I was super excited to be able to review One Piece World Seeker, as you probably are aware, I’m a big Anime/Manga fan. If you are a fan, you definitely know the One Piece characters. I’m currently reading chapter 941 of the One Piece Series and when this is published, I’ll likely be on the next one! This new story out of the pen of Eiichiro Oda is brilliant as ever. This part of the story is somewhere after the story of Big Mom. Many fans will argue with me around the time frame but bear with me. You are all correct on the time frame. If you are all new to this, well I suggest you to start reading the manga or watch the anime. You will have all the details about the characters. But I’ll give you the short version. Because the main character has eaten the “Gomu Gomu no Mi” devil fruit when he was a kid, he can’t swim, but instead, he got superpowers. His body is made of rubber. He and his crew are sailing all over the Grand Line to go on adventures. He wants to be the Pirate King. In One Piece World Seeker, he now landed on “Prison Island”. That’s the basic info that I can give you, let us read my review and find out if it is worth your cash!
- Visuals: The graphics are smooth, you don’t have any frame drops and the island is beautiful. It makes you want to wander around and enjoy the stunning views. If you choose to jump off a mountain, be prepared to feel the drop in your body. You can feel it, it is that good that it tricks your brain that you are falling down. The engine does a very decent job for creating something wonderful, it honestly is a blast to see it all come together as a big One Piece fan.
- Story: It is exactly what you want in an Anime game. The build-up, the plot twist and of course the Hero. You will be running around for quite a while, but the fast-travel loads fast, unlike other games out there. The island is vast and big enough to enjoy the game to the fullest. You will pass some time to discover everything, the main motivation comes from decent storytelling.
- Characters: Unlike for example Jump Force, the characters in One Piece World Seeker have facial animations. At least you can see if he is sad, excited or happy. The only thing that managed to disappoint me was the conversations between the characters, they were a bit boring. The cut-scenes are great and have full on animation and voice acting, but the smaller parts for missions where text with a repetitive language or body language. I know this is normal for games like this, but I wasn’t aware at first. I was expecting it to be like watching an episode of One Piece, so that was a bit of a letdown. Overall though the cast comes alive pretty well!
- Missions: Sometimes I found myself completely lost. I didn’t know where to go. I just couldn’t find it on the map. For the side missions, be prepared to loot everything you can find, some items are really hard to find. Also, some loot is almost impossible to get. If it would just be run or jump over it and you get the item BUT NO… some areas or points are annoying or near impossible.
- Fighting: The controls you are using are pretty limited. I wish that I could make some combo’s or combined attacks. Instead, I’m hopelessly bashing the X button, waiting for my meter to fill up and use 1 of the heavy attacks. Once you go into 4th gear, which is like going Super Saiyan Blue, the attack, which should normally be the strongest, don’t give out that hard of a punch. Sometimes it is better not to go into another Haki level in the game. And just repeat the same move until you have beaten your enemy. You have to switch between Haki’s while fighting and this is actually kind of slow.
- Controls: When you are running or trying to go into a certain direction, you will probably miss it a couple of times, if you need to take a sudden turn. In general, controls feel a little clumsy and not what you expect from a masterclass fighter.
- Viewpoint: When you are fighting some bosses and your camera doesn’t really follow you, manually changing the viewpoint is required. Normally not an issue, but even on the fastest setting, it is slow as hell. Also, some bosses have fast moves and will vanish from your field of view. So, you will probably die, because you didn’t know or see where the boss went. Trust me, nothing is more annoying than that!
CONCLUSION
Score: 68/100
One Piece World Seeker has so much potential, but it didn’t cut it for me. If the controls where better, I would give it a higher score. I mean, the camera when fighting, the slow mode switch in Haki and the X and Y are a disappointment for me. I loved the story, the characters and the twists, but the joy of playing was gone at many moments. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great game and you should play it if you are a One Piece fan. It is harder to recommend for non-fans.