[Review] One Piece: Unlimited World RED

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.