One Piece Pirate Warriors Review

The first seafaring adventure of One Piece will get you immersed into Luffy's bizarre voyage around the seven seas. This anime adventure promises hordes of enemies, strange party tricks and an anime style that does justice to the Eiichiro Oda manga. I can't wait to get stuck in to this PS3 exclusive.

 The Story


You many wonder why your super stretchy super hero is that way, Luffy accidentally munched on a gum-gum fruit quite some time ago which had adverse effects on the properties of his body. This gave Luffy the power to fight in an unorthodox way to reach his goals, some may see similarities to Dhalsim form Street Fighter but Luffy can also alter his shape as well as stretch to reflect missiles or take on the role of many other tools and weapons to better handle his various opponents.

The story itself is faithful to that of the manga and anime from Orange town right through to Marine Ford .Playing through the story mode will have you see it from various characters perspectives, you play through as the Straw Hats Crew. (Luffy, Zoro, Nami and others all with signature moves)

Game play

The game is a tie-in that was brought about to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the incredibly popular manga franchise. The great thing is, the crazy isn't watered down for the general public, every thing you have read in the manga and watched on the anime could happen at any time. This may be a little too bizarre for those more mainstream gamers out there but for fans of the series it is an essential for the fan base and helps you put up with some of the lack of originality in game play. I found the game very similar to the Dynasty Warriors games, which is not necessarily a bad thing beating up hoards of baddies is generally good fun and throw in One Piece world and you have a potentially winning combo.

I found I was doing a lot of running around form objective to objective beating up a group of enemies before moving on using a set of skills. These abilities are great fun to use and are entirely based on the One Piece protagonist Luffy (Monkey D Luffy) that mixes up the otherwise mundane grind of enemies into something with a bigger fun factor. Being able to manipulate your limbs in such away gives a great variety of attacks allows you to become the master of al ranges and when playing through the various games coupled with the cartoonish graphic style, visuals and barking mad story enables One Piece to shine. 

Visuals and Graphics

These aren't too bad and defiantly contribute to the over all feel of the gameplay. I do feel however that some of the Naruto titles do edge it out a little. As its all done in 3D CGI you are left wondering what shell shading would have looked like. I have no doubt that this game looks good I just think its missing that little bit extra in this department.

In Summary

The game will definitely appeal to the One Piece fan and I also like to think it has a certain charm that will attract others into the anime style. I like it and I'll keep it as part of my collection. Not everyone will see it that way unfortunately and I don't see it getting too mch game time once It's been completed.

One Piece Pirate Warriors

PlayStation 3 exclusive

Release date: 21 September 2012

Publisher: NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe S.A.S.

Developer: TECMO KOEI GAMES CO., LTD

Pros

• refreshing combat 
• smooth game play
• faithful to story

Cons

• dynasty warrior clone
• gets repetitive fairly quickly

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ONE PICE GOLD PS3 LIMITED EDITION

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