A2L Review: Enslaved – Odyssey to the West

After a long hiatus, this week we are going to review the best Non-Dragon Ball Dragon Ball game I’ve played: Enslaved – Odyssey to the West. This is an older game based on one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, Journey to the West, which itself is the inspiration for Dragon Ball. Oddly enough, there are only three characters in the game outside of the nameless enemy robots: Monkey (Goku), Trip (Bulma) and Pigsy (Oolong). Though they are never referred to by their Dragon Ball equivalent names in the game, I will refer to them as such to make this article easier to understand for our regular Dragon Ball audience.

Throughout the game, you’ll play as Goku with Bulma being under your protection. Essentially, the game is one large escort mission, but it rarely feels like such. Goku has his power pole and flying nimbus cloud to get through levels, while making sure Bulma has a path to the end as well (not to mention the occasional protection from robots). The gameplay somewhat hearkens back to Ico, yet I’d compare the large majority of puzzle/platforming to the Uncharted series. Overall, the gameplay isn’t difficult, especially once you unlock certain power ups.

Bulma (Trip) and Goku (Monkey).

Goku is voiced by Andy Serkis, Gollum from Lord of the Rings, but don’t expect that voice while playing. Goku sounds more like Wolverine than Gollum. Overall, I’d say all the voice acting is pretty good for this game, and I wouldn’t expect the standard tired voice actors or high pitched squeals that you would get in your standard anime fair. The gameplay itself is fairly reasonable with only a few issues. There are times where it is unclear where your climbing path is, and I have had to restart at points because Goku would get caught in walls or parts of the level. Also, I gave up on achievements for this game since many are in the form of collectibles and the game is definitely not conducive to collecting them. For instance you never know how many “tech orbs” are left remaining in a level or where they are, further compounded by the fact that you can only replay a level from the beginning and not at any intervals that would put you closer to missing orbs (if you even know they’re missing). Also, if you die, you lose any tech orbs you collected since your last check point, and often the game restarts you in areas where it’s impossible to go back to some collectibles you lost due to death (AKA you gotta start the level from the beginning to get those back). On more than one occasion, I selected “Restart from Checkpoint” so I could go back and collect something I missed, which for some reason actually sent me further in the game instead and missing out on more collectibles.

Like I said earlier, the gameplay isn’t difficult but there was more than one occasion where I couldn’t tell what I was supposed to do or where to go. Sometimes the spots you can jump from/to are obvious and hi-lighted for you, other times you can’t tell what is background and what is meant for you to monkey around on. Combat also isn’t as refined as I would like, with some enemies/bosses being laughably easy while others are just plain broken. It’s close to where it should be though, so despite the occasional annoyance the game was still overall enjoyable. In particular, I thought the ending was one of the best I’ve ever seen from a storytelling standpoint in a video game.

Pigsy’s Perfect 10

Oolong (Pigsy) in his own DLC exclusive adventure.

Also available for the game is some DLC starring the Oolong character, and I just want to say that this is everything that DLC should be. It adds to the mythos of the story and expands on a side character in the game (Oolong doesn’t appear in the story until you complete about half of the missions). This character plays completely different that Goku, relying incredibly more on stealth, firearms and gadgets (things available to Goku but way underused) than the brute strength and climbing agility of Goku. You’re playing as an overweight human trying to make a sex doll. No really!

Even from that silly premise, the narrative in this DLC is better than any of the Mass Effect DLC that I’ve played. It is a very character-centric adventure that really does add something new, yet not completely different from the main game. Beautifully voice acted, great storytelling and (even though it shares many of the faults from the main game) very entertaining. A great add on to the game that I wish more studios would use as an example for great DLC.

Even though this is not a Dragonball game, this is probably the best game based on “Journey to the West” I have ever played. The only Dragonball game that I can honestly say I had more fun playing was the Nintendo DS game Attack of the Saiyans.

Enslaved is available online through the X-Box Live Arcade (I tried to find it on PSN, but it I couldn’t find it in a search and it crashed twice while I was looking, reaffirming my pro X-Box stance). It’s a good game worth at least $20, or probably less at a second-hand game store on X-Box 360 or PS3.

Later, BroZ!