ODIA Reviews

Hyper frictional experimental gun souls. Considered quitting after getting killed dozens of times in the first area. I'm so glad I didn't because it becomes really interesting as the map opens up. It's not without its issues but if you can deal with a lot of death and retries I'd say it's quite rewarding.

This unique FPS is a wonderful blend of Doom and Dark Souls. The combat is challenging but very rewarding once you get a hang of it, it's so rewarding. Even though the world seems fairly linear at the start, you'll soon realize that there are several different paths to take and a lot to explore! I love the shield mechanic, it's intuitive and really makes the combat feel unique. Can't wait to get further in the game, 10/10 would recommend!

It's rare that you get to play something so unlike anything else you've touched. Odia is going to be compared to Quake and Doom, but it ignores so many of the lessons for those games, and is better for it. You are slow. Weak. You can barely see on the default Low Res mode, never mind aim. Your dodge roll is powerful, but comes with an extended cool-down. This lets Odia explore attrition as a game-play mechanic, and it is such a fascinating experience. Know what you are getting into, and you'll have a great time.

It's not a shooter. If you're in for some run&gun action then please skip and move along. Odia has been a short, unique and enjoyable experience for me. It's essentially a lo-fi walking simulator with elements of shooting. Many of the negative reviews are somewhat correct in the description of the Odia's core mechanics but assume that the very slow and deliberate combat, movement and instant death are an accident. Instead it's a design decision where the combat really resembles a game of chess. You and your enemies move very slowly and the shooting part requires you to quickly pick up skill of aiming without a crosshair (you know, like in real life?) and using your shield correctly. Most of the commentators indicating shooting/shield is janky/broken actually failed to take time to practice and develop those skills - necessary to progress - apparently jumping in hoping for a classic shooter. I've got a strong feeling the both difficult movement and tedious combat are specifically meant to discourage you. You really need to put the effort in to progress and this has been part of the experience for me. The game make the protagonist body uncomfortable and inefficient, cheap and expendable. Yet, with the slow movement comes the penalty of being reckless and dying, having to traverse the map from the last checkpoint. Once you command your weapon and shield well you pretty much traverse the environment, a fantasy world/planet being invaded by a dark force. You're one of the infinite grunts storming the human stronghold wave after wave. You're expendable and so are the defenders. What matters is your mission. But is it? All this makes you pay attention to your surrounding, scouting for enemies. Soldiers with automatic weaponry, snipers, mobile mortar units, all can kill you with just a couple of rounds. As you walk around you're naturally taking in the surroundings. Sounds of distant shelling and people dying set against birds and waves of the nearby shores. Wind and bushes and tree moving. As you're walking your new shell to where you died last you start to wonder as to where exactly are you, why are you storming this place, who are the people you're killing. Who you are yourself. You're passing fields where these people have been growing their food, beaches where they had been sunbathing, temples where they prayed in peace. There is a family hut at the cliffs, not empty and devastated. The peasant you just killed was probably the head of the family defending his means of leaving. Now the lifeless bodies are laying beneath your feet killed by friendly fire of thei soldiers' own mortars trying the defend the city. Why? The environment is very simple, most objects except for characters are 2d sprites along with most of the walls and vegetation. The low-res filter you see on the screenshots can be disabled if that' not something you like. Once disabled however seams across the scenery are visible. Separately, there are some scripting bugs if you traverse the environment in ways the devs didn't foresee. I think the QA suffered greatly from low interest originally and too few people reporting bugs. It's very clear it's a low-budget effort, end credits mention a number of sources for free assets and non-commercial tools used for producing the game. For me it was completely adequate to the themes and atmosphere built and did not detract from the experience in any way. All in all, an interesting and unique 1-2h short story about freedom, diversity and senselessness of war. I hope the devs will decide to open-source the game or some of it so volunteers can fix some of the texture mismatches in the environment (for those who disable the low-res filter) or the occasional scripting issue. Well done and thank you.

This is not a good game, but it is interesting, and considering the low price (and short time investment), worth buying and playing as a curiosity. It's a bit more difficult than it should be because the AI pathfinding for your allies is terrible, and they'll just walk into walls instead of helping you advance. I think "possessing" an ally after death would've been beneficial towards cutting the downtime of having to travel all the way back to the frontline after respawning. Movement after spawning is pretty fast but after 10ish seconds, I'd start moving along at half the speed for some reason? It's pretty buggy, I thought I got hit with a gamebreaking progression bug because certain items just didn't show up in the game world, but that should be fixable just by exiting and rebooting the game (or in my case, reinstalling it). But the concept of being a small, weak soldier sent to die against technologically superior foes, with only your sheer overwhelming numbers as your advantage is an appealing inversion of the typical power fantasy video games provide. I hope that the idea gets another, better executed shot one day.

The game concept is amazing. i really really REALLY like for what is going for. I have a LOT of things to say about this game. If you are wandering what you can expect in this, don't go in seeking Doom or Duke Nukem. It's almost-sorta a Doom-Souls game. It's very slow, very methodic, and very rewarding. It's not a perfect -game- but it's a perfect -foundation- for a bigger experience, that i hope the developers are gonna keep pursuing, because they have hit a good atmosphere, gameplay, and overall general feeling. You are the entire army of Odia, and your job is to invade and conquer. It's very clear that you are the bad guy here, or at the very least a demonic force of some kind. The story is non-existent but it leaves all at your imagination, with very good style and leave you wanting to know more of the world where Odia is an actual army. First the positive: it's simple while complex and incredibly effective. you have ONE weapon and ONE shield. For many this may seem as a negative but in reality it's is biggest strength. The Bone-rifle is a charged based weapon, with no screen crosshair, witch it means that you have no precise idea where you shot will land at first glance. As the game progress you become in tune with the weapon and the ability to use it more efficiently came from the understanding as when to shoot, where to shoot, and how hard to shoot, as opposed as a more classic leveling up system. Then there is the shield. As the game starts you immediately notice that a couple of shots well placed can and will kill you. If you are like me you began to wander how the shield will help you as there is no button for raising or using the shield. The shield is always raised, and very similarly tho the Bone-rifle, you can used more and more efficiently with knowledge. Turns out it can block almost every enemy shot, but only on the left side of the screen-ish. This will force you to use the camera actively to parry shot in a very peculiar way. But enough of that, part of the game is overcome and utilize the tools you are given to progress. The combat is half of this game and they have nailed it. It has a very solid second to second gameplay loop. Lastly the map is quite complex and offer enough variety, offering multiple way to reach your objective. It has a very solid layout and begs to be explored. Now the negative: The game is less than an hour long if you are good at it. i'm putting this here because generally speaking seems as people really care about game length. If this turn you off than i can understand it, especially, and this is the second big thing, for the price. At the time as i write this, the game costs 10.79 euro. Don't get me wrong here, i think the game it's very well worth it for what is asking. BUT, in an era where hundred of games hit steam every day, i think it's smart for the developers cut the price in half, for spreading even more the game, or even set a price-symbol of a couple of bucks, if not free. Generally people cares about money-for-hour mentality, and even if i dislike this method of thinking, i also agree that this game it's precluding itself for the asking price. Especially in an industry where this kind of little experience is very easily found in free games. i'm saying this only because i see THAT much potential in this game and i want many people as possible to play this. Then, the death system. It has a fantastic idea initially. You are an army, not a single soldier, so if you die, you are gonna respawn as another soldier. But the thing is, your army is endless, and given this, unstoppable. Dying become very quickly just an annoyance, as no kind of punishment is given to the player in any meaningful way. The way to overcome this would have been to adopt a Star wars Battlefront campaign method, where your army is NOT endless. or at least you can be defeated, where understand tactics and learn to overcome intelligently obstacle become an actual necessity to lose as less soldiers as possible. And this will encourage to seek hidden passages or alternative routs to objectives, exploring the map even more. Finally, the enemies variety is a bit lacking, a few more will incredibly help, even if the ones that are here are very good, and overcoming even a couple of soldier alone feels as a big accomplishment. Conclusion: As said i think it's an almost perfect proof of concept. I WANT to see this game build upon in a bigger experience. More levels, more situation, more enemy that require alternative method of defeat. More weapons too, few of them, all in the style of the one give to you here, as a one weapon that have multiple convoluted usages. maybe if you wanna create a sort of more strong sense of progression for the character you can think as a megaman X progression system. Hid power ups that encourage exploration and maybe use them as a risk-reward factor (more damage dealt, more frequent dodge but no shield). It begs to be continued and iterate upon. It leaves you with wanting more of the game and this is the highest praise i can possibly give. I have a lot more to say but for now, if you are not bothered by the price, i strongly suggest to buy this game and help the developers as you can.

The more I play this the more I realize how much there is to do. I love the 'Thief' style aesthetic, and the organic way you learn about the world of ODIA, who you are, what you're going up against, and even how to play the game. The pacing makes this the most unique FPS I've played in years, and I highly recommend it for anyone who has an inquisitive itch to scratch. Note: I've now played this on two machines and the playthroughs have been different so far. I don't know if that's intentional or just because I approached it differently.

First of all I wanna say this is not an old school fps despite in the store page it reads: "... hardcore retro FPS inspired by early first-person shooter games." In fact the only real similarity it has is the look of a 90s shooter. That's it. There is just a single weapon (which you can charge up) (and a shield), unlimited ammo, no quicksaves, basically open world. Despite that the game is still quite bad imo. Let me tell you why: -incredibly low walking speed, thank god you can dash every few seconds, without that it would be even worse -no visible crosshair even though you really need it, so I used a programm to get one -you die from like 3 bullets or one missile, while the regular enemies fire in full auto and can kill you in a blink of an eye -your weapon does so little damage and has so little range -the shield often feels useless: you can't use the shield in front of you, like you know you could in every RPG, instead it's just at your left arm which means you have to turn around your character to be protected from the front, which makes it very impractible and often it doesn't block bullets it should -this all means you die over and over, tho luckily, if you die, you respawn at your latest spawnpoint (there are a few areas in the game, each has a spawnpoint which you have to reach to "unlock it") and the progress you made till this point is not lost, so basically you kill one or two enemies, die, then go back to that area, kill some more, die again, live, die, repeat. I wouldn't mind this system that much if I wouldn't die that much and that the walking speed is super slow -bugs, I found two game breaking bugs, both tho "fixed" by restarting the game and restarting at the latest spawnpoint: first one which I only encountered once was that some part of the map I went through previously all went like invisible and when I went through it, I feel through the map; the second bug was way worse: basically you have to find three blood runes to get to the end of the game, but there were first simply not there for me. I also read that another person also had that problem and said restarting the game fixed it for him. So yeah, it also worked for me. And I got that bug twice, really annoying stuff, especially if you don't know where the blood runes are so supposed to be. I knew it bc I used a guide, so I immediatly knew and restarted the game. But if you don't know you will just walk aimlessly walk around the whole map and wondering where they are. Is it all bad? No, of course not. What I liked: -the overall setting that you are a solider in some sort of facism regime and invade some poor guys, so basically you play as the vilain -also the mix of like a fantasy, medival and like ww1 world -the astethics of the game, especially enemy design -I also don't mind the overall structure of the game, which is like I said basically a little open world, where there are some locked gates and you have to find keys to open them which you get by killing a certain (random !?) enemy in each of the ereas of the map and then have to find the cathedral and the three blood runes to open it which is the last part of the game. Only play it, if you don't mind a more experimental game (which isn't a bad thing at all), a combat system which doesn't work how it should, dying very often and super slow movement speed.

A slow, trudging, sometimes irritating experience, but definitely an interesting game. Odia appeared before me after looking into the developer of Anopek (A superior GBA style FPS game), and after a moment of hesitation I bought it not sure what to expect. This game has zero youtube presence, and I've never heard of it from anyone ever, and after installing it I was met with the worst beach sequence in any game ever. You drop out of a starfish, walk forward, realize the only buttons you have are move, dash, and shoot, and die. This repeats until you inevitably give up. Probably a year later I came back, and in two sittings managed to beat the entire thing. Story: You are a soldier of ODIA, a facist nation(?) with unknown reasons to be doing this conquest. The Odia are powerful allegedly but in game your main resource is the amount of corpses you can sling. There is zero penalty for dying but your time. Your enemy is a nation of regular humans using hybrid Knight-WW1 equipment and some brutal accuracy. Every unit of theirs is elite. Gameplay: This is the main draw of Odia and also somehow its biggest negative, some parts of this page and the developer page describe this like its a retro FPS game with lots of powerful weapons. This is entirely wrong, you are slow as dirt and your weapon is weak unless charged. You have no crosshair, a dash, and a shield in your left hand. This shield is bolted in place and has to be held facing the bullets to SOMETIMES block them. The whole game is basically a challenge of patience and accuracy with the weapon you have. There are some AI exploits to make the game easier but its best discovered on your own. Hiding behind corners is your best friend if you get past the beach. What started off as an annoying game became what I can only describe as a self imposed challenge. Like Getting Over it but in FPS format. It's not-not worth playing but its not worth playing. Numericals: 3/10 shooting, its at least got a level of strategy to it and you get good at aiming eventually. 4/10 Game, has some good ideas but probably needed to be refined or iterated on to be truly good. A slow, tedious if not short experience worth looking into for its environment and if you want a game with mechanics not seen anywhere else. Sadly can't recommend for the average person, if steam had a middle hand it would get that.

Odia's striking aesthetic, intriguing concept, and fantastic atmosphere is unfortunately offset by being utterly miserable to play. Odia is trying to capture the feeling of being an expendable grunt, sent to smash in waves against an entrenched foe, so you can expect to die a lot, but that is not what sucks the fun out of it. Your gun is near useless, being difficult to aim (something compounded by having no mouse sensitivity settings), having no real feedback, and taking so many shots to kill an enemy you'd be better of using it as a club. You have a shield, that apparently blocks bullets, but this seems so inconsistent and awkward to use that it wouldn't be much help even if the enemies didn't pepper you with fully automatic fire. There's no button to raise it, so you have to kind of look off into the sky to hold the shield in the way of the enemy attacks. This of course means you're not looking at them, so can't tell if you're blocking the bullets. You'll probably die to a stray shot anyway. You're also quite slow, both in moving and turning, something that makes you even more of a target, and makes getting back to your latest corpse particularly tedious. You can of course hide behind your AI allies, when they aren't getting stuck on something, and plink away at the enemies at range where they are hard to see and harder to hit. A particularly unsatisfying way to play, that perhaps might not have been if the gun wasn't so awful. I wanted to like Odia, since there's some interesting things there, but it eroded any patience I had for it very quickly.