One Piece: Unlimited World Red Review

Lately my Wii U has been collecting dust because of me being too caught up in the Steam summer Sale and it’s aftermath. But I was very happy to hear about a One Piece game to be released on the Wii U!
Not a lot of third party games (probably because they’re lacking in quantity) have caught my eye for the Wii U so I was curious to play it.

One Piece is a story of young pirate, Monkey D. Luffy, who’s cursed after accidentally eating a Devil Fruit, thus turning him into rubber and unable to swim.  Luffy and his crew The Straw Hat Pirates are searching for the ultimate treasure One Piece to become King of the Pirates. Whilst searching, a lot of obstacles get in their way.

For the anime fans out there whom the game is mainly aimed at, it features the Japanese voice cast with English subtitles. For me this is ideal since I’m always rummaging through the game settings looking for the option to hear the original voice actors. Unfortunately for those who enjoy the English voice cast it doesn’t look like they’ll be releasing a dubbed version any time soon.

This is my first time playing any of the Unlimited series, and I’m almost annoyed that I've never heard of them, let alone owned any.

One Piece: Unlimited World Red appears to be set somewhere in the later arcs of the manga/anime, but it’s not canon and there are only a handful of characters that aren't in the manga or the anime. The game starts off with The Straw Hat Pirates helping a raccoon named Pato return to his island, Transtown. After Luffy stays the night in a local Inn his whole pirate crew are abducted and Luffy and Pato go searching for them.
The story isn’t really moving or groundbreaking compared to certain arcs or stories in the manga but I don’t think you play these sorts of games for the story, and it’s decent enough that you don’t find it boring. Although saying that, I actually enjoyed the cutscenes for this game, I found myself laughing at certain scenes just like I do when watching One Piece.

I wasn’t expecting much with graphics from the Wii U or even from this title as it isn’t available on any other new-gen console, but this game’s gorgeous use of toon shading is a perfect match to the anime’s and manga’s art style. I didn’t find it too harsh or too bright while playing for long hours.

My first few hours into playing One Piece Unlimited World Red, I wasn’t a fan of the gameplay. I figured I’d get tired of its repetitiveness but as I progressed I learnt the game gives a variety of special attacks and combos. The combat is RPG-style, is like Kingdom Hearts meets Devil May Cry - an odd mix of the two. When your whole Party’s Skill Points gauge is full you can link a triple team with your party members to launch one big attack on multiple enemies. There’s also a Break Rush where you can give stronger attacks momentarily by pressing in all the combos shown on the screen. I like that you have to think a bit more carefully with how to deal with an enemy or boss instead of just pressing any old button and combo and hoping for the best. I feel not many hack n’ slash or multi-actions do this.

Before embarking on a mission you get to pick which three members of The Straw Hat crew to be in your party. As you progress you eventually have nine different characters to choose from, all with different fighting styles, links and combos. One Piece Unlimited World Red really pushes the boat with diversity.

Fighting marines and enemy pirates isn’t all you can do in this game. Another big aspect in One Piece Unlimited World Red is expanding Transtown. You can go exploring on missions for materials hidden in plants, crates and treasure chests and use all the materials you gather at the inn to build pharmacies, factories, restaurants and many others things to aid you in your journey. There are also mini-games for catching animals or insects with your net or fishing to find more hidden materials. Although the side-quests give you the impression you don’t necessarily have to go out and complete them at all, I often found I had to, to help me progress with finding certain power ups and materials for a shop/healing item I needed.

This game includes many other features like buying scratch cards, unlocking clothing and even the odd bit of gardening.

I did very much enjoy this game and found it funny and at times it made me want to re-watch the anime but I did have a few issues with this game.

It still surprises me these days that some games don’t have the autosave function. I forgot a few hours into the game I had to manually save at the inn and just turned it off before a boss, losing my progress. I would have preferred save points before tough areas or at least have them scattered around areas you venture to. I found it a bit of a chore to have to travel back to Transtown every time I needed to save my progress. When it came to finding destinations or certain areas in Transtown with the map I found it confusing and would often get lost. It also bothered me that the Wii U screen doesn’t show the map itself. Instead I had to push the start button all the time.

That’s one other thing I noticed, I have found no function for the touch screen at all, I don’t see anything other than the picture shown above in the whole game. It gave me the impression they didn’t really think too much into the Wii U version and just basically mirrored the PlayStation version? I mean thats not exactly a crime but what sets this copy apart from the PlayStation 3’s? A good step up in the market for Nintendo would have been to have the Wii U controller affect the gameplay differently than the other platforms. All you can really do with this Wii U version is switch screens to the controller. But with all that into consideration it’s not like Nintendo made this game. (Although you have to keep within eight meters of the console)

The lack of a Wii U function let this down for me. If I was playing the PlayStation version I would have less complaints. But overall One Piece: Unlimited World Red  is a fun game, has loads to offer and any One Piece fan would love it.