User blog:Joekido/Joekido's peek at One Piece: Treasure Cruise

There are many One Piece games out there. Throughout 18 years of it's run, One Piece was so popular that the Japanese people would demand everything One Piece related. One Piece in Japan was like Star Wars over there, because of Oda's storytelling style and a straightforward treasure hunt; the Japanese would grab the manga to see what happens next. The manga started in 1997, the anime by Toei in 1999 and finally by 2000, One Piece entered a video game industry. One Piece has over 38 games, not counting the crossovers. It would appear in many consoles and later mobile phones. It varies in many genres. Because One Piece is an ongoing manga, following it by the story is difficult so most is a fighting games or a random RPG adventures or a Mario Party-like games. Some games would focus the story on one saga. Many of these games would stay true to the manga, some won't and some would be a fictional area games. However because of the pacing of One Piece, these games get mixed reactions. By 2010, we pretty much reached deep enough in the story that they decided to make things smooth as they're enough content to make a game long when following the storyline. Because mobile phone games were so popular that many video game companies such as Bandai saw it profitable to add their games there.

By May 2014, while the series is in the middle of Dressrosa, they felt it's necessary to do a traditional RPG genre basing on the canon story of One Piece so they released One Piece Treasure Cruise. By February 2015, it was released here. I won't waste my time telling you how I found this game, as I got this game for my phone, the NA version is currently on Twin Cape. Meanwhile however the Japanese version, despite being released in May 2014, is still in Skypiea and they may even spilt it into two islands for some unknown reasons. Many characters and clothing from future arcs are being streamed in. Why they did not catch up to the current arc is a mystery. Here are my insight to this game:


 * This game as I said already followed extremely close to the manga. There are many cutscenes from the manga. As of now the locations of this game is Dawn Island, Goat Island, Shelltown, Orange Town, Syrup Village, Baratie, Arlong Park, Lougetown and Twin Cape. Whiskey Peak is coming out in NA late April. I really hope we reach Skypiea in June. And I wish the the Japanese version reach Dressrosa already. Because of the popularly of One Piece here, it got more then 2 million downloads but the Japanese download number is higher.


 * In this game, you control six characters. One characters however will be a guest. All you have to do is press these buttons for these characters to fight, if you get it all six a giant "doom" icon will appear and you must press the button at the right time to make a perfect strike. There are characters that is color based and the color is Red, Yellow; Green, Blue and Purple. Each chapter of the stage is cost stamina, some will be low and some will be high. If you level up the pirate level, you will get one stamina each. In this game you level up your characters to a max, when they reach it and you have specific characters you can evolve them, the evolution of a character would be based on how they look in each arc or if they changed into some forms (for example, an evolved Arlong is a bersark Arlong). However the more character is in your party and leveled up, the higher your strength, defense and your HP. However your HP is for all characters instead of one, so if your HP reached zero, all your characters go down. That sucks.


 * The game started out easy, however by Orange Town it got so tough that I had to waste my Rainbow Gems to restart the battle. If I die in the battle, everything I collect in the battle will be lost. In some chapters, there will be a certain enemy that will have a skull and crossbones icon on them, if you see it on them, you must take them out before the numbers reach zero or he will destory your instantly. I first face this in Shelltown, I was always wiped out that I needed to add a friend code to my list and find stronger fighters to join you. When you select a chapter, you will have list of guest and friends you can select to join you. I have to find someone who has the higher level to win.


 * At the beginning of the game, I started as kid Luffy, then I evolve to become a 17 years old. I was gifted with random Marines/Pirates/Animals/Bandits and I refused to level and evolve them. I decided to do that only to the Straw Hat pirates. Characters depending on a arc will join you.


 * To level up your characters, find many wanted posters you find on the battlefield and fuse most of them to this character to level them up. Why they could not do it the old fashioned way (defeat an enemy to grain XP) is behind me. To evolve them, you need a certain animal characters on the icon to do it.


 * Unlike a common RPG, you don't walk around talking to people or do minigames.


 * Only fighters get a character profile. I find it pretty funny that when I was fighting Usopp, he has random pirates with him. Where are the heck is Carrot, Onion and Pepper?


 * Characters with abilities ignore the rules of that abilities. For example Luffy does not stretch and bullets hurts him. Buggy can't preform his Bars Bara techniques. There are many more example to this. The characters may have special powers but I never get to use it


 * Sometimes in battle, a meat icon will appear, click on it and it restores your HP. However, it will almost never appear in critical times and it blame this for having so many loss if it only shows up often


 * It's funny to see characters get blown away


 * They skipped Island of Rare Animals. I guess it's understandable because it only made up of one chapter


 * Once you evolve a character, they go back to level one instead of getting stronger from the previous form


 * Try to update your ship often with cola


 * I'm currently in Baratie and it's so hard I decided to farm wanted posters and animal characters to evolve them and collect more treasures and Berries.

Despite some flaws, it was a fun game. There are side quests to take and do many things. Plus this game makes you feel that you are experiencing the entire story of One Piece. Are people here playing the game?