Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest was originally released on PC back in 2017 and it considered a pretty decent point-and-click title for the PC. Fast-forward to 2021, and HeroCraft has now released Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest for the Nintendo Switch. Packing all five episodes of the game in a single package, the game arrives as a complete point-and-click adventure for Nintendo’s portable system. This is our review of Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest on Nintendo Switch in which we eat some donuts and fix some issues on a giant space vessel.
Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest is set in a huge scientific vessel called San Francisco which is located in the space very close to a black hole that is visible in nearly all of the screens of the game. The ship was initially carrying a full team of researchers and scientists however all of them have embarked on a mission on the planet located right next to the black hole causing time fluctuations. Onboard the ship, is our main character Odysseus ‘Oddy’ Kosmos and his trusty robot Barton Quest who is now the main backbone of the mission. Oddy’s quest is simple as he just has to make sure that the vessel is in its top-condition until the crew returns from the mission.
However, naturally, everything goes bad on the ship and it is up to Oddy and his robot Barton Quest to make sure that the ship remains in working condition. The whole story spans over five episodes and an introductory episode as well. For the PC release, the game was released in the form of episodes however, on the Nintendo Switch, we get the full game consisting of all the episodes right at launch. The story spans over all five episodes and while it really starts slow, it picks up the pace quickly and if you push your way to the final episode of the game, you experience some great twists and turns in the story. I do not really want to spoil the story in this review but I can say that do not stop playing because of the slow pace of the initial levels as the story picks up eventually and is a great aspect of the game.
Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest is played as a point-and-click adventure game similar to those of Tales of Monkey Island. You point-and-click on the screen to find interactable items to collect them and then use them on various items, terminals, POIs, and other things to solve puzzles and proceed in the game. However, not all puzzles are point-and-click puzzles as some puzzles really test your brain and your eye. Every level is filled with smaller details that are very easy to miss and you have to have a very keen eye in order to spot all of them in the game. The game features retro, pixelated visuals so finding the obvious is not really easy all the time but I loved the visuals of the title.
The characters interact with each other in jumbled language so there are no audio dialogues in the game, but they are not really required for the game as well. It works fine without them and the gibberish audio of the dialogues actually really suits the retro style of the game. During the story of the game, you will get to explore different facilities of the vessel and will also get to step your feet outside in space. Most of the tasks are simply trying to fix the broken systems of the vessel and recording data of the nearby stars, planets and keeping the nasty black hole in check as well. As the story progresses, you also meet with some NPCs who bring a notable change in the pace of the story.
Oddy is an engineer but he has become extremely lazy in space. This is where Barton Quest comes into action as he is always pushing Oddy to complete his tasks on time and ensuring that the ship remains functional in every way. While most of the time, you play as Oddy, there are a few sequences where you play as Barton and Oddy becomes the voice of reason and you follow his guidance for completing a few tasks. The tasks do not really differ in their nature from the start to the finish and are mostly pretty straightforward with a small number of challenging puzzles thrown in the mix.
While I fairly enjoyed my time with the game, two of the aspects that I did not like about the game are its dialogue and the controls on the Nintendo Switch. I always found the controls on the Nintendo Switch to be extremely confusing despite them having on the screen all the time. The icons for controls are a little confusing and it would have certainly helped if the game had an intro where it would show the controls and their icons once on the screen. Despite reaching the final level of the game, I would still make mistakes and would take a second to check how a certain mechanic would work in a game. This is where a mouse really shines in a point-and-click title. Pressing all the buttons just to select the correct item to interact with often became a little tedious.
The second thing that got me bored was the game’s dialogue between Oddy and his robot Barton as well as some of the other characters. While generally, the dialogue was fun but in most cases, it was really long, and reading the big dialogue boxes felt tedious to the point that I was sometimes skipping through them. Humor was definitely there was it felt overwritten in some cases. When I was expecting the dialogue would end, another big chat box would pop with plenty of words inside it that I would simply skip them. Apart from these two elements, I had a decent time with the game and the puzzles were fun. Some of them were really difficult as well so the game did give me a good head-scratching moment in quite a few places as I got stuck solving puzzles. Technically, the game ran pretty fine as well and I do not remember any sort of stuttering or issues during my gameplay.
Final Verdict:
Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest features a great art style and I loved the level design of the game as well. However, on the Nintendo Switch, I found the controls to be extremely confusing, and even with the on-screen controls, I was having a hard time playing the game. The story of the game is pretty decent and takes some unexpected turns throughout the game despite a slow start and that was a pleasant surprise for me. If you are planning to jump into Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest, I will suggest that if you have a PC, stick to the PC version since it is a lot easier to play the game on a PC and it does not really need a demanding PC as well. However, if you really want to play this game on a Nintendo Switch, make sure that you learn the controls fast and get comfortable with them because they are pretty confusing. If you love point-and-click adventures, it is highly recommended for you.
Final Score: 7.5/10
