In One Piece Odyssey, players are able to aid the Straw Hats in their attempt to understand the island of Waford. When the Straw Hats find themselves shipwrecked upon Waford, players will need to utilize the skills of the various members of the Straw Hat Pirates to overcome the challenges the island presents.
One of these challenges that players will face in chapter two is the infamous Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea and a notorious antagonist in the anime the game is based on. Crocodile makes his return in the game and may prove to be a bit more challenging than other enemies in the game up to chapter 2.
Preparations for Fighting Crocodile
Once players have reached the scheming pirate captain by going through the Royal Mausoleum dungeon in Chapter 2, they may find him to be a tad more challenging than most other enemies they have had to face so far. Crocodile does a high amount of damage, especially when he uses his Crescent Cutlass attack, and he has a chance of avoiding any attack that is sent against him.
Even when players are able to hit with an attack, they will see Crocodile has a large amount of HP. Along with his high durability, Crocodile can also summon aid in the form of sand tornadoes that can attack independently of Crocodile himself, potentially splitting the player's attention. However, despite all of his advantages, players can approach the fight in ways that make it significantly easier to beat in One Piece Odyssey.
The first preparations that players can make to aid with this boss fight is to first go to any camp before entering the dungeon. Once there, players should go to both Sanji and Usopp to cook food and craft Trickballs, respectively. Sanji can use the ingredients players have been collecting throughout the game to create healing and support items that are significantly more powerful than other items that can be purchased at the small number of shops in One Piece Odyssey.
These items allow players to restore large amounts of HP/ TP and even provide stat boosts to take the edge off the Crocodile fight. The best items for this at this point in the game are the Herb-Grilled Bo Bo Bird, which will boost the stats of every Straw Hat on the field, Bronze Bat Soup which will restore 1,000 HP to the crew while also boosting their Defense and Guts by 10%, allowing the restored HP to go farther when Crocodile inevitably retaliates, along with Bedrock Salt Pasta if players are finding themselves to be running low on TP.
Further, having several Golden Jellies and Gator Banana Pies will be useful in reviving any Straw Hats that are knocked unconscious from Crocodile's attacks.
Similarly, Usopp can craft offensive items that can be used on Crocodile to reduce his stats, further decreasing his ability to threaten the party. Crocodile has no resistance to these Trickballs, meaning they will always be effective in decreasing his stats to weaken him significantly.
Combining the stat boosts and healing of Sanji’s cooking and Usopp’s Trickballs, players can obtain significant swings in the stat distribution on the battlefield, greatly aiding their chance of defeating Crocodile.
On top of crafting these items, players should make sure to set their formation for the Straw Hats to try to keep the support characters away from Crocodile while keeping Luffy and other hard-hitting characters up close to Crocodile.
The heavy hitters will take most of the damage, while Usopp, Chopper, and Nami can keep their distance and provide support.
How to Beat Crocodile
Once these preparations have been made, players are ready to challenge Crocodile, the main villain of the Alabasta Kingdom arc. When players enter his battle arena after confronting Crocodile, the ideal combination to deal damage quickly to Crocodile is to have Luffy and Sanji in the same area as Crocodile, with Usopp and Nami in an adjacent area.
Avoid using Zoro or Robin during this fight, as they will take massively increased damage from Crocodile while doing very little damage to him themselves due to the type disadvantage between them. Crocodile is a speed type, and so will take increased damage from Luffy and Sanji (and Chopper if players are desperate) and deal less damage to them, while the opposite will be true for Zoro and Robin.
Once the fight begins, have Usopp use the Trickballs that were crafted earlier to lower the stats of Crocodile. Players should then have Nami use her Mirage Tempo ability to increase the defense of Luffy and Sanji while also protecting them with a greatly increased chance for hostile moves to miss.
All the while, players should continue to use the skills of Luffy and Sanji that will do the most damage, based on their attack rating. On occasion, Usopp can be called upon to use a crew bond move if players would like to deal a little bit more damage faster, as Zoro and Chopper do not need to be on the field to access it.
If Crocodile begins to inflict status effects and deal some damage to Luffy and Sanji, players can swap Nami out for Chopper in the adjacent area and have him begin to heal and cure the duo.
If Chopper runs low on TP, players can use some of Sanji's Bedrock Salt Pasta to restore TP rather than attack Crocodile with Chopper or attack any sandstorms that Crocodile will summon to harass Usopp and the others in the adjacent area. Keep this up, and Crocodile will eventually buckle under the pressure of the Straw Hats, which will begin phase two.
Phase 2 Crocodile
Crocodile in phase 2 plays in much the same way as the first phase, but this time Crocodile simply has more stats and will be tougher to take down. Crocodile hits hard, sometimes even taking off half of a Straw Hats HP gauge in a single attack, as well as likely getting a turn for every single turn the Straw Hat Crew takes.
However, despite the increase in damage and HP that Crocodile has access to, the former strategy still works wonders, though this time, it may be necessary to begin to use the foods that were cooked earlier to heal multiple Straw Hats in an area at a time.
Players should have Usopp continue to use Trick balls to lower Crocodiles stats, use food and Nami’s abilities to increase the stats of the Straw Hats, and switch Chopper in to heal and cure status ailments, feeding doctor of the Straw Hats food to increase his TP if it gets low.
In this phase, a special objective will appear after Crocodile is at low health. This objective is to defeat Crocodile with Luffy for a massive boost in EXP gained from the fight. Players can accomplish this by transitioning Sanji into a more supportive role.
Players should have Sanji use items and food to heal and increase stats at this point and attack only when players are sure that Sanji would not be able to take down Crocodile. With this support, Luffy will eventually be able to deal enough damage to Crocodile to take him down, though it may be a little slower as players stop attacking every turn with Sanji.
After these strategies are used, players will find that Crocodile can be made as easy as the rest of the game. Defeating him will also allow players to continue their adventure on Waford as they begin to understand what is happening to the island.
One Piece Odyssey is available now for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.