CAM has allowed me to play an early copy of Copper Odyssey. After completing the game, I felt the need to come here and talk about my experience.
The following is my own thoughts and opinions:
I am a very critical and observant person when it comes to RPGs. I despise so many games in the genre, especially those made in RPGMaker. They typically come off as lazy, uninspired, tedious shovelware games, and playing them physically upsets me.
So when I tell you that Copper Odyssey, an RPGMaker game, has been one of the most enjoyable video game experiences I've had this year, you should understand that I don't really say it lightly.
To start, the game is quite literally a work of art. After some research I learned that CAM is an actual artist, so it makes sense that the game is just filled to the brim with this fantastically fulfilling artstyle that compliments both simple and cooler looking character designs. All of the portraits look amazing, and I was pleasantly surprised at how many unique ones there were for the characters in the game (my favorite being Kraftery). The music is perfectly fitting, and has just enough variety to hit that finished product mark. My entire playthrough was just me completely hypnotized by it, and if not for any other reason, you should try the game out for these reasons alone.
Narratively, this is a surreal experience, and the game will cause you to say "WTF?", but in just the right way. From the beginning, it decides to give you just enough narrative framework to help you understand the antagonists, the conflict they're creating, and how it's your problem. But Copper Odyssey knows better than to just hand you more than that. This game exemplifies the golden rule of "show, don't tell", and it's really on you to interact with other characters and the map to better understand the dynamic of how things relate to one another, and how sometimes there's just pieces left over that aren't easily understood. Too surreal of a story, and the player can never understand what's going on. Not surreal enough, and there's never any questions. Copper Odyssey takes that risk, and in the end, manages to strike a great balance.
The battle system in this game is nothing too crazy. In keeping touch with the thematic of arts & crafts, the traditional elemental weakness's have been replaced with ones that better resemble real world tools used by an artist. (I'm not an artist, I don't know what lithography is but it's in there!) All in all, it's not necessarily something to write home about, but it was fun enough that it held my attention while I remained mesmerized by the other aspects.
Up until this point I've had almost nothing but good things to say. But I want to be really honest here, is this the best RPG in existence? Not even close. Copper Odyssey can be rough around the edges and lacking in polish at times, and CAM knows this. Not everything has had quite enough time spent on it nor had the chance to be fully fleshed out. Battler portraits could have been better, more dialogue between the party and others was sorely needed. But in spite of this, you can sense that Copper Odyssey has decided to just embrace it, helping give that illusion that everything is always intentional rather than just hide and cower from it in shame.
(TLDR) If you're looking to play an RPG that's FINALLY inspired amongst a very boring, gray sea of monotony, I'd really recommend you try out Copper Odyssey. I think you'll find and like the same qualities that I did. So give it a shot, and respect the craft.
- RPGLordLight