One Piece: Unlimited Adventure
Score: 88% ESRB: Teen Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Games America, Inc. Developer: Ganbarion Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Free-Roaming
Graphics & Sound: I really love anime, but some of them (ok, a lot of them) can be overly obnoxious to the point of giving someone a panic attack. One Piece is one of those animes that I shove into that "really loud and annoying" category. However, the game One Piece: Unlimited Adventure looked like it might be fairly entertaining, despite the fact that the series just annoys me to the point of pulling hair out of my fragile head. I have nothing bad to say about the graphics! In-game play was just plain pretty. The graphics for One Piece: Unlimited Adventure weren't mind-blowing or earth-shattering, or any other cliche or hyphenated words, but they were good! The water was fun, and had depth, the characters were colorful and crisp, and even the plants looked like I should be able to fluff their leaves. The cut scenes looked like they had 3D animated the anime series. It was almost like watching a Disney/Pixar movie... just really wordy and spastic. Basically, it is just really nice to play a game that doesn't have the graphics impeding the gameplay. I knew where I needed to go and the graphics aided in the game instead of holding me back. The sound for this game is as spastic and insane as the anime. The in-game music is fun and upbeat. The best part was that it wasn't distracting; it flowed well with the gameplay. The most wonderful, skin-tingling, fuzzy kitten part of the sound? It was not repetitive! It didn't annoy me in the least. I haven't played a game -- short of Mario Galaxy -- in the last little bit that had nice music.
Gameplay: One Piece: Unlimited Adventure actually has some pretty fun (or at least distracting) gameplay. The game starts out with a longish cut scene (the only one that didn't really bug me with its length and annoyingness) about the group of mismatched pirates from One Piece. Apparently, soon after filling up on supplies, there was an eating competition onboard the boat, and the group has run out of food! Luffy decides to go fishing (you know, in order to make up for eating all the food), and he ends up snagging this weird, palm-sized, blue orb. Not knowing what it is, he shoves it into his pocket and saves it for later. While looking for an island in which to stock up on food, Luffy verbalizes his wish for land and the orb in his pocket glows... and voila! Land appears below the ship. The ship comes crashing down and this explosion of wood and crates ends up being your base camp... and the only save spot in the game. I hate not being able to save when I need to; and having to run all the way back across the map in order to save. It always happens when I am running late for something and people are screaming at me to hurry up while I'm playing a videogame. The basic premise of One Piece: Unlimited Adventure is that you run around exploring the area, killing bad guys, and finding random items in which to feed your orb with. The random boss battle is thrown in to test your skills, as well. It starts out being really entertaining, because you are new to the area. After a while, however, the landscape becomes familiar and annoying. And backtracking to collect things to feed your orb, and to save is really obnoxious. I hate backtracking! You can play as any member of the crew, however, which breaks up the game and adds a fun new aspect to the game. Each crew member has to build up a repertoire of moves, so you have more to do than just mash the (A) button. There is also a Mortal Kombat style Team Battle, and Survival mode if you get bored of the main adventure.
Difficulty: I think almost anyone could pick up One Piece: Unlimited Adventure and be able to play it well enough that it wouldn't become frustrating. There is a fair amount of button-mashing involved, so even someone with Tourette's Syndrome would do very well. The only actual difficulty in the game comes from the boss battles. The scattered handful of baddies throughout the game only ever killed me once, but that was because I had just finished with a boss battle before running into the jerks. This was before I realized I would have to run BACK to the base camp to save after defeating el boss man. The key to doing well is stocking up on new moves. It isn't hard to progress with your characters, but I found that using one character made it go faster than switching around. If you switch around a lot, you end up with a group of medium-skilled characters instead of one highly-skilled character. It makes boss battles more difficult in the end. The game is easy enough to run around with a different character another time around if you are curious about the other characters moves.
Game Mechanics: One Piece: Unlimited Adventure doesn't make as much use of the Wii-mote as I think it could have. In fact, I didn't actually use the Wii-mote's motion detection until I had gathered enough materials to make a pick axe. The only time it uses the motion detection is for the pick axe, the bug catcher, and for fishing. The best fishing is still in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, though. The whole button configuration just seemed... off to me. The control stick controls movement: you can walk and run. The (B) trigger makes you jump... which really annoyed me. (A) is your attack (you will be smooshing this button quite a bit), and (C) is your dash. You press it twice in quick succession and then hold it down. This was also annoying... it never worked during battle when I needed it the most! I feel like the trigger should have been the attack button, and (A) should have made you jump. Or even swinging the Wii-mote for an attack would have been more desirable. Overall, One Piece: Unlimited Adventure is a very rentable game! If you enjoy the series, it is probably worth picking up... I'm not completely sold on replay value, but younger kids might get a real kick out of it. The Versus mode would do more to sell the game on replay than anything, I think. Moral? Go get the game if you like the bloody annoying show, but don't expect much in the way of mind-blowing awesomeness.
-Phate Kills, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Field
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