into a standard RPG since from nearly that point on, the entire game will take place in an area outside of the domes and plays no differently than any other RPG would. I still can't decide if this sudden change was genius or just plain stupid. The reason why I would say it's genius has to do with story reasons I can't spoil here, yet it also seems stupid because you've already played a little over half the game.

Aside from those complaints I had, there isn't much else flawing the game. The camera angles could provide a little annoyance sometimes, mostly in the dungeons where the camera has this weird fixed position that hides the closer parts of the screen -- I think they purposely did this to encourage players to explore more since this part of the screen often hid treasures from camera view. The story also had it's share of problems as overall it was mostly generic, albeit with a few really cool twists and light drips of originality here and there, and that the story progressed so slowly during the first half of the game and then picked up maybe a little too quickly after the sudden change I mentioned in the previous paragraph. And also while a lot of side characters had some great personality and dialogue, their actual designs were mostly uninspired, especially ones that are just reused graphics. There was also a little Engrish throughout the game, a common error being when someone would ask you a question like "How are you?" and your choices are yes and no. Oh and Opoona also suffers a common RPG syndrome where there are a crap load of different items in shops and in your inventory that you never end up using.

Opoona also has it's own set of little charms: the feature in your OMP that allows you to watch micro TV shows, the way Poleena never says anything while she plays the lead character for awhile and then becomes a chatterbox when she's not, the hoverboard you get early on in the game to travel faster, the ability to play the game solely with the nunchuck controller, the useless breakfast tickets you receive after sleeping in a bed, all the wacky artwork you can collect in the game (detailing the artist name and year), the hilarious nonsensical secret codes hidden throughout Lifeborn, and just a ton of other little things like this. Opoona is also loaded with light humor throughout the game and reminds me very much of Earthbound in this regard.

The graphics are beautiful, at least in my humble opinion. Inside buildings, everything is so clean and lit up and contains such a wide variety of furniture and paneling. I think they must've hired some kind of interior decorator for this game because the way the rooms are designed look so professional, like you would see in a HGTV show or something. It's really in a much higher league than your typical RPG when it comes to this touch. And when it comes to the outside world, the natural aesthetics are phenomenal. Sure there are probably some low quality technical aspects like how some leaves will appear flat from different angles, but the style Opoona managed to achieve is sensational to me. Every environment you encounter has it's own look, be it the dark, yet heavenly Holy Winds area or the abstract, mystic valley of skinny blue giants with facial-less, bulb-shaped heads. The character models are also pretty nice, with a outlined, almost cel-shaded anime kind of look, which in some ways goes well with the scenery of the game, but also feels a little out of place because of the realistic surroundings.

As much as I loved the graphics, the soundtrack didn't quite capture me as deeply. It's kind of sad too because this game had potential for a truly mesmerizing score. The sound quality with the instruments and direction chosen are perfect and reminiscent of Phantasy Star Online, but the composition just doesn't have enough oomph to let it reach to the high levels it deserves. I mean, the soundtrack is not bad at all and some songs have nice melodies to them and it tends to get better the further you get into the game. But man, if the composer just kicked things up, Opoona's soundtrack could've been legendary.

It's just not easy to sum up Opoona, it's a game all on it's own with so much packed in. It took me around 40 hours to beat (the first half of the game felt longer than that), but with the massive amount of collecting in this game and all the other job licenses you can get, this game could really pile on a lot of hours. Of course I'm not into side quest crap in RPGs, so I mostly stuck with the main objectives. Opoona is a special game and I do like it a lot, though it's just a few notches below from being real masterpiece material. Certainly a RPG worth playing these days.

- Keranu, February 27th, 2009 4:00am USA Central Time