One Piece: Pirate Warriors Review

NOT

Missing Story Arcs
If you’re new to One Piece or a long standing fan, then you’re going to be disappointed with the number of missing story arcs. For the most part, the game has all the important ones except for Usopps, which is where they get the Going Marry (their original ship). For those wondering, the game is missing Axe-Hand Morgan, Captain Kuro, Little Garden, Skypiea, Dave Back Fight, Thriller Bark, Amazon Lily and other really minor stories (like Jaya) are missing. For those who haven’t read One Piece, that means around 37% of the first half is not accounted for. Needless to say, you will be confused if you know nothing about One Piece or disappointed if you’re a long-standing fan.

Alternate Logs
One of the coolest things about Fist of the North Star: Kens Rage, was the ability to play the “What if” stories. These also make an appearance in One Piece: Pirate Warriors, although they’re nowhere near as fleshed out. For starters, every playable character (except Luffy) has some sort of story, but everyone is limited to places where they candidly appeared. Don’t expect to see Whitebeard beating up Arlong or Chopper at Impel Down, as neither were there in the story. Sadly this means newer characters are limited to one or two stage stories, where as older characters have more. After finishing each characters story, you can select those stages with whomever you want. This will allow you to have those dream fights mentioned above, just without a story that justifies the action.

Only 13 Playable Characters
The first half of One Piece is nearly 600 chapters long and contains dozens of amazing characters. However, One Piece: Pirate Warriors only has 13 playable characters and of those 13, 9 are part of the Strawhat Crew. The remaining 4 characters are Boa Hancock, Ace, Whitebeard, and finally Jinbe, so it’s more than likely someone you loved in missing. This is a real shame, but not nearly as much as Shanks/Smoker not appearing in any real way. This choice along with the missing story arcs is a huge turn off for fans, plus gives new comers rather lacking look into One Piece.

2 Player Online
Easily one of the most annoying parts of One Piece: Pirate Warriors, is 2 player online co op. This is because rooms typically fill up fast and can lead to you constantly trying to find a game. Usually it takes 10 – 20 tries for me to play online, so expect this little annoyance if you don’t have someone to play with. Finally, when you consider most Dynasty Warrior games support 4 player online, it’s quite a disappointing choice.

Verdict

While One Piece: Pirate Warriors has some great things, it manages to fail at everything important. When it comes to the story, fans will be disappointed with what’s missing and others will just be confused by what’s going on. In terms of gameplay, you can do everything in about 30 hours, making it one of the shortest Dynasty Warriors titles. No matter how you look at it, there isn’t enough content to satisfy someone who isn’t a fan and too much is missing to make a fan happy. This is a real shame, since One Piece really deserves better. Ideally there will be an updated version at some point, but until then, I would hold off picking this game up.

[Editor’s Note: One Piece: Pirate Warriors was reviewed on the Playstation 3 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]