Taste-Test: Odama

At E3, players were able to get a little bit of every genre. First person shooters, RPGs, sports games, platformers – it seemed like every kind of gaming was made available to players hungry to try out the latest games. If there was ever a time to see that the lines between genres were truly becoming more rigid, then E3 2004 was the place.

And then came Odama.

In gaming today, gaming companies are always releasing “what works”, but often times, originality is the key to win buyers for their games. And well, Nintendo has cooked up a doozy with Odama. First, take a genre rarely seen nowadays in video games, a genre usually restricted to tabletop machines in the far, dusty corners of rundown arcades – Pinball. Combine that with one of the most popular genres in gaming, that of real-time strategy, and you have a game that excels in originality – or in making people confused.

"Wave after wave of men..."

Yes folks, Odama is the first ever RTS pinball game. After you’ve processed that info (hard, I know) we’ll move on. The storyline of this game (Yes, STORY. It only gets weirder, trust me) is that the legendary warlord Yamanouchi Kagetora has decided to take over all rival clans in Japan, to rule it for himself. His secret weapon? The Odama, a massive sphere with magical powers. Not only can it leave enemy armies flat as pancakes, it also has the ability to convert enemies into allied soldiers ready to fight. This backstory seems a bit humorous when you play the game and realize it is just pinball, complete with a shooter and flippers, but it’s truly much more.

In the level available for play at E3, players controlled Kagetora’s army (colored red) against the forces of the Kendare tribe (colored blue). The Kendare tribe is on the top, or uphill from you, and thus seems to have a large tactical advantage. However, you have the Odama, and that’s where the fun starts. As play begins, the two armies attack each other at the large river that bisects the battlefield, leaving you in control of the Odama. By using the flippers (with L and R), as well as tilting the playing screen with the control stick, players are able to control the massive ball as it destroys enemy outposts and squashes enemy armies. By pressing the X button in conjunction with L and R, you can activate the Mega ball mode of the Odama, which turns it red and sends it flying farther. The best part, however, is any enemy that touches it is instantly turned to your side, and is added to your list of reserves. When your soldiers are low in numbers, a push of the D-pad up sends out more troops, while D-pad down calls them back. The object of the battle is to send out your ladder troops (by pressing B) so they can place a ladder over the river to the north which is protecting the Kendare tribe commander, allowing you to smash his lights out with the Odama. However, when the ladder is being sent out, it is completely defenseless, so some quick work using the Odama is necessary to protect it.


FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In all, Odama is far beyond your average pinball game. However, there are some things that must be fixed. First of all, the graphics were highly sub-par, and would probably look great on an N64, but not the Cube. The troops are little sprites, and not very detailed. Finally, there was a bad glitch in the game when enemy armies got close to one of the flippers, they would get stuck in there, and basically look like they were having a giant orgy with the flipper. However, the game looked like it was nowhere near complete, so hopefully Yoot Saito and his team at Vivarium will work on these things before the game’s scheduled release in 2005.

Eric Jones