Do you like tactical actions games like Dynasty Warriors? Are you a fan of the never ending story of One Piece? Are you both? No? WHY THE HELL NOT?! Just kidding... but seriously if you are into those kind of things, then you would love One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3. Pirate Warriors 3 is the third installment of the Pirate Warriors series which takes the cast and storyline of One Piece and uses Dynasty Warrior game mechanics. The game is playable on the Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Microsoft Windows, and Playstation Vita, developed by Omega Force (Dynasty Warriors, Hyrule Warriors) and published by Bandai Namco Games (Digimon World, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja.)
REVIEW: If you have ever played a game developed by Omega Force and their Dynasty Warriors' series to be more specific, you probably are going to be re-introduced to many familiar game mechanics. For those of you who haven't, let me give just a brief run-down of it. Dynasty Warriors offers a unique form of combat in which the player fights as one of the main forces of a large army against another army's forces. This also means fighting countless hordes of enemies, capture enemy bases and territories, while also protecting your own territories against enemy forces all along with you army of allies. The Story Mode of this game, Legend Log, goes from the begining of the series at the East Blue Saga all the way to the current Dressrosa Arc. Most chapters (with the exception of the Prolouge) are broken up into four episodes with each one having its own different requirements and events (for example: the East Blue Saga being broken up into Syrup Village, the Baratie, Arlong Park, and Lougetown.)
The other gameplay mode, Dream Log, allows the you to choose from the selection of characters you have unlocked and use them to fight in random fights. The characters you start off with are: Luffy, Trafalger Law, Emperio Ivankov, and Tashigi. Some of these fights even give you a choice as to the army in which you wish to fight for. The theme of fights for each island is different and has its own details. Fights can range from choosing between Luffy, Ace, or Sabo in a battle between siblings, or choosing your favorite hair style between afro and crew cut. (AFROS ALL THE WAY!)
Not only do you throw down in some sweet fights in this mode, but there are also certain characters and items that can only be aquiired in the Dream Log like Shanks, Ace, and Whitebeard. To unlock these characters, you must first reach the island that they are on in the log and challenge them, win the challenge and you win the character. Exclusive items can be gotten by defeating bountied characters, strong opponents that appear on the islands for limited periods of time.
One huge new feature that was not shown in previous Pirate Warrior games, is the Kizuna Rush feature. Kizuna Rush allows you to team up with your NPC allies for limited time. During this time the allies that are a part of the Kizuna rush will join you in combo attacks against the enemy. Also if you use your special while in Kizuna Rush mode, any of your allies that have joined to fight with you launch a combined special attack, usually covering a larger amount of space and dealing more damage than a regular special would.
Another very interesting feature added to combat gameplay is known as "Hero Time." During certain times in gameplay, one of your allied Crew members might get what is called Hero Time. When a crew member has a chance at Hero Time his Kizuna Gauge will go up one level more than usual. When the extra gauge is filled, Hero Time commenses. Hero Time has a variety of uses depending on what character gets it. For example, Zoro's Hero Time intimidates enemy forces so that they lose strength while Sanji's Hero Time heals all allied forces by giving them food to eat. There are even some charaters like Usopp or Aokiji who create stage hazards which appear in random areas of the entire stage (Usopp will bombard the field with exploding stars and Aokiji would shower down giant pieces of iceberg-sized hail on the battlefield.) While Hero Time is a huge boost in creating strategies to use in gameplay, be wary as Hero Time is done at random and unlike the Kizuna Rush, your oppenents may also have a chance of using Hero Time against you.
The cutscenes and dialouge in the midst of gameplay really immerse you into the world of One Piece. For those who don't want to try and play the "catch-up game" with One Piece since it is "too long," I recommend playing this game as you get a loosly but still very nice summary of what has happened so far in the series. For those that have already watched the series, it is still a nice recap and I personally found myself seeing or hearing mention of some of the scenes in One Piece that I had totally forgotten about! It even adds special dialouge and events for different characters (i.e Captain Kuro being requested to join CP9 or Aokiji and Akainu settling thier disputes in the middle of your match.) All around, if you are a One Piece fan or want to try and take a leap back into the series, this game definitely is something that you can enjoy for an extensive amount of hours of grinding and completion gameplay.
