One Piece Pirate Warriors 2

What could be better than getting a game from your  favorite anime in the world, “One Piece”. At first when I heard that they are finally making a “One Piece” game for the Ps3, I jumped in excitement. That’s because most of the games were on the Wii, and I did not touch that console much.

As many might know, “One Piece” is one of the most popular anime series in the world; and while some of you might have never heard of it I still recommend that you pick a copy of the game. It didn’t take much time to release the 2nd game “One Piece Pirate Warriors 2” and of course I got a copy of it. While you may think that not much has changed you are most definitely wrong! Much has been added to the game and I will tell you about all the details.

 Story: 6/10

The story starts out in with the Straw Hat pirates breaking into a lab and only Luffy and Nami not getting affected by the evil smoke, which made all their Nakama (Friends) evil. From there they team up with different people ranging from foes or old comrades, like Smoker to fight off all the ones who have been controlled by the smoke and the main villain behind all of it.

One of the best things about the game are the battles with characters that you never thought you would see fight each other in the anime with epic cut-scenes! The game also shows scenes from the anime or manga but in a whole different way. Despite all that, I would still rather playing the original story instead of this (a filler like story arc). Much like what they do with the Naruto games I would like to feel that I am right in the anime playing out the events that occurred in it instead of a side story.

 Gameplay: 7/10

You might be wondering what have they have added to the game that would make it different. Well they added what the first one sorely missed: Co-op. Playing Pirate Warriors truly reminded me of Dynasty Warriors but that’s no surprise given both games were published by the same developers. The co-op made the gameplay experience even better.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 2 didn’t just stop with Co-op, they also added a new feature which is called “rescue”. If you are in the need of co-op help at the level you are playing at the moment, by just pressing start it sends an S.O.S. to any player that in the mission menu, which allows them to join you for assistance.

It’s a mix between the Dynasty Warriors game play style and the One Piece world, and while there is nothing wrong with Dynasty warrior style-games which happen to be brushed up pretty nicely having done a really good job with each level’s design in the game with the ambushes and the enemies that appear in front of you. Also, sometimes other events happen in the middle of the battle where you have to ignore your objective to save a comrade.

One of the things that went missing in this game were the awesome boss battles that were in the first one where the boss had more than one Health Bar and an epic cut-scene. Now it just feels like those Dynasty Warrior battles which end kind of too quickly for my liking.

 Graphics: 7/10

Well since it based on the anime you would think how would they make the character look the same as they did in the anime. They actually managed to do it nicely since the graphics have captured the feel of the anime quite well with each cut-scene  and the battlegrounds and combat giving you that nostalgic feel.

That said, it still has some problems when lots of enemies appear. You feel the frame rate just goes down even though I like fighting a huge amount of enemies but I would rather see it looking visually good.

Story: 6/10

Gameplay: 7/10

Graphics: 7/10

Overall: 6.7/10

Be sure to look at the score guide 

Final thoughts

For me this is one of the games I always wanted as a One Piece fan since they have added the Co-op system and being able to choose any character you want at any level (when you unlock them). This made the game an amazing experience and since I’m a dynasty warriors fan this kind gameplay is one of the things I really love and I would recommend for each fan of the anime, and even if you are not a fan of One Piece, go ahead and pick it up and try it out.