Kraken Odyssey (Nintendo Switch) – The test

Kraken Odyssey is a totally French platformer! On the one hand, it is developed by the Marseillais of Honikou SASU and on the other, it is ported and published on Nintendo Switch by the Ile-de-France residents of Just For Games. The game has been available since October 27, 2023 at the price of fifteen euros on theeShop and thirty euros in physics. Will we find our happiness in this latest “made in France” production?

A very accessible platformer

Kraken Odyssey is a platformer with a very simple concept. You play as a cute kraken and your goal is to reach the finish.

Getting started is quick, you have the joystick, the button to jump (and double-jump)… and that's basically it. You will therefore have to make do with the means at hand.

On our way, we will encounter many and varied dangers. There will be high platforms, very thin platforms on which you have to stay balanced, or even platforms that move…

We will also have cannons that shoot at us, poles that collapse following our movements and of course, enemies.

Some are just obstacles to avoid, like seals that slide on the ice, while others, crabs, can be killed by jumping on them.

In addition to that, we can collect limited-use objects like TNT which allows us to make an explosive charge that kills the crabs around us. Otherwise, there is a seagull that allows us to fly into the air.

When we die, we return to the last checkpoint without any penalty.

Kraken Odyssey has around thirty fairly short levels which are often completed in less than a minute. In each of these levels we can earn medals (in gold, silver and bronze) depending on our time.

Each level also has three sub-objectives to accomplish which ask us, for example, to kill a minimum of enemies or to destroy a certain number of crates. The levels also have two secret areas, which, apart from these sub-objectives, are ultimately of rather limited interest.

The sub-objectives as well as the medals allow us to unlock the new levels and it will therefore be essential to complete each level three to four times.

With quite interesting content…

In its entirety, Kraken Odyssey is a nice adventure. The gameplay is certainly very simple, the handling ultra-accessible, but we have an experience in our hands in which we immediately take pleasure.

The different sub-objectives, the secret passages as well as the medals make it possible to offer a slightly more difficult challenge but which still remains accessible for casual players.

The level design is initially very pleasant and perfect for beginner players looking for a fun, hassle-free experience.

The progression is also quite pleasant and the levels to overcome to unlock new levels are well balanced. Our first steps on Kraken Odyssey make us think of a game which will certainly not revolutionize the genre but which does the job very well.

However, this pleasure dissipates after one to two hours of play, the fault of bugs, a much less intuitive level design and a really less fluid progression.

We often found ourselves stuck between platforms and the menu even hid the playable levels for several sessions. These little bugs frustrate the player's experience.

The level design also loses its strength over time. The game adds enemies and obstacles that the player cannot anticipate, which brings a huge feeling of frustration in such a casual experience.

But which becomes much less pleasant in its second part

We sometimes have seals coming behind or in front of us and as the camera is fixed, we don't have time to react to dodge them.

In another level, snowballs block the path before we even reach the difficulty. It is then impossible to know where we should jump and these passages rely solely on luck.

Progression then becomes much less fun and the game requires us to unlock all the medals and complete all the sub-objectives to be able to advance.

It's a real shame because the experience then becomes much less accessible. The level design is not rich enough to justify four to five runs on the same level.

In addition, there are nice costumes to unlock for our crab, however, the loot system to collect them is not very inspired.

Like in a mobile game, you have to redo the levels to obtain costume fragments (obtained randomly depending on the medal received) which will allow us to buy them.

Under these conditions, we are ultimately mixed and not sure that the game deserves the price of fifteen euros (on the eShop). The experience is (for us) too imperfect and not well balanced enough compared to other titles on the market at the same price.

It's a real shame, because as we said before, Kraken Odyssey is a title with a lot of promise and which exudes the desire to do well.

The graphics are quite successful and even if they are a little pixelated and not very well modeled, we appreciated the very colorful universe which takes us into varied settings, whether snow, desert, meadow, etc.

The soundtrack is also nice and matches perfectly with the almost “childish” atmosphere of the game!

We offer you a video of around twenty minutes so that you can form your own opinion.