One Piece: Become the Pirate King!

One Piece: Become the Pirate King! is a turn-based strategy game for the handheld WonderSwan console, loosely adapting the events of the East Blue Saga (along with One Piece: The Movie). Designed by Soft Machine and published by Bandai, it was released on July 19, 2000 - the first official video game under the One Piece license.

Following the game's release, five more One Piece games would be produced for WonderSwan consoles, though Become the Pirate King! remains the only one compatible with the original monochromatic system.

Gameplay


The game mainly revolves around path-building, with players laying tiles across various sea maps. The piecemeal paths depicted on these tiles must be connected so players can reach objectives such as islands and enemy crews.

Tiles come in four basic path formations - straights, elbows, T's, and crosses - that can be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise in 90-degree intervals. A tile's "strength" is determined by its texture; dark tiles (carrying "smooth" rivets) can be replaced by new tiles, while light tiles (carrying "dotted" rivets) cannot.

Players are limited to a pool of five tiles at any given time. After a tile has been laid, its successor must be chosen from a randomly shuffled "deal" of five new tiles.

Exploration
Exploration mainly relies on the Move (移動) command, which opens the player's current tile pool and (if applicable) replacement shuffle. One tile must be laid every turn, though it need not be connected or even adjacent to any other tiles.

After laying the tile, the player will be granted a Jolly Roger marker to plot their destination, and a number of movement points equal to the number on the tile; each rivet on a path costs one movement point to cross. Once the destination is set, the player will automatically sail there, ending the current turn.

Note that "leftover" movement points cannot be carried between turns; every new turn will start with zero movement points.

Combat
Combat uses the same general tile mechanics as exploration, though players are allowed to lay up to three tiles per round.

The combat map proper is a 3x3 grid, with the battling crews on opposite ends. The top and bottom rows of this grid are pre-laid with identical paths; to reach the enemy, each side must build a functional path through the middle row. The numbers on the tiles determine initiative; whichever side compiles the higher sum lays - and attacks - first.

A combatant who successfully reaches the enemy side will attack whichever tile they face; if no enemy combatant occupies this tile, the enemy ship will be attacked instead. Combat performance relies on three attributes:
 * Offense (攻撃力), which determines the "raw" damage dealt by a successful blow.
 * Defense (守備力), which determines the damage subtracted from an enemy's offense; if high enough, it can completely nullify an attack.
 * Agility (素早さ), which determines what order a given side's combatants will attack in.

In addition, every character has several Finisher (必殺) attacks tied to unique path formations - Luffy, for instance, will perform a Gomu Gomu no Bazooka if facing a cross between two vertical straights. A successful finisher does not require the combatant to reach the enemy side, and will always deal a fixed amount of damage to every enemy combatant and ship; it will, however, also lock any allies out of attacking until the next round.

Two win conditions exist: either defeat every member on the enemy crew, or sink the enemy ship.

Game Modes
Four different modes may be accessed from the Top Menu, including several multiplayer modes able to support up to four players. Note, however, that none of these modes support play via the WonderSwan's link-cable system; instead, a single WonderSwan console must be passed back and forth between players.

Solo
The Solo (一人) mode adapts the Straw Hat Pirates' East Blue adventures - including the non-canon events of One Piece: The Movie - into seven levels of exploration and combat:


 * 1) The Pirate King and the Great Swordsman (海賊王と大剣ごう)
 * 2) Femme Fatale (ましょうの女)
 * 3) 800 Lies (ウソ)
 * 4) Soup (SOUP)
 * 5) Tears (なみだ)
 * 6) The Legend Begins (伝せつははじまった)
 * 7) The Isle of Gold (おうごんのしま)

Each level contains a mixture of racing missions and boss battles, interspersed with text and illustrations lifted (in most cases) directly from the original manga.

Apart from moving, the player may access the following options:
 * Tools (道具): Utilize (or discard) any items currently in possession.
 * Crew (仲間): Display (and rearrange) the current crew roster.
 * Detail (情報): Examine the capabilities and morale of current crew members.

Together
The Together (いっしょ) mode allows players to assemble custom pirate crews and race each other across eight different maps. Its combat and sailing mechanics are mostly identical to those of Solo mode, although players cannot see enemy ships until they occupy adjacent tiles. Combat initiates whenever two ships meet on the same (non-checkpoint) tile, and is limited to one round regardless of how much (or how little) damage each side inflicts. In addition, players may access several special tiles that carry no paths or movement points, instead laying traps or exercising other effects on gameplay: Trap tiles can be laid onto any path tile - regardless of strength - on the adventure map, and are invisible on all turns apart from the laying player's. They can also be laid on the combat map, dealing a flat amount of damage to the first character to cross.
 * Whirlpool (渦) tiles send the first player to cross back to their starting point.
 * Rock (岩) tiles capsize the first player to cross, forcing them to skip their next turn.
 * King (王) tiles summon a Sea King on the first player to cross, forcing them to skip their next turn.
 * Cannon (砲) tiles allow the player to target and destroy any one tile within a 5x5 area; any player occupying the targeted tile will be capsized and forced to skip their next turn.
 * Wind (風) tiles double the movement points on the next two tiles the player lays.

Hyper Battle
An electronic adaptation of the Carddass Hyper Battle system attached to the official One Piece card game. Supports up to four players.

Trivia

 * The Solo mode depicts the Going Merry as Luffy's ship from the very beginning, rather than an acquisition from Syrup Village.
 * On its initial release, the game's instruction booklet was packaged with six exclusive Carddass cards, all based on the game's box-art. One used the box-art directly, while the other five depicted the individual Straw Hat Pirates.