A Gamin Review: One Piece Unlimited Adventure
First off, if you have no idea what One Piece is then you probably don’t need to read any further. Seriously, I won’t be offended if you stopped right now, and did something else. Go ahead. I’m sure you have some chores that need doing? That hedge won’t trim itself you know. Oh, hey you’re still here! All right then. Let’s talk One Piece! One Piece Unlimited Adventure for the Wii is a mixed blessing. While I applaud the game for doing an excellent job of capturing the feel of the show; the new English cast is quite good. The game ultimately suffers from being a Wii only exclusive.Story. It’s decent. Not on par with the show’s major story lines, but I acquaint it to being closer to say one of the movies. It has a clever way of introducing the characters if it’s your first time hanging with the crew (though this is a strange way to get introduced to One Piece IMO). In the story the crew ends up on this island because of Luffy messing around with this blue orb he found while fishing. Crazy One Piece-y-ness ensues, and our heroes wind up on a strange island. As you traverse said island searching, at one point, for your crew, then your ship, then for treasure and so forth you stumble upon these strange blue statue thingy’s. It’s here where the game throws in major bad guys from the show as boss fights. It’s sort of like the blue orb and the statue tap into the crews head, and they relive moments from the show. It’s a nice touch that allows for the game to use memorable characters from its 300 plus library of episodes. There’s in fact more to the story then just flashback fighting, but that’s all I’m going to touch upon in this review because I don’t want to spoil anything or rehash plot.
The graphics. I know I know the Wii isn’t meant to compete in the graphic department like the 360 or the Ps3, but when you have a game that looks like it could be on the Ps2 at this stage of the console lifespan. You seriously need to figure out what’s going on in the quality department. The cut scenes and the flashback moments in the game offer the best graphics you’ll see, but the in game graphics themselves are equivalent to top notch Ps2 or GameCube graphics. That’s not a horrible thing, but it’s 2008 not 1998 people.
Controls. Okay, here’s where the Wii is suppose to shine. Unfortunately, again, we’re let down. Instead of trying to figure out a clever way of using the remote we’re stuck with the all too familiar “Wii waggle”. There is some fishing that takes place, and that’s pulled off relatively solidly, but still nothing that screams innovation. Thankfully you can make it through most of the game with only minor “wii waggling”. Instead, the game applies particular moves that each character can perform, once unlocked, to pressing or holding both the C button and the A button in various combinations of the two. Most of the characters end up having more close quarters attacks(each one eventually gets some kind of ranged attack though), which makes the Usopp character for example, more valuable in certain fights because his attacks are ranged based. Again, Unfortunately, the combat can be rather troublesome because both the camera and the character’s movement are tied to the single thumb stick located on the nunchuk. Oh and before you ask…the game only supports the remote and the nunchuk. I know…that blows. The game tries to help you here by allowing you to refocus the camera on a bad guy, or wherever the character is facing by pressing the Z button. It’s definitely useful, but doesn’t seem to fix the problem every time. This can be especially disastrous during boss fights, any kind of plat forming, and on occasion just traversing the island. Thankfully it’s not something that will cause you to slam your remote to the floor (after removing the safety strap of course). Grab some random bottle of alcohol, and reminisce about the good old days of gaming, “back in my day you had TWO thumb sticks on your regulating mechanism…” More than likely you’ll just get use to it, and except the fact that the remote can be a stupid controller for some games.
Mood/tone/style/fun. Finally! Something this game shines in. It’s the reason I continued to play after the first boss fight. As mentioned before the game captures the attitudes of the One Piece characters extremely well. I’d almost say perfect, but because there’s no option for selecting the original Japanese voices I can’t say it’s perfect. In fact there is no option menu. Literally all you can do is select a saved game, a new game, or go to the VS menu. I wouldn’t have minded this so much, but the music is HORRID! GOOD GOD HORRID! I have to play with the volume turned practically down to zero. Yes…it’s that bad. Not having an option to turn it off is almost a murdering offense. If someone out there has actually played the game, likes the music, and is reading this. All I can say is: YOU’RE THE ANTICHRIST. Enough about the crappy music let’s get back to the voice acting. It’s darn good despite not being the original Japanese actors. I have to give mad props to the crew at FUNimation for giving it their all. The game also pulls off the little details. When you finally gather all the crew together from being separated at the beginning you don’t have to head back to the Camp to select what character you want to use. Instead you press the minus button, and a wheel pops up with each characters face on it. It also shows their remaining health, and stamina (although personally I would have allowed for a slow regaining of health while you played with other characters, but apparently the developers chose not to have this useful feature). Where this fits into the little details is this; take Zoro for instance. When you’re playing with him and you want to switch characters. He flops to the floor in a “napping position” straight out of the anime. While Frankie will perform his trademark pose before swapping out. They both even say a tidbit before exiting. While this isn’t groundbreaking or anything it’s just a nice touch that shows the developers cared enough about the show itself to include the little things that make each character unique. This attention to detail even shows up when the characters sprint. When Usopp sprints it’s straight out of the anime. With his arms, hands, and legs all in the same exact position. I was bustin up at this. Chopper gets the same treatment as well. When he sprints he transforms into his four legged reindeer form then transforms back once you stop sprinting. Even during a couple of his fighting combos he’ll transform into his buff form just before landing the actual blow.
Another neat character feature comes into effect when your crew’s Camp becomes fully constructed (by means of Frankie of course). Here some of the characters are given additional roles for the game. Chopper for instance can create various healing related powders and potions. Usopp can make a fishing pole, bug catcher net, pick axe, and various other combat/non-combat related items. You might be thinking, “Why would a fishing pole and a bug catching net be of any use?” They’re useful because you’ll use these items to catch/dig for things all over the island which are used as ingredients to make the various items the selected characters can create. Frankie has a similar role as Usopp, but his items are more combat-oriented, and like in the show, more complex than anything Usopp could ever make. Sanji, being the crew’s cook, can use the items to make food, and beverages that act as healing. I know it seems like having two guys that make healing related stuff would be over kill, but that blue orb I mentioned earlier. Well it kind of acts like Luffy in a way. How so? It “eats” ingredients in order to recharge. In order to get to/through certain parts of the island you’ll need to power up the blue orb with various ingredients scattered throughout parts of the island. It’s fun discovering all the unique ingredients, but it creates A LOT of back tracking in order to get particular ingredients because they’re only found on certain parts of the island. Having to do all of this in a way adds replay value because many of the bosses you can fight that also unlock in VS mode, are optional, and require certain things to activate the situation that “spawns” them. I highly recommend playing this game in spurts though in order to keep the back tracking from becoming a nuisance.
VS mode. I don’t remember exactly, but there’s like between 30 to 40 characters you can unlock for the VS mode. You have the option of fighting a real person, or fighting against the computer. Each of the bosses you fight and beat unlock for you to play in the VS mode. Even the various Marines from the show that you fight on the island unlock as playable characters in the VS mode. After you’ve unlocked everyone you unlock a new mode called Survival. If you’ve played any kind of fighting game you’ll know what this mode is all about. Unfortunately the same problems that plague the single player (camera, Z button) make their way into the multiplayer, but again if you’re a fan it can be worth it just to see all the different characters smack the hell out of each other. VS mode is a nice touch, and helps to add replay value once you’ve unlocked/collected everything on the island.
One Piece Unlimited Adventure has a slightly misleading title because the adventure tends to be rather limited due to the fact that you’re regulated to only the island you’re stuck on. Though there are different environment types on the island that help break it up from being just straight jungle and beach. Don’t expect to be sailing the Grand Lane and or exploring islands like the Straw Hat Crew do in the show. Although like the show itself, the loveable characters and marvelous attention to detail are what save this game. It has its flaws, and I’d LOVE to see a true next-gen One Piece game(I’m looking at you Microsoft and Sony), but if you’re a fan of the show, enjoy adventure/collecting style games, then this can be a fun weekend game to play between better constructed games.
One Piece Fans: 75 out of 100
Non-One Piece Fans: 60 out of 100
– Gamin
