One Piece: Unlimited World Red Review - King of the Pirates
The fourth game in the One Piece Unlimited series by Ganbarion promises to be the very best game in the series yet, perfecting the blend real-time action combat and RPG elements. Does the title deliver on all it promises? Well, there are downsides and upsides, but all in all, Unlimited World Red just may be essential for the One Piece fans.
One Piece: Unlimited World Red follows the quest of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, in finding the One Piece and becoming King of the Pirates, but achieving that goal is fraught with peril. Based at the same time as the most recent saga from the anime and manga series – Dressrosa – Luffy and crew find themselves up against Red, a legendary pirate that has stood amongst the strongest in history. Red pores over the memories of the Straw Hats, and brings their greatest enemies back in order to test their skill and strength before facing Red himself.
In general, the game is well-presented with bright, colourful visuals and great animation on the characters. The authentic voice acting is identical to the anime, and makes the characters feel somehow more genuine. Cutscenes have a great sense of pacing and it almost looks like they’re taken directly from an episode of the anime itself. Upon first impressions, it’s a very serviceable and enjoyable One Piece game.
The gameplay itself is fairly simple and won’t be too unusual for RPG fans. Main story quests involve moving into a new area, fulfilling a challenge of some kind to progress – usually requiring defeating enemies – it can become tedious, but happily you can switch your player character with any character in your party at any time, relieving much of the tedium. The huge range of characters is truly what gives the battle system its longevity.
Battles are fairly simple to perform, with two action buttons giving your attacks, and a separate set of actions when mid-air. All of the attacks will be recognisable for One Piece fans, and even if you’re not, they’re pretty and effective enough to be fun to activate. Dodging, countering and sometimes even other actions are assigned to a single button, which flashes a prompt on screen for you to press it. Unfortunately, despite the combat being on the whole quite satisfying, sometimes your button presses can feel ineffective which feels frustrating. Mowing down scores of enemies with flashy techniques rarely gets old, but it was definitely done better in the Pirate Warriors games, and with more enemies on-screen to defeat too.
Battle Coliseum Mode is a new mode, inspired by the Coliseum section of the Dressrosa story arc. Several types of battle take place here, such as Scramble, simply fighting a set number of enemies, Boss Rush where you take down five bosses in a row, Battle Royal where you go against a more formidable foe and several more. Here you are given conditions you can meet to unlock characters and even unique quests to take part in while playing the main game. Battle Coliseum Mode also comes with its own unique side-story where the Straw Hats are tackling challenges set by the mysterious Warlord Doflamingo. Changing the characters regularly and even playing co-op with friends can make Battle Coliseum Mode a worthwhile distraction for hours.
Graphically, everything here is just functional, but little more. A 3DS game originally, Unlimited World Red has never made any grand promises when it comes to graphics, but they’re very pretty indeed, when not looking too close at buildings or textures! Everything is colourful and pleasing to look at, but up close textures can look blurred and objects can look incredibly angular. Characters are detailed and authentic to the source, as do enemies, which is probably what matters most.