One Piece is one of the most popular animes, so it’s not surprising that there are several videogames based on it. Actually, there have been over 20 videogames on various systems based on One Piece over the years. The latest of these is called One Piece: Pirate Warriors. In it, Straw Hat Luffy and his crew including Nami, Robin, Usopp, Sanji, and more recount the stories of their first encounters.

If you’ve seen the anime series, then you already know what the graphics look like. Just like the anime, the characters are relatively simple in appearance, but they have a lot of odd shading. That is not your TV screen; they are supposed to look like that. Once you get used to it though, it’s quite nice. They are not going for ultra-realistic here. The characters are all cartoons and some, like the giraffe-man that you have to fight, are quite odd. There is a very creative mind behind the characters in One Piece. The same goes for the scenery. Each episode is set in a different place. Some of these are cites, some are jungles, and some are ships. Some of these places defy physics beautifully, leaving you wondering what the next episode will bring and in a hurry to get to it!

For those of you looking for a game in English, you will be disappointed. One Piece: Pirate Warriors is only subtitled. The only time that was a problem for me was in battle. Just like in Warriors Orochi 3, when they say stuff while you’re fighting, you might have to pause and go read the battle logs if you are too busy fighting to read the text. Otherwise, those of us who watch anime are used to reading subtitles anyway, so it’s nothing new. Plus, if you’ve watched enough anime, you’ll probably understand certain words and phrases anyway.

While some of the actual play is very similar to the Dynasty Warriors series (enough that if you’ve played it, you will instantly be familiar with the layout and controls), One Piece: Pirate Warriors adds so much more.

From the Main Menu you have Main Log, Another Log, Online, Challenges, Gallery, System, and Download. Several of these, like Challenges and Online, are not unlocked at the very beginning though. Online will be unlocked after you’re done with the Tutorial level, but to get the Challenges, you will have to play through Main Log completely! Main Log is the place that you’re going to want to start. Here, you will play through levels to unlock new characters and level up characters (mostly Luffy). Straw Hat Luffy is the hero of this story. He wants to be king of the pirates and is continually adding new members to the crew as he goes through his adventures. Two years before this story starts, Pirate Luffy ate the mysterious Gum-Gum Devil Fruit, which made his body very stretchy. Don’t let the word pirate fool you, though; Luffy is a good guy who protects those that are important to him. Basically, this game is a flashback of how the cast all came together. Each time you hear a character’s story of how they joined, you will unlock that character for play in Another Log. Another Log has levels very similar to Main Log, but they are told from the different characters' points of view.

One thing that I really love about One Piece: Pirate Warriors is that the episodes aren’t all the same. When you go to episode select in both Main Log and Another Log, it will tell you if that episode is Action, Musou, or Boss. Action episodes are almost like the old-school platformers that you almost never see any more. I say almost because they combine the platformer with quick time events. When you are lined up for whatever action it is that you are doing, you will see what button you need to press to make that happen. It can be a bit difficult at first, especially the wall jumps and rail hangs which switch back and forth between (R1) and (L1) for the rail hangs and (R2) and (L2) for the wall jumps, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. There is still fighting in the Action episodes, but not as much. The Musou episodes are very similar to Dynasty Warriors where you have territories that you will need to capture and officers that you need to defeat. This will involve a lot more fighting, but you will still have times that you will need to use Luffy’s skills to get over and around objects. The Boss episodes have some of the more difficult ones to pass, at least until you figure out how to deal with certain bosses. These episodes will have a combination of Action and Musou to get you to the Boss and then you’ll have to figure out how to beat them. Luffy is not a "tank" character which means that you will have to dodge and attack in combinations to win. The further you go in the Main Log, the more powerful your characters will become. Eventually, Luffy will kick himself into higher "gears" as he calls it, which makes him a lot more powerful, but even still you can’t beat One Piece: Pirate Warriors by simply spamming the (Square) button. It will take more finesse that that.

Online allows you to play the episodes with the various characters that you have unlocked with people around the world. I did have trouble finding games to connect to as they kept telling me they were full, but eventually you will get in. The Challenges are available after you have beaten the Main Log story. In System, you can change the game settings, including difficulty level. Gallery has still images from One Piece. As of the time of writing this, there is nothing available in Download yet, but I imagine there will be before long!

One Piece: Pirate Warriors provides three difficulty levels, Easy, Normal, and Hard. Personally, I found that Normal is a good place to start, but if you want to just run through the game quickly just to see the story, you might want Easy. Hard is good after you’ve leveled up some! If you find a particular level is too hard by dying several times, the game will prompt you asking if you want to lower the difficulty for that battle. You do not lose anything for choosing to do that and the game will revert you back to your previous difficulty after that episode. If you fail several times on the "Action" levels as well, it will ask if you want to skip that part; you will lose technical points if you choose to skip it though.

Since there are three different types of episodes, you might find that you’re doing better on one than the other. You can go into the game Settings and set your difficulty before each episode if you need to. This can be particularly helpful if you find a boss that you are having trouble figuring out the trick to beating him. I have noticed that putting it on a lower difficulty sometimes gives you more treasure chests to help and it definitely makes the enemies easier to kill. Break open treasure chests by attacking for items and coins. The coins can be quite useful. There aren’t weapons or armor that you can upgrade, but you do have coins and you will get more pockets for these coins as you go. Each coin has a different effect and sometimes when you combine the right three coins in a pocket, you will trigger special effects, like "Straw Hat Pirates." These can really be beneficial in your character’s abilities, so I highly recommend fiddling with the coins until you get the effects you need.

As I mentioned before, if you’ve played Dynasty Warriors, then you will be quite familiar with the controls for One PIece: Pirate Warriors. The first episode is a Tutorial and it does a great job of teaching you what you need to know. Really though, other than the attack buttons, you don't need to remember what is what. During the platformer actions, the buttons you need to press will be displayed on the screen. There are a lot of quick time events in One Piece: Pirate Warriors. For the most part, I am fine with them but you need to watch out for quick time events in the cut-scenes. They can be quite annoying when you’ve put the controller down to enjoy the cut-scenes and you have to scramble to grab it just to hit (O) or one of the other buttons. Personally, I think that once you’ve beaten a boss, you shouldn’t have to worry about hitting a random button just because the game wants you to, but that is a minor annoyance. The only other problem I had with the controls occurred when you were "locked" onto an enemy. You can lock onto certain enemies which will keep the camera centered on them and make it easier for you to find them. The problem comes when you’re trying to hit the treasure chests while locked on. Since those are along the wall, it was very difficult to find them when locked on because you couldn’t ever see them. Of course, you can always unlock from the target but on at least one boss, once I unlocked from him I couldn’t get it to lock back onto him. On certain bosses, like Crocodile, you will probably find it easier to play unlocked though.

I must admit that I have never seen the One Piece anime, but after playing One Piece: Pirate Warriors, I would like to. The game is not perfect, but the very few flaws are minor and completely forgotten about once you start enjoying the story. I really like that there are different types of episodes to play so when you’re in the mood for one particular type, you can find it easily. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and learning how the characters all came together. I even shed a tear at one particularly sad moment. If you’re looking for a fun action game with hints of platforming, check out One Piece: Pirate Warriors today. If you’re a fan of the anime, you’re definitely going to want to add this to your collection.