Odama | DJcube

The troops await your orders.

EU release: 31st March 2006
NA release: 11th April 2006
JP release: 13th April 2006
Developer: Vivarium
Publisher: Nintendo
NGC Magazine Score: 48%
Mods Used: None

The final GameCube exclusive, and its a really odd one. It’s a real time strategy game set in ancient Japan, where you give commands to your troops via the GameCube microphone. You also control large paddles and use it to careen a giant pinball ball across the field and the goal is to have your troops transport a bell to a gate on the other side of the battlefield (for most missions).

As the microphone is a requirement, the game came bundled with one, along with a clip that lets you attach it to your controller. The X button also acts as the push-to-talk buttons, so you don’t need to faff around with the microphone itself while playing. You can command your troops to press forward, rotate left/right, flank, fall back and rally (which is mainly used to use objects on the battlefield). These… don’t work that well. Your troops will hear the wrong instructions and sometimes not even listen at all.

A lot of your success depends on the Odama – the giant pinball you fire across the battlefield. While I knew pinball was involved, I was expecting it to be something to help you attack your opponents, and not such a vital thing to the game. There are lots of objects – gates, rivers, bridges – that you need to interact with by hitting them, so you need to be very precise. On top of this, the Odama is a danger to your troops just as much, as a mishit can send the ball to destroy your troops. And, somehow, this insane project got a worldwide release.

The object in most levels is using voice commands to get the Ninten Bell (Nintendo is roughly translated to “Luck of the Heavens”) to the other side, using the Odama to assist them on the way. Most games with strange and unique concepts will ease you in to this but, while you don’t have all voice commands at the start, Odama is utterly brutal, and the first level is already immensely difficult – and if you get a slim victory, you’ll have almost no troops for the last level. It makes it more frustrating than a fun experience.

Which is what I think Odama should have focused on more – the absurdity of the whole thing. The Ancient Japan setting just looks bland, and there’s a huge lack of colour. Yet, speech bubbles pop up with amusing little quotes when you kill your own men, and little ghosts fly out of them like in Pikmin. Really, something more like Pikmin (or even making this a Pikmin spin-off) would have suited this game far more, embracing the silliness in the rest of the game, and a more styles visual look would help highlight the objects you can interact with. Instead, it’s just a bit drab and frustrating.

Fine

Combined with a difficulty level so cruel that Social Services should be told is the way that winning or losing can seem as random as tossing a coin. Although at least if a ten pence landed heads up you’d know why you’ve won as with Odama’s shallow lack of strategy and variety, you’ll always feel that fortune played a greater role than your planning or pinball wizardry.
Alex Cooke, NGC Magazine #119

Remake or remaster?

Try it again, but focus on fun and craziness.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Odama.