One Piece: Unlimited World Red review: explore the One Piece universe like never before

I love One Piece: I breathe it, I eat it, I watch it, I read it. This manga made me laugh and cry at the same time countless times. This is the legacy of Eiichiro Oda and One Piece: Unlimited World Red brings gaming justice to his everlasting universe.

The game has been released in Japan on Nintendo 3DS in 2013 and just recently it came out for Japan, Europe and North America on PS3, PS Vita and Wii U. First and foremost, if you are not knowledgeable about One Piece or you are not a fan of the franchise, do not fret, this game is surprisingly very friendly to newcomers.

One of the things that got me extremely hyped for this game was the fact that Eiichiro Oda himself wrote the story and designed two extra characters, one of them being the game’s main antagonist. The second tasty bit, or should I say bits, were all the little things! Small animals and genetically modified bee-butterflies from One Piece Movie 10, spooky plants from the Fishman Island, and most importantly fans’ favorites: Kung-Fu Dugongs, which picked Luffy as their martial arts master after he won a duel against the strongest Dugong.

Gameplay

One Piece: Unlimited World Red connects the two best aspects of other One Piece-based games. First, it has an RPG-like style, in which you improve your character, expand your town, collect everything possible on the map, and explore every single place possible. On the other hand, we get a light version of One Piece: Pirate Warriors from Playstation 3 as we button mash our way through dozens of enemies, using various combos and special abilities.

In the beginning I thought the game will be boring and I would have to replay the original manga fights over and over, but honestly, it turned out to be really enjoyable thanks to the RPG aspects mixed in. Between all those fights I could go fishing, bug catching, exploring and I could use all my resources to expand Trans Town in any way I liked. Being given a chance to explore the One Piece universe like that is pretty much a heavenly gift to a fan of the series.

Story

In the game, your main goal is to help your new friend Pato, as he needs to find his lost master. Quickly it becomes apparent that his master is Pirate Red, a new character creted by Eiichiro Oda and also the antagonist of One Piece: Unlimited World Red. Without spoiling the plot it’s tough to go into much more detail, but suffice it to say that One Piece fans will not be disappointed. Everything is logically connected and it shows how influential Oda was in the creation of this game.

However, there is something beyond the Story mode: the Dressrosa Collosseum, in which you climb through specific ranks by fighting against strong enemies on arena-sized parts of certain islands as well as in the Collosseum itself. You can also play in a versus mode against your friends, which is a feature a lot of players have wanted to have in a One Piece game for a very long time. It is a nice diversion in case you ever get bored of the main storyline and feel like becoming the strongest fighter out there.