One Piece: Unlimited World RED
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: Action Adventure
Release Date: June 27, 2014
Bandai Namco Games, Ganbarion
One Piece
Unlimited World Red is the 4th installments for every One Piece games and the
3rd installments for unlimited series that releases on Nintendo 3DS console.
The game actually still bring the same genre which is Beat Em Up and same
feature like catching a bugs or fishes but with more improvisations and rather
simple than the previous game (Unlimited Cruise SP2).
Story
The level 6 prisoner from Marineford
has been freed by Marshal D Teach (aka Blackbeard) during Ace execution incident. One of them
is the one that stand in the same breath as former Pirate King Gol D Roger and
Whitebeard. His name is Patrick Redfield aka ‘Red the aloof’; he is the only
one member of his own Pirate group (also with his raccoon Pet ‘Pato’). After escape
from Marineford, He decides to return to the sea and once again trying to take
the Pirate King title, but before that happen first he must accomplish the
‘mission’ that accidentally involving straw hat pirates.
Red ability
actually is very unique, he can summon & use people (even they already
dead) or any skills from any characters and make an island by just writing their description in the piece of leaves. In order
to slow down the Straw hat Pirates, Red also summon some strong people that
Straw Hat Pirate already faced to prevent them failing Red’s plan.
Battle Coliseum
Beside the
main story, One Piece Unlimited World Red also has another mode called as
Battle Coliseum. There are some modes that you can play such as Duels, Battle
Royal, Scramble and Boss Rush. Whichever character that you played it doesn’t
affect your level in Story Mode, but it does give some effect like unlocking
more characters, a lot of missions that can be play in Story Mode and some rare
materials. By the way, the Battle Coliseum plot is somewhat similar to
Dressrosa Corrida Coliseum event in the manga.
Graphic
One Piece:
Unlimited World Red is probably the only One Piece game that doesn’t use 3D
effect from Nintendo 3DS feature, but it doesn’t mean that the graphic isn’t
good. The graphic design for this game comes with cell shaded model and the
characters look more proportional and kind of more anime style. For me, it is
cool than Unlimited Cruise SP 2 that using 3D design but the graphic interface
look crappy even or not even without Nintendo 3DS 3D feature.
Gameplay
Still the
same like Unlimited Cruise SP, One Piece: Unlimited World Red also implementing
Beat Em up element but there’s some differentiation like you’re not the only
one person to fight the enemies; you can also bring another one or two
characters beside your own character to fight together with you as a team. Also
the leveling system is not about grinding in some area with a lot of powerful
enemies, you can equipped your characters with ‘strong words’ and also make
them stronger by eating the food that you ‘crafted’ (cooking).
Control Mapping
Analog:
walking/running
Left/Right:
choosing item on inventory
Down: using
an item.
L Trigger:
Adjusting camera/view
R Trigger:
Replied allies
R Trigger +
X/A/B/Y: Ultimate movement
Y:
punch/kick (depends on character that you choose)
X: usually
combined with Y combos
B:
Jumping/Stomping (for some character like White beard)
A: Dodge
(if out of range)/Guard (if the damage is higher than our level)/Counter (if the
enemies are too weak than our character)
Features
- Building
a Town: For some reason the straw hat pirates ends up helping the townspeople
to build their town. You can gather some materials by taking some quests or
pick up some loot during story mission to build any building in the town. Every
building has benefit for your straw hat characters such as :
- Tavern
(1st building): you can take some quests from here to leveling, find some
materials and enrich yourself. Some quests from tavern also can be unlocked
from Battle Coliseum.
- Garden: you can plant the seeds in order to get
some useful materials. Any harvestable materials from garden can be use for
cooking ingredients or any useful functions (crafting & upgrading strong
words).
- Restaurant: you can make some materials (that you collect
like fish, meat or fruit) can be cooked into a foods that permanently increase
your status,
- Pharmacy:
you can craft some medicine that you can bring during your missions.
- Museum: you can donate any fishes, lizards, rats, or
even bugs in the museum in order to get some money (it called as donation)
after every time you finished taking a quest or go outside the town for hunting
some materials.
- Factory: you can make any materials that
rarely drop in any place and developing fishing pole or bug net.
- Poet:
It is not building just single grandmother stay near the bridge in the town but
she can upgrade your strong words.
- Venue: you can viewing the movie scenes that you unlocked after finishing story
missions
- Bookstore:
you can view character gallery & some strong words voice.
- Mini
games: Some mini games are scattered around town, play any of them in order to
get materials or more money.
- Strong
Words: Like I said before, you can make your characters stronger by equipping
them. The strong words are basically some quotes from One Piece (or actually Straw
hat Pirates Characters) in the anime or manga versions that in this game make
your character stronger. Strong Words also divided into 3 types: Custom Words
(Permanently increasing status but can be removable/replaceable), Item Words
(temporary increasing status but also can be removable/replaceable) and Skill
Words (Permanently, most of them are increasing the status and the rest is to
unlock the character moveset).
- Fishing
& Catch a bug: One Piece Unlimited World Red has a rather simply
improvisation in fishing & catching a bugs, in order to catch them you must
hit the correct buttons that appear on 2nd screen of your Nintendo 3DS. It’s
the same as looting some materials, fishing & catching a bug are important
to complete some recipe that needed bugs or fish.
Playable Characters
In the story
mode you can only play as Straw Hat Pirates crew member, but in some quests
that you take in town tavern you can also choose other characters that also
playable in Battle Coliseum. Anyway this is the list for playable characters in
One Piece Unlimited World Red.
- Straw
Hat Pirates Crew: Monkey D Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Ussop, Sanji, Tony Tony
Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky & Brook
- Others:
Trafalgar Law, Jinbei, Buggy, Shanks, Donquixote Doflamingo, Portgas D Ace, Edward
Newgate (Whitebeard), Sakazuki (Akainu), Boa Hancock, Crocodile & Issho (Fujitora).
Sadly
there’s also some characters that not playable even in Story mode or Battle Coliseum
such as:
- NPC:
God Enel, Rob Lucci, Hody Jones, Caesar Clown, Red (Patrick Redfield), Aokiji, Kizaru, Dracule Mihawk, Wapol &
Marshal D Teach (Black Beard).
And
some generic henchmen that appears : Vegapunk Dragons (Fire, Ice &
Lightning), Marines soldier, Pirates henchmen, Fishmens, God’s henchmen, Kungfu
Dugongs, Laphans, Gorillas, Smiley, Pacifistas, Alabasta soldiers, T-rex , wild
bears & wolfs
Some facts about One Piece
Unlimited World Red (Additional info)
You can
exploring the town like any free roaming game but only as Luffy, the
townspeople will greet you and you can replied them by pressing R button (only
if the button indication appear above your head), sometimes they will give your
items or additional stats. For some kind of hero’s game, the townspeople will give
surprise response face after
seeing Luffy hop from another building to another building.
Pros & Cons
+ The story
is original and non canonical to the main story, but if you never follow One
Piece series it will make you confuse since some events are reminiscing the
past event.
+ The
graphic quality is good even doesn’t have 3D feature. If any of you wants to
buy Nintendo 3DS or even the less expensive without 3D feature ‘2DS’ for
playing this game I will highly recommend it over any One Piece game that
already released in Nintendo 3DS console.
+ Replay
value is good; actually you must play twice because the real challenges really
await you on the 2nd play through. You will never grow tired picking the same
quest for leveling or looking for materials.
- There’s a
lot of characters are expected to be playable but in fact they aren’t.
- Some
texts/translations are typo
- In nearly
final act, Smoker appears on the scene but in fact he does not appear as NPC in
Story mode or even Battle Coliseums.
Sephiawind
Score
Story 4/5
What do you
expect? It is somewhat very good story
for a non canonical. One Piece Unlimited World Red really gives you interesting
story and some values that inspired you a lot (for me)
Gameplay 4/5
Well if you’re into
beat em up or finding a game similar to One Piece Pirate Warriors for your 3DS
then this One Piece Unlimited World Red is yours.
Graphic 5/5
All I can say:
‘Superb graphic interface’ it suits One Piece more than Unlimited Cruise SP
series that using 3D (not 3D feature from 3DS).
Sound 5/5
Background
music is very good & all of characters also using the original voice
actors/actress.
Replay
Value 3.5/5
You gonna play this game more than one time because the 2nd
play through will be more challenging also you can continue some quest that
still not completed in 1st play through. If you’re some fanboys for this game,
I bet you never grow tired to play again and again, however if you’re not fans
for One Piece, this game is kinda boring after 2nd or 3rd playthrough.
4.3/5
Conclusions
One Piece
Unlimited World Red is very awesome more than its predecessor, One Piece
Unlimited Cruise SP2. One Piece Unlimited World Red wins in some aspects such
as cell shaded graphic interface that looks more like anime, the characters
looks more proportional, more challenging missions /enemies, improvisations in
gameplay etc (all I Already said above). It just really disappointed that some
badass characters didn’t appear or can’t be playable in this game. Well, in
order to end this review, I can say that this game is much recommended to play (especially
for One Piece fans).
Bonus Video Footage
Well it's really hard to capture any pictures for this review especially using Nintendo 3DS, so I recommend you to search the pictures using Google.