One Piece is a monster of an Anime series, only being beaten by Dragon Ball and Naruto at this point, so itβs not surprising there are so many games coming with the series, and with that come good games and bad game. So far we have Pirate Warriors 3, which in my opinion is the best One Piece game out right now, but Burning Blood is different, itβs a fighting game and does it work?
Well the closet game to this is probable the Naruto titles or Pokken Tournament, a 3D fighting game, arena style, whichβ¦well I donβt like the Naruto games and I much prefer a 2D fighting game, as you can do a lot more with them, and I find usually arena fighting games like this do have their fair share of exploits.
Though Burning Blood is different, the main problem I have with these games is that matches are very quick, and Burning Blood suffer from this as well, but, itβs still fun, so just getting my bias out the way.
So game play is, as I have said, an arena styled fighter, where you have free movement to run around and attack. Each character has a myriad of different moves to use, all easily recognisable, and with different effects and ranges. Whilst at first glance it seems the game is quite easy, as in the first bunch of fights you can get away with simply spamming the square button and pretty much win, later levels need you to correctly make use of the block and the dodge function to win. Add this to the fact you also have guard break and moves that can be timed, it changes from a fairly simple brawler, to a more complex one, it will never hit Street Fighter levels, but for what it is, it has enough.
You also get access to support characters, which give you different benefits such as giving you more attack or defense, raising your stats or guard. Picking which support you want to take into battle is important and in some cases can determine if you win at all.
Story wise, the game takes place just before the 2-year gap, during the final conflict between the pirates and white beard and the marines. Each step is told as a story, very similar in style to how it is told in Pirate warriors series, and then follows with a fight in the arena between characters. The story is told very well, and if you are a fan of the game, you will enjoy the little side stories, where it fills out the story a little bit with what your companions are doing as you proceed along.
Completing side missions also grants extra rewards such as new characters to play as or extra gold/XP, and a little bit more of back story which is nice to have, you also get some nice dialog between the characters who are currently fighting which is great.
Though one-part I dislike is that after ever match, you get a minimal amount for each character, and early on, you end up leveling up pretty much every character at the same time, and there is no skip, it takes quite long, but this is a little problem I have with it.
Graphically the game looks really nice, not as nice as the Naruto games, but really nice, each of the characters look correct and are animated lovely, the whole game uses this strange cross hatch style shadow across the whole scene, which looks nice. In some of the special moves, when itβs a guaranteed kill, you get this nice βextremeβ look to the characters with more shading used.Β Itβs nice to see all the characters recreated, and all of them really do look like their Anime/Manga counter parts, well apart from Nami, she just looks weird.
Also, as any fighter, you have a wide roster of characters, including the main crew, both pre and post time skip, and a massive amount of characters both friend and foe, from the extremely odd Ivan to Shanks, different characters can be played with different move sets. Those characters that have their devil fruit abilities changing their form, like crocodile, can make use of this in fights, with moves going right through them, however this is a brief time of invulnerability, and has to be made use of.
There is also an even larger array of support characters, ranging from very early such as Jonny and Yosaku, this is a really nice nod for fans of the series, and lets you build your favourite pirate crew you have always dreamed of.
Overall this game is a mass of fan service, the good kind too, where each of the characters, locations and moves will be recognised to fans of the series. Whilst the story isnβt from the start, it chooses a place where the action in the show increases, and definitely have the use of many fighting locations, going up to the most recent gladiator arc. If you are a fan of the series and like more relaxed fighting games, this is definitely a title to check out, itβs fun, quick to pick up, with many charactersβ. Whilst namis confuses me, the rest of the game is solid, and a real bit of fan service, overall a solid game, 8/10.
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