These points are then used to unlock nodes on Luffy’s skill tree giving him improved combat skills and most importantly, better traversal methods. It’s quite hard going in the early stages, but once it opens up it’s so much better.Īs is often the case with open world titles you’ll earn skill points for undertaking missions and defeating enemies. To begin with you’re stuck with basic combat functions spread between two types of fighting stance – Observation Haki and Armament Haki – one offering a barrage of fast attacks while the other sees you attacking slowly but hitting much harder you’ll also be limited to running and grabbing onto ledges with Luffy’s stretchy arms for world traversal. Climbing to the top of a peak and looking out at the view is an amazing sight to behold, but getting there is normally much harder work than you’ll often want to undertake. There’s no denying that Ganbarion have really nailed the feeling of One Piece with an original storyline, and done an excellent job with the characterisation work, but it’s like they wanted to ape Breath of the Wild’s structure without really considering what made the game so special. Like most of Bandai Namco’s anime output, what we’ve got here is an extremely competent game that is once again let down by some really baffling choices in the design process. With this being an island under the control of the Navy you’ll find that there’s rarely a shortage of Sailors and rival pirates looking to put an end to Luffy’s quest to be the Pirate King.
There’s a considerable amount of space to explore between settlements, with items to pick up and chests to loot located in places that will take you a while to work out exactly how to get them.
Prison Island is a wonderful location for Luffy’s escapades here, full of lush greenland, mountainous regions and quaint towns pockmarking the landscape.
What’s here is a Breath of the Wild-style open world mixed with spatterings of Spider-man’s world traversal and upgrade systems, and it sort of works.
Now, after falling for an ambush, Luffy and his cohorts set about righting the wrongs on the island while they make the necessary repairs to the Thousand Sunny, which just so happens to take as long as the time you spend doing the game’s main quest line. Like most pirates, the call of treasure is too good to resist for the Straw Hats and so they find themselves on Prison Island, a former mining colony now known for being under the control of the navy and home to several prisons for sea-faring ne’er-do-wells. The One Piece Series has been going for a long time now, with the manga closing in on it’s one thousandth chapter that sort of lengthy success would always invite videogame adaptations. Luffy, the likeable but one track minded leader of the Straw Hat Pirates. Oh to be the Pirate King, to sail to the Grand Line, find the legendary treasure of One Piece and claim the title of the greatest pirate in the land…that’s the tale of Monkey D.