An NPC's Odyssey (Switch exclusive) – 90 minutes of fun?

[VictarParticipant]

An NPC’s Odyssey is a cute little turn-based RPG with a comedy/parody story that utterly demolishes the fourth wall. As of this writing, it’s a Nintendo Switch exclusive with a price tag of $5.

The biggest flaw of An NPC’s Odyssey is that it’s only 90 minutes long. Maybe 2-3 hours if the player grinds the party to their maximum level, but there’s no optional bosses to grind that high for. There’s no significant replay value. Getting both of the game’s endings is as simple as reloading a save from immediately before the final boss fight, and refighting the boss.

There are two other problems with An NPC’s Odyssey. One is that its English localization has a lot of grammatical errors and typos. It’s never so bad that it makes the game hard to understand, but it is very noticeable.

The final problem with An NPC’s Odyssey is that, after beating the final boss, the game prompts the player to save before choosing the ending… but a bug in the game makes this save file unusable. Attempting to load this post-boss-battle save will crash the game. The player can still experience both endings by reloading a save from before the final boss and refighting the boss, and An NPC’s Odyssey does allow the player to save anywhere.

Despite these flaws, I genuinely like An NPC’s Odyssey because the story is hilarious. It’s a full-on, no-holds-barred parody of traditional (and modern) JRPGs, told from the perspective of a lowly NPC who lost his life savings when The Hero ransacked his house. Every NPC the player meets (not just the titular “NPC”, all of them) has something ironic or funny to say. It is absolutely worthwhile to talk repeatedly to everyone in every village, as they all have multiple jokes in their dialogue.

The gameplay of An NPC’s Odyssey is bog-standard turn-based RPG combat. Grinding can get a little tedious at the beginning, when there’s only one playable character. A short ways into the game, the player gets the ability to turn random encounters on or off at will, a welcome quality of life feature.

One, final warning about An NPC’s Odyssey – it’s not for young children. The playable character Jill, who belongs to a nonhuman race, refers to the name of her race with slang word that is a lewd acronym for women. (I won’t repeat the slang word; if the pop song “Stacy’s Mom” isn’t enough of a hint, you can check videos of the game on YouTube.)

The slang term is clearly intended as a joke, and not intended to demean women, but since it’s repeated several times throughout the game… I must emphasize that An NPC’s Odyssey is Not For Young Children. This is the only content that I found questionable, though.

An NPC’s Odyssey is hard to recommend because $5 is a steep price for 90 minutes of gameplay. At the same time, I would recommend it over Kemco’s Pocket-Sized RPGs (Archlion Saga and Everdark Tower); the story is just that funny, especially for JRPG fans.

I enjoyed An NPC’s Odyssey. It’s a lighthearted and fun way to pass 90 minutes.

Favorite RPG of all time: Journey to Kreisia (by Exe-Create)

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Jesusalva