When you have "licensed" games, then you know, or at least hope you know, what they’re going to look like. While I still have not watched the anime One Piece regularly, I have seen it a few times. One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 looks more or less exactly like the anime. It also looks just like the previous game, One Piece: Pirate Warriors. Some of the characters do have new clothes or a new look, but that’s a good thing. It gives the new game a fresh look without really changing much. Some of the characters will have more than one costume to wear. There are also some free "prequel" costumes you can download and some more costumes that you can buy for very little in the PlayStation Store.

Your characters do talk out loud, but unfortunately the game is entirely in Japanese. While this isn’t so bad on the cutscenes as everything is subtitled, it can be a major pain during the game. If you’re in the middle of fighting, you can’t stop just to read what’s going on, but you also can’t read very easily while fighting. For events, like Treasure Found, you can just go check the Battle Data History in the Pause Menu. For the story events, you’ll just have to figure out how to fight and read at the same time or you’ll miss some of the story. The music is very much like the music in the Dynasty Warriors series. It is upbeat and will keep you fighting at the proper pace, but it’s not very distracting, which is perfect.

When you first start up One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2, you will only have part of the options unlocked. Pirate’s Log lets you play the adventures. You’ll have to play here to unlock Free Log and Online. Free Log just lets you play any board you have already completed, while Online is nice for playing with friends that are in different places. You can go into Online and request to play with friends around the world. If you are looking to play a particular episode, you can Create Match and customize it all yourself. If you’re just looking for a game, choose Quick Match and see what you can find open. I have yet to find a Quick Match open, but I think that’s because most people are doing Rescue Requests for their online gaming right now. Online play will also help your Wanted rank. You can chat with the other players in both Online and Rescue Request, but you will need to turn it on in the Settings.

Pirate’s Log is where you will start to unlock everything else. Sakazuki became Fleet Admiral and ramped up efforts to get rid of pirates. This just had the effect of pirates teaming up to form clans who started fighting for territory, making the world one big pirate clan battleground. Vice Admiral Smoker is after the Straw Hat Pirates lead by our hero, Monkey D. Luffy, or just Luffy as we all know him. The Straw Hat Pirates are not part of a clan to start with. Smoker’s life is going to change when he has to join Luffy’s crew. Of course, Luffy needs to find the rest of his crew. They were lost when they became controlled by a black smoke. To this end, they join forces with Whitebeard becoming the "Straw Hat and Whitebeard Alliance," one of the three great world powers. The other two are the Marines and the "Great Pirate Alliance." As you progress in the game, you will find that a lot of your former friends, and even a lot of the enemies that you never though you would ally with, will join in the quest for their own reasons.

If you’ve played One Piece: Pirate Warriors, you might remember that there were three types of levels: Action, Musou, or Boss. I guess the Action Boss levels weren’t as popular, because now you only have Musou levels. This isn’t a bad thing as those are quite fun, but it is different. Of course, this also means that you don’t have to play as Luffy as much. I find that I am switching characters every level based on who the game recommends that I use. One Piece: Pirate Warriors II has two major areas under Pirate’s Log. There are the Main Episodes, which tells the story and the Crew Episodes, which are side quests that give you more information. You can play in Crew Episodes after you have it unlocked by playing in Main Episode. Once you go into Main Episode, you will find that it is divided into Chapters. Each Chapter has several episodes inside it. The game will recommend certain characters for specific episodes, but you can use whichever character you would like. Of course, if you use the recommended characters, you might just get more than the usual coins when you finish the episode. Plus, it is a good way to vary your character use. Once you start an episode, you will have a major Mission Objective and the directives on the way. You have to achieve the objectives. You will have directives on the way to get you there. There are also things you can do to earn secret coins. You can view these in Player Data and then View Secret Coins. Crew Episodes will allow you to unlock the characters so that you can take them along with you as crew in battle. They are usually shorter than Main Episodes, but the play is the same.

Challenges are unlocked at the beginning in the Main Menu, but you really should level up a bit first. The only one you have to start with is a recommended character level of 25 and it isn’t easy at that level! The Gallery from the Main Menu lets you see everything you have collected while playing the game. You can also see movies, music, and other stuff that you have purchased using the Beli that you collect in the game. Beli can also be used to level up characters, so I tended to spend it on that first.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 has three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard. On Easy, you cannot get an S for the battle. You get a score for Kills, Damage Received, and Clear Time. Those are averaged to give you your total Evaluation. If you manage to get an overall rating of S, you will get a secret coin. You will also find coins all over the place. The coins that you earn can be set to be on in your pockets. They can greatly aid, you so choose wisely what to put where. Morale is something that you need to watch. Lowering your enemy’s morale will lower their combat power. Beat enemy leaders and take over territories to lower their morale and make your life easier.

If you are having trouble on a level, or just want some help, you can send out a Rescue Request. This will send a request to anyone who has chosen to accept them asking for help. You will also get Rescue Requests if you choose. These can be fun, so I suggest making good use of them. There is no limit (at least not that I have found) to the requests you can make. Once you complete a rescue mission, your Wanted rank will go up for both the rescuer and the one requesting rescue. Both participants in a Rescue Request will get any coins picked up by either during the session. Of course, there are drawbacks to playing Rescue Requests. If your network connection drops, you lose all the work. If the other player’s connection drops, you will at least get the experience and coins you have collected up to that point. You also can’t pause the game to go back and read the Battle Log, which is necessary sometimes to figure out what’s going on since the game isn’t in English and it is difficult to read while fighting. Asking for a rescue can get you past a difficult board, so it can be worth it as well. One thing to note is that when you are responding to a Rescue Request, they might be playing on any level, so be prepared for their battle to be set on Hard.

Overall, I have found One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 to be slightly on the easier side. I went all the way through to the end of Chapter 3 on Normal before failing a level; and I only failed then because I didn’t read the Battle Log to know what I was supposed to be doing. Since there are no Action levels, you won’t find yourself stuck because your platforming skills aren’t up to par. Additionally, you won’t have a whole lot of different moves to have to learn to use on Luffy. There are fighting combos, but they’re not that much different from character to character. You will still have more difficult enemies that are boss-like, but they’re just enemies in your level, nowhere near as hard as the Boss levels in the previous game.

If you’ve played One Piece: Pirate Warriors or any of the Dynasty Warriors games, then you’ll immediately feel at home with the controls for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2. Everything is exactly the same. (Square) and (Triangle) are attack, (O) uses SP attack, and (X) lets you dash and evade. (R1) is for Style Action Mode, which is a pretty cool mode. When you execute it, you will have a small amount of time to kill a certain number of enemies. If you kill enough, you will be able to press (O) and switch to whichever crew mate you configured to bring with you. You can then attack as them for a small time. Pressing (O) will unleash another attack and switch back to your regular character. This can be quite a lot of fun and very deadly if done right. (R3) targets harder enemies. Personally, I rarely use it because it keeps your screen turned toward them, which can make it hard to pick up items, but it is handy sometimes.

Overall, I have really enjoyed One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2. When I first started the game, I kept waiting on those Action and Boss levels, but they never came. Now it is pretty much an exact copy of the Dynasty Warriors series, but with the One Piece storylines. I have a feeling that some of the areas even have the exact same maps. I do like that you have a lot more characters to choose from than in the previous game, though. I am also grateful that they did away with the quick time events during cutscenes. After playing for a few hours, I found that I really didn’t miss those Action or Boss levels. If I want to play a platformer, I’ll put a different game in. As it is, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 is a solid hack n’ slash, great for those days when you just want to slice through enemies.