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One Piece: Burning Blood is the upcoming game based on the One Piece anime series from Namco Bandai games, it’s a dynamic-styled 3v3 fighting game in free roaming 3D, depicted with cell-shaded graphics which goes well with it being an anime-styled game.
Story mode has you playing as Luffy from the Straw Hat Pirates, who wishes to become Pirate King as he takes on other pirate crews to do so. I have not watched the anime series and my only prior knowledge is through meeting people at different gaming and anime conventions. I have heard from these fans that they are disappointed that the story is only based around one ark of the canon and they wish that it had more to offer. The story mode is less than 2 hours long, which is a real let-down for a fighting game which has story already out there to use as reference.
The fighting in the game is fluid and fun with many button combinations that can result in stylised hit animations and specials which are fun to watch. The game goes from being a cake walk to hard as nails in no time – I found myself stuck on the 4th round of the story mode due to the hike in difficulty against a character that can take you down in one move easily, when it takes a lot to take him down.
The game I find to be newcomer-friendly, especially when performing badass combos and special moves, and I love how you can K.O. your opponent by destroying him into the background where they are punched through a wall at a great distance. The gameplay can be quite strategic, especially when utilising evades, parrys and counter attacks; these are needed as running and gunning will just get you beat in the end.
It offers 40 characters (once unlocked via points collected in-game) but the story is based on the main character in the anime series. There are other modes to play through such as Collection, Wanted VS, Free Battle and an Online Mode.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game plus conclusions.
Retro game fan, comic book reader, board game lover and film fanatic. I have loved videogames since I was 5 years old after visiting my first arcade, I have grown up with gaming since having my Atari 2600 then Commodore 64. I ended up building my own career crafting pixelised characters and have had the pleasure of meeting many of my retro gaming heroes who developed some of my absolute favourite games.