12/19/05 >> One Piece (Sony PSP)
Genre: Platform / Adventure
Here, you will find a platform game where, controlling One Piece's main character Luffy, you will need to defeat some enemies appearing in the first part of the series. Across the game you will meet some of the characters that were found on the actual series, but none of them will say more than a few words, making the story as quite poor, unless you are familiarized with the series.
Yes, this means that the story isn't really written across the game, and you will have to imagine it while you are trying to collect the same party members Luffy had in the series (but you won't get Chopper, the game doesn't reach that point in the story), eventually facing a "special friend" in the end.
The platform sections of the game are usually easy to play, but sometimes they require some imagination from the player, as not all the moves are explained in during the game. Some are, but most aren't, and you may get into trouble when you are required to use them, which will probably happen later in the game. For more than once the player will get stuck in a certain area, like I did, and it may take him a while to find out what to do next.
Across all the levels you will mainly encounter 3 different enemies, in which only the weapons/colors change, turning this into a poorer and less enjoyable experience. Also, since you are only able to use your party members for the special attacks, they are mainly there just for fun, as you will hardly ever use them, except for Sanji (who can heal you with his power) and Zolo (who obviously uses his sword attacks), and all of them have 2 different special attacks, taken from the series.
Also, I must say that some levels later on are really hard and complex, while some you will find in the beginning are really easy and you can complete them in less than 5 minutes. Each of them may sometimes be given a lot of different paths you can follow, making it harder to collect all the items and coins, which aren't very important but add up to the replay value of this game.
Unlike in Advance Adventure, here some of the items are usable. I mean, by talking to a certain character and having a certain item (or a specific character on your party) with you, some other things may happen, like getting new items or unlocking new areas.
And I mean it, because this game, if done along with Dragon Ball Advance Adventure, it would be simply perfect and should be bought by everyone. Careful, I am not saying that any of these two games stole anything from each other, but taking some functions from one and adding it to the other would certainly create a perfect game.
Each "world" is split into 3 different levels, each of them with a very large amount of areas and enemies to face, but don't forget about the traps and the terrible holes on the ground, which instantly kill your character. Usually in the first level you will just face platforms, but in the second one you will get to fight a stronger enemy in the end, and in the third level you will finally face a single boss battle against a strong enemy.
Concerning the graphics, I would have to say they are quite nice, with everyone from the series pictured exactly as you could want. Unfortunately there is that thing in which the enemies are usually just pallet switches of others you found before, but apart from that everything is nice.
The sound has nothing to do with the series (perhaps the producer of this game didn't own the music rights of it?), but it is good, despite not fitting the spirit of the series very well.
So, who should get this game? Well, One Piece fans will probably enjoy it, but so will everyone who wants a more platform-based game than Dragon Ball Advance Adventure, as this One Piece game also contains a larger replay value than the older Dragon Ball game.
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Game Score: 8.4
Reviewed By: Contributed
