One Piece: World Seeker Review

A few missing pieces in an otherwise solid game.

One Piece: World Seeker Review
Bandai Namco

Rating: ★★★☆☆

One Piece: World Seeker is an ambitious game, to be sure. Positing the vibrant and outlandish Straw Hats pirates and their enigmatic captain Luffy into an open-world RPG action game feels like the right step for the series; however it’s a big change from the brawlers and fighting games the series usually associates with, and unfortunately, this inexperience shows.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to love in World Seeker, far from it in fact, as the game absolutely nails the one thing that so many RPG’s fail to convey and that’s an interesting and fleshed out story. Across the 20/30 hour campaign you will encounter a vast array of heroes and villains from the series that all weave into a wider narrative of exploring the new Prison Island and stopping the imminent war that is threatening to break out there. Some characters feel a bit shoehorned in and go against their roles in the anime but it’s great to see so many familiar faces.

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Heading up the emotional strands of this story are two brand new characters Jeanne a freedom fighter leader and Isaac The warden of the island who is quite possibly one of my favourite bad guys going at the moment. His cool collected approach and very impressive set of skills actually make him feel like a credible threat that carries through the game.

One Piece World Seeker
Ganbarion

This sense of narrative immersion is strengthened by having many of the original voice cast from the anime have reprised their roles and when you’re seeing them interact in cutscenes and spouting off key lines in battle it’s clear that the developers sought to craft a living and connected world.

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How you actually explore this world is interesting as well as using Luffy’s patented gum gum powers he can traverse the island like a straw hat spiderman, grabbing ledges and flinging himself up into the air. It’s a shame that the sense of kinetic energy isn’t as fluid as the web crawlers PS4 outing though as Luffy’s movement is very stop start, and his UFO ability to glide along is very slow and requires button mashing (which grows very tiresome after a while!). It’s also not very quick and often feels sluggish when you consider how much space you have to roam in.

Yet when you’re zipping or sprinting about the place, you’ll notice how utterly beautiful this game is. From its lush and verdant fields to built up metal towns, there's a huge amount of variety in the locales, and each is stuffed with hidden treasure and crafting components to loot.

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Happy Luffy
Bandai Namco

However, the same depth of variety can’t be said for the enemies and combat, which is where the game really shows its shortcomings.

As a manga and anime famed for fighting, it’s very strange to see how limited the moveset is. Luffy can switch between multiple stances to better suit what enemies are in his way, either wide sweeping and quick and focused, or heavy damage. It’s a nice touch, but one that actually just makes it feel like you have two shallow movesets rather than one medium collection of skills. You can expand what moves Luffy has access to but because of the repetition of combat you’ll likely slip into finding the combo that works for you and repeating it ad nauseam.

It doesn’t help matters that outside of the boss battles - which are frequent - you’ll have met most of the enemies after only 3-4 hours in. The only difference later down the line is that these enemies become almost damage sponges, dragging the game out with an almost artificial level of padding.

Other small annoyances crop up early too, and if the title had just looked to games it could call it’s peers it would have been clear that things like being shot at off screen isn’t fun for anyone. A warning sign or Arkham Asylum-style dodge prompt would have meant combat felt more in keeping with that of a pseudo-superhero title (although Luffy isn’t exactly known for dodging attacks, more taking them on the rubbery chin).

Then there’s the snipers who pick you off if you try to glide or fling yourself over them, again with a dodge button/warning system to avoid this it would be fine (or at least manageable) but because you’ll be downed and lose all momentum, it gives the impression of a game that doesn’t want you to explore freely.

There’s a sense of “overcoming obstacles” that runs throughout One Piece: World Seeker, as the amount of RPG grinding, fetch quests and “run here to trigger a cutscene” are exemplary of a developer that is still finding the balance between content and delivery. It’s not horrendous but it is repetitive, and feels more like padding that anything. I definitely had my fun with this game, even to the point of really caring about the main plot, but I felt the stop-start nature of gameplay often held me at arm's length.

One Piece World Seeker
Ganbarion

In fact, you could say that World Seeker comes to reflect an age old expression; “I’m rubber, you’re glue, what bounces off me sticks to you”. Some of the ideas take, but most just leave the faintest of imprints. They aren’t enough to call this game bad, but they rob it of the spark that One Piece truly deserves.

 
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Jules Gill hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.