DISCLAIMER: This editor is absolutely new to the One Piece series, so please forgive his absolute ignorance and entertaining surprise at certain things that might be common knowledge.
As the disclaimer you read just clearer stated, I am new to the One Piece series. Our One Piece editor, Joshua Moore, is on assignment with something else at the moment, so I took over for the latest release in the One Piece universe, One Piece Unlimited World Red. To get this review started off I will say this, for as many flaws as the game seemed to bring, it certainly did bring its fair share of fun to ‘try’ and even things out. Without further delay, let’s talk about the gameplay.
The gameplay elements in OPUWR are very much a mix bag of nuts. On the positive side of things, you essentially have a simplified fighting system underneath a lot of other non-fighting mechanics. You initially control three characters going into various battles. You can switch easily between the trio by using the select button and each character (depending on which characters you select before the mission begins) brings their own set of attributes. This harkens back to a simpler arcade time where Final Fights and Double Dragons ruled the roost and made everyone want to get into some sort of martial arts. You simply punch, kick, block and use special moves here or there, as your SP meter fills. The offensive side of One Piece is pretty easy to figure out without a hitch.
Aside from the basics, there are some more complicated moves you can achieve in the game to get your enemies slain much faster. These moves come in two waves — individual and as a group. The individual special moves will be what you rely more on in battle situations. Not to say you won’t go the other way, but more times than not you’ll find yourself pulling off SP moves with your character. These moves are effective and are easily performed (at least at the beginning) by pressing R1 + square (other buttons will come later). You have to wait until your SP meter is filled to pull these off, and it’s not too difficult to refill that SP pretty quickly.
The group SP moves are pretty awesome, when performed right. You get your trio to work together when your SP meter is filled, and when the damage lands it really lands hard on the enemies. You could end a boss fight quick with a properly timed and performed group SP move. The option to use a group move also indirectly helps you to focus on other individual’s leveling, at least it did for me. I wanted to make sure I had the right folks and the right power levels before unleashing hell.
With all this said, the downer for the offensive moves is the directional accuracy which you have to make before performing them. I cannot tell you how many times I sent off an SP move towards nothing because my aim was off just a bit. There’s no forgiveness or compensation by the game, the aiming is all on you. I found this to be a bit frustrating when it came to trying to use my SP wisely. While it doesn’t take long to replenish the wasted SP, it’s still a bit nervy to try to aim on the run without much help from the game. It sounds like a whiny complaint, but I’m an experienced gamer and I’m expecting such little amenities to my fighting games.
Still, the fighting as a whole is pretty darn fun and it’s the driving point in the game. Of course, what’s a good fighting system without some good enemies, right? Even though you’ll find repetitive enemies here and there, and they do try to throw in variety with some of the lesser enemies, the boss arc doesn’t give you such pleasantries. The first boss is a piece of cake, the second is a pain and when you get to the third — good luck the first time around. The game doesn’t get easier in terms of bosses and even with patterns, the game’s bosses can be pretty unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. Strategies of who you bring to the fights and how you’re going to approach the boss fight is pretty intense for a game that is made for young teens and below.
Shifting gears, the defensive side is a bit wonkier than the offensive side. It’s like they ran out of buttons or something for defense. You are given onscreen prompts, kind of like Quick Time Events, to alert you when to block, guard, deflect or other various defensive moves. To do such things, you have to press a certain button (usually the ‘O’) at a certain time. If you miss it, you are hit. The majority of the time, the attacks (at least in the beginning) are patterned. You can easily get the pattern down. As the amount of enemies increase, as well as the bosses difficulty increases, the defensive side of things gets less precise and more of an irritating burden. Granted, you will live through such irritations in the game, but trying to block when you clearly hit the button correctly, at the right time, becomes such a cursing chore.
Anyway, there is a way to get through the sometimes tough mechanics of both the offensive and defensive moves, but it’s not going to go smoothly. Still, there’s more fun than non-fun to be had with this system as a whole, so don’t let it get you too down.
As for the actual world your gameplay resides in, it’s pretty big, though doesn’t really step outside a linear pathway for exploration. I’m right and wrong about that last statement, so let me explain a bit.
The worlds where you visit to fight your way through hordes of enemies and eventual bosses can be very linear. You’re put on a path and directed there by invisible walls and inflexible environments. Visually speaking, sometimes some of the levels feel really darn empty, mainly because of their potential visual girth and not because of a lack of enemies. For example, the third level puts you in a desert scene where Luffy and friends must make it to a palace. The desert is huge, but won’t allow you to scale the dunes for some odd reason. You are pretty much directed in 2-3 possible paths to the palace, but can’t really deviate easily once you’re on one of those paths. Eventually, those paths curve into one single entrance. While on those paths, you barely see any real fights, it’s mostly running. Ganbarion really needed to open up that world just a bit and at least let players crossover dunes to give the illusion of a bigger world. Maybe throw in some more enemies to even encourage the gamer to take a different path. There’s a lot that could have been done with worlds like the desert world, but the choice to keep it on a linear path seemed a safe bet. I think it would have been nicer to expand it a bit. Take that chance, Ganbarion!
What I’m wrong about in regards to the linear part of this game is when the gang is back in the harbor town they reside in. The rooftops of the buildings and pretty much all streets are open to the gamer to explore, while in the harbor. On top of this, the gamer can build and expand the city to make it a true sandbox event for themselves. If some of the elements of the harbor had translated to the battle levels, then boy do we have a different game on our hands.
Seeing such a linear battlefield and then a very open harbor saddens me just a bit. The characters and personalities in One Piece are conducive to an open world adventure game. Maybe Ganbarion could go way back to Zelda: Ocarina of Time and see how Nintendo treated that open world. I’m certainly not suggesting One Piece become as girthy as Zelda, but the structure would work with the characters and battle system really well. Heck, Ganbarion, take a look at Dragon Quest XIII while you’re at it.
Other neat elements of this game, which I got a kick out of, include the expanding of the city, the gathering of elements, upgrading of powers (through words) and seeing the large amount of characters at your disposal. Also, fishing and bug catching are pretty fun — how could you go wrong with either?
As for the visuals of this game, outside of the restrictive environments, the look and feel of this game is remarkably good. If you were expecting an eye-catching game outside of the fighting, it would be all of the visual personality that game expelled through its characters. They’re straight from the anime and they’re just as crazy as you would expect. Good cel-shading techniques mixed with smooth animation, really does make for a visual feast for fans of the series. Heck, even the textures, though repetitive in some levels, seemed to have solid details attached to them that made them pretty to look at during gameplay. But the characters really do make this game quite a joy to play, as each is crazily put together and unique to their weapons and personalities.
In the audio category, you get a solid score to go with your battling. Following in the footsteps of the Gundam release earlier, the audio is Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. Again, much like I said with the Gundam game, I wish a lot of titles would just go ahead and do this. Imagine how much time that would save with localization! Plus, hardcore anime fans love it this way anyway.
So, having said all this, at the end of the day is this game worth the price of admission? $49.99 isn’t a bad price point for an action-RPG like this. One Piece Unlimited World Red has more positive than negatives, includes nice upgrades and unlockables (and if you get the Day One Edition — you get a ton of stuff with it, slightly higher in price), a battle arena option and enough to do to warrant the cost. It’s a good game, though it could be great if they just opened up that linear play a bit.