Rob Lake reviews: Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest on Nintendo Switch...
Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest is a humorous point and click adventure set against the backdrop of space. Presented in an episodic format the five episodes that makeup Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest, follows the title characters as they perform tasks onboard the San Francisco.
Inside the spacecraft, we join Odysseus, Kosmos, a lazy, corner-cutting engineer as he maintains the systems onboard the vessel. Whilst the rest of the crew are investigating a nearby phenomenon, Odysseus is the only human on board the San Francisco. To keep the engineer on task and more importantly sane, Odysseus is joined by Barton Quest, companion and robot. It's through these two protagonists that we experience the lonely life of Odysseus as he maintains the San Francisco in the crew's absence.
As you progress through the five episodes, the story takes on a deeper meaning as life on board San Francisco takes its toll on Odysseus. Considering the game only features two characters there's also a lot of twists and turns in the story. The overall story is a bit of a slow burn and the constant repeating of tasks can feel a little monotonous, however, if you stick with it a semi-decent sci-fi story is waiting to be discovered. If you've seen films such as Passengers, Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey then you will already know the just where Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest is heading, but it's still an interesting journey.
Throughout the majority of the game, you play as the aforementioned Odysseus. It's up to Odysseus to maintain the ship while the rest of the crew are away performing a mission. This mission just so happens to be taking place on a planet that's close to the event horizon of a nearby black hole. As such, time dilation comes into play as time is moving slower on the planet than it is back on the ship. What are merely hours for the crew could essentially be Odysseus whole life. The plot has quite an interesting hook to it and there's enough to keep you guessing until the conclusion.
As characters go, Odysseus and Barton are quite the mismatched duo. While Barton is the voice of reason, Odysseus is a capable but lazy Engineer. He's capable of doing his job, but rarely has an interest in doing it properly. To keep Odysseus on track Barton is there to keep him on task and in a sense to also keep Odysseus sane.
The story is mainly played out through the interaction between the two characters, as well as Odysseus musings. The dialogue is a little over-written and can at times feel extremely tedious. The banter between the two can on occasion miss its mark, it's a real shame but with full voice acting it could have been so much more. However, the dynamic between the two characters is quite good and there's a hell of a lot of character building throughout. We get an early insight into life onboard the ship as Barton shows his clear frustration with Odysseus being lazy, and Odysseus not caring about it. It's a nice touch and builds into the overall characterisation but the dialogue goes on for far too long for it to remain interesting.
Puzzles are a staple to point-and-click games, and Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest has heaps of them. Puzzles range from collecting items to repair the ship, to the more traditional "collect a random assortment of things to fix one other thing". The rest of the game largely follows this formula. It's either solving puzzles or activating something on the ship to help overcome an obstacle.
Whilst most of the puzzles can be solved by simple logic or trial and error if on occasion you do get well and truly stuck there is a handy hint system. By clicking on the left thumbstick Odysseus will give a hint on what to do next. Whether it's an outright solution or a nudge in the right direction. While I didn't use this system too much during my playthrough, it's a nice addition to use when you get well and truly stumped looking for the solution.
The use of the retro-inspired pixel-based graphics works well throughout Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest. San Francisco is pretty well represented with great use of off-colour whites and grey. There's a lot of colours throughout and you get a great sense that the space ship is 'lived in. The recreation room is particularly interesting as behind all the sofas, tables and even a foosball, is a sprawling window which shows off the ever-present black hole in all its glory. Both Odysseus and Barton look great too.
Whilst the visuals are pretty impressive, they are let down by the animations. Odysseus only ever faces left or right. It's not a massive issue but on occasion when he walks forward it looks a little odd. There's also a lack of contextual animation when interacting with items. Either something suddenly fixes itself or in extreme cases, the screen will fade to black with Odysseus then in a different position. Again, it's not drastic but does show that this isn't a AAA title from a big-budget developer. If anything it evoked memories of stolen Summer evenings playing Monkey Island and Broken Sword - which is never a bad thing.
Considering Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest is a game that features a lot of talking, the characters aren't fully voiced. The cast talks in a brief garbled way that's accompanied by the onscreen text. The onscreen text is easy to read in both docked and handheld mode, with different colours used to symbolise who's saying what.
The soundtrack is also presented incredibly well. Each area has a sci-fi styled track which subtly plays in the background. They aren't particularly overbearing and are relatively gentle. It's also worth noting that the opening track is magnificent and is a real musical high. Without going into spoilers, it does wonder at setting the scene and reminded me a lot of 2001 A Space Odyssey and even the opening to Alien. When a task requires Odysseus to get up-close, the score becomes more upbeat. Whilst none of the tasks can be failed, the change in tempo does great to show the heightened urgency involved with the current task.
If you're a fan of the old Lucasfilm or even DoubleFine point and click adventures, definitely give Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest ago. Whilst it's visuals aren't groundbreaking they get the job done, and they're generally quite pleasing. The overall story is pretty clever and quite thought-provoking with some pretty good twists and turns. There's plenty of humour throughout as both Odysseus and Barton learn to cope with each other and seeing their dynamic change as the story progresses is a nice sight. While the dialogue can feel a little overwhelming at times, Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest is a great retro-inspired point and click adventure with a serious sci-fi story to tell.
Rating 7/10
A review copy was kindly supplied for this review.
Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest is available now on the Nintendo Switch eShop
Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev
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