Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.4.
My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
Pros
- Fucking hot as hell – Given the games usage of slightly unrealistic proportions and body shapes it means that all the girls are basically insanely gorgeous with gravity defying tits, absolutely tiny waists, and tonnes of junk in the trunk... Again, yeah, it’s unrealistic but it’s VERY nice to look at.
- The fucking is hot as hell – Pun intended. On top of the game just looking stellar (heh) the actual sex scenes are some of the steamiest out there. You can feel the heat from the characters, the need to rip each other’s clothes off. It gets fairly kinky fairly quickly too with some nice dominant/submissive options and that’s just extra spice. On top of that the actual writing of the sex scenes themselves is smashing, it’s descriptive, puts you in the protagonist’s shoes and just fucking nails it. THIS is what I’m here for…
- Fun setting – The game is pulp sci-fi and is about as close as one could get to Star Trek, but that actually works remarkably well and just keeps the game fairly light-hearted and simply FUN to play.
- Animations are surprisingly good – There’s quite a few fully animated sequences and scenes which actually even somewhat caught me off guard because they were just pretty cool. Obviously, don’t go in expecting AAA-game cinematics, but it is just another little thing which elevates the experience.
- Lots of content – I picked this up in version 0.3, and after having played a half dozen other v 0.3-0.5 games on this site recently which were all done in under an hour it is super refreshing to actually have a game where you can sink your teeth into it. There’s (fucking finally) genuinely loads of stuff you can do!
Mehs
- Overall writing is decent – I’m not gonna pretend a game called “Titty Fantasy” is in danger of winning writing awards, but the dialogue flows, the people feel like actual characters, there’s a plot which you are very definitely moving through. Its got structure and has a goal in mind and basically that elevates it. It’s porn with plot, don’t get me wrong, the dev is under no illusions of what they’re making, but it does at LEAST have a plot. The downside to this though comes in the form of the protagonist who is an alpha stud in sexual situations and then is often just a bit wishy-washy otherwise.
- Lack of choice – The game is primarily a free-roam dating-sim type game, with extended plot sequences between the free-roam segments. The game is also aiming to be a harem-sim, so the player interaction is sort of limited to “fucking every girl or not”. So, I can be very into games which just allow you to get a harem of babes as long as the wrapping around it is decent, but I’ll touch on this again below… Foreshadowing alert!
- Lack of character consistency – This isn’t as big of a deal at first, but as things progress it gradually becomes more and more noticeable. Essentially you will, naturally, progress the romantic relationship with the girls in your harem and end up doing sexy things with them and fucking then, but then outside of the “main” story progression these same characters will sometimes regress somewhat. This is most noticeable with Lym (spoilers ahead) with whom you take her virginity and then subsequent sexual interactions are actually more tame than that, as if it never happened. This isn’t a negative exactly, but really is just a bit bizarre.
- Lack of “gameplay” consistency – Another not-exactly-a-negative, which I attribute to the dev learning what works for their game. All three function with time-slots and the girls doing different things on different days, but there’s also iterations of improvement. The first free roam segment only ends after you have completed EVERY interaction with every girl (feeding into the lack of choice I mentioned). The second segment then adds differentiating “plot driving” interactions and more “day-to-day” interactions, so from here on it seems like you could (if you’re weird) choose to ignore certain girls). Then the third free roam segment finally actually adds different days to allow a variable schedule for the girls. While the learning curve is fine, it does make it simply feel a bit awkward and inconsistent that these features are not there from the start.
Cons
- Setting quibbles – I mentioned earlier that the game is basically pulp sci-fi, but I sort of wish that the dev really leaned into that fully and made a game that was Star Trek But With Tits. Instead, the very first mission you go on as a crew involves heading down to a “fantasy” planet. You fight baddies with a sword (for some reason) and you meet (minor spoilers) a character who uses magic. I’m not averse to magic in my sci-fi games. Mass Effect does it. Warhammer 40K does it. It is important to note though that these settings try and explain this stuff away as “not exactly magic BUT…” In Oppai Odyssey this felt less like a sci-fi explanation of why someone could use magic and instead felt like someone trying to awkwardly smush high fantasy with sci-fi and the result was quite simply awkward. There wasn’t even an attempt to make the occupants of this planet seem like aliens either! They were literally just humans and goblins, which was so silly!
- Protagonist quibbles – In the game you take on the role of the new Captain of a brand new, top-of-the-line exploratory space vessel: the Agni. You are a fresh graduate from the top of your “space academy” class. You then proceed to be basically useless at just about everything that happens in the game. I could handle the protagonist not really being an expert mechanic or medic or other sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, but on the flip side he really ought to at least be “the Captain who is in Charge”. And almost all-of-the-time, he is not. He regularly will be acting like a teenager around crew mates like “oh would you please help setting up the science survey equipment if you don’t mind?” Y’know instead of just issuing orders. It’s made even more ridiculous given that you are ostensibly a military vessel and yet absolutely nobody gives you the respect due as ranking officer. Obviously, this is silly whining, after all the plot is just a mechanism to deliver porn here, but I will say that it starts to somewhat ruin the immersion that the story doesn’t at least try to be consistent with the fact that you are supposed to be A. good at your job and B. actually in charge… This is also made worse when other characters compliment you for how good of a Captain you are, when you literally have done nothing the whole game…
- Railroading choices – Unfortunately, the game is not just limited to a total lack of choice when it comes to how to play it, but in fact often commits a more egregious sin. Regularly the game will present you a choice, either with a girl or with the story itself but the choice is an absolute illusion as both decisions lead to the same outcome. In one very, VERY blatant decision in the second mission if you make the wrong choice the game just outright tells you “actually no, you meant to pick the other choice and that’s what’s going to happen”. This incident in particular totally threw me out of a game I’d been enjoying for a couple of hours until that point because all of a sudden it became abundantly clear that I was not in the driver’s seat here.
- What is the point of Alex? – At the start of the game your ship is crewed by you, three gorgeous women who make the start of your harem and then Alex. Alex is the other guy on board. However, he is not a rival for their affections (later on he does try but is always instantly rebuffed). He is not a bro character (all games need a bro character). You can’t interact with him ever (so he spends 90% of the game invisible). There’s even a ridiculous moment later on where the protagonist is setting out jobs and a plan for a mission and literally just outright forgets to give Alex a job. Maybe this is part of the joke? That Alex’s presence is so unimportant? But, all-in-all, his presence in the game is just baffling because he seems to only exist for brief 5 second stints before vanishing into the ether again. It’s worth noting though that recent updates this has changed somewhat and Alex now there may be some lot stuff happening with Alex, but it feels like a massive afterthought.
I worry that thus-far this review may seem like I am being extremely negative about
Oppai Odyssey, but I should hope the fact that I have still rated this as 4 stars should tell you that despite that I’m actually still very into the game.
This is not to say that I do not stand by all the things I have detailed in my “mehs” and “cons” for the game, because all of this is absolutely true. However, I want to make it clear right now that the overall experience of
Oppai Odyssey is simply still highly enjoyable, despite its flaws.
At its most basic, I think there is one word that is the biggest problem with the game and it’s one I specifically highlight in my “mehs” and that is consistency. More specifically, the lack of it.
The protagonist is an absolute god in bed (this coming from someone playing the dominant route) and in-charge, but then outside of sexual scenes he becomes a complete wet flannel. I already mentioned the issues I have with the consistency in terms of the broader story as well, where I find it ridiculous that the supposed top graduate of his class seems to not really be that great a leader or at any of the individual requirements of being a top-of-the-line starship captain.
Then there’s the lack of consistency in the plot as well, with the shift between pulp sci-fi and fantasy. There’s the way your initial mission parameters seem to become very quickly ignored and switched in favour of something totally different at the whim of the dev. In fact the whole broader plot of some kind of intergalactic conspiracy (which very much is not present for the first half of the game) comes as a bit of a surprise and is still something I just don’t totally get.
There’s also smaller individual interactions where the protagonist will do something, acting as if this is totally reasonable and leaving me baffled as to why or how this makes any sense. This happens very early on with the prologue sex scene where he seems to constantly switch back and forth between thinking that his teacher is really annoying and overly perverted, and then being TOTALLY into it. And then in the most recent update (0.4) there’s a scene where you visit a crewmate’s family and when you arrive some random dude storms out of the place and you are sent to calm him down, because you will be the one who is best at calming down the childhood friend of your crewmate you have JUST met for the first time.
It really has this feeling where the dev actually even somewhat forgets what he has and hasn’t included in the game so far. Like he will assume that some discussion has happened (but it hasn’t), or will forget that some other event did occur and now the characters are interacting as if it never did. It just has this whole vibe of everything being made up as it goes along (which I somewhat suspect it is).
To be absolutely clear, I think that fixing a lot of this would potentially mean re-writing dozens of scenes and I’m not really sure it’s worth the hassle because of one very important point:
For all this lack of consistency, the fact that the characters regularly seem to be just kinda dumb, the overarching plot seeming a bit nonsensical and jumping around too much. For all of these flaws, it is quite simply FUN. And more than just fun, it is also absolutely HOT AS BALLS.
This is a harem-sim done right. I’ve said it before that for me, good plot is a cherry on top of a game with very hot sex. And here, the sexual stuff is absolutely fucking tip-top. The plot is an ideal vehicle for delivering plenty of ridiculous sexy fantasy scenes and that just absolutely elevates the whole thing.
It’s always worth remembering that point that it’s perfectly possible to take a game that’s about fucking big-tiddy bitches and getting them pregnant just a bit too seriously. For me it’s a definite recommend and a game I fully intend to keep following.