One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP Review

UK REVIEW--Collectibles have long been a staple of video games. Traipsing around picking up coins, notes, and rings--we've all done it. Normally, these jaunts into collect-'em-up territory are designed to complement the game, grant additional bonuses, or improve your chances. In One Piece: Unlimited Cruise, most of the time they are the game. Sure, the game has combat and exploration and bosses, but unless you collect every rock, grass, mineral, lizard, or insect you can get your hands on, you won't get far. It's kind of difficult to base an entire game on a side activity, and much like the original Wii version, this 3DS port does little to keep things interesting. Plagued by tedious to-ing and fro-ing, this plodding trek has very little to offer even the most diehard One Piece fan.

Pirates love treasure, and Luffy is no exception.

Despite what the game's title suggests, this isn't the entire Unlimited Cruise saga. It was split in half for its original Wii incarnation, but the Japanese 3DS release of Unlimited Cruise rectified things by including Treasure Beneath the Waves and Awakening of a Hero on one cart. That isn't the case here. Instead, this European release contains just the first episode, along with a boss-rush Survival mode and Marineford Episodes, which are a series of arena fights based on the anime's Marineford plot arc.

The good news for One Piece fans is that Unlimited Cruise really nails the characters and the vibe. The main mode offers nine playable characters, including series protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, the daring swordsman Zoro, the skeletal Brook, and Chopper the reindeer. All the characters are nicely modeled, and the dialogue, albeit rather sparse, is spot-on, being charming, lighthearted, and funny. It's a shame, then, that Unlimited Cruise's overall story is utterly forgettable, with Luffy and crew exploring islands and overcoming ordeals (read: bosses styled on classic One Piece enemies) with the promise of "a present" at the end of it. They're accompanied by Gabri, an unusual creature who exists to eat items and convert them into points, which are required to unlock routes and progress between bosses.

Filling your inventory with meaningless junk soon gets tiring.

The plot exists as a flimsy device that has the main characters trekking around, collecting hundreds of different bits of junk, and then feeding them to Gabri or using them to make a variety of arbitrary things. The game has no qualms about frequently asking you to traipse around the same bit of land, collecting pickups. In fact, it positively revels in it. Items are needed to create bridges, cannons, ladders, explosives, and plenty more. They're needed for feeding to Gabri to accrue GP, which then has to be spent on construction. They're needed to make healing items, and they're needed to make items that are required to collect more items. Sometimes you find yourself at an impasse, with a character's item-creation level too low to develop the thing you need. Then, you're required to create other things to level up, whether you need those things or not.

The islands you explore are largely bland, unimaginative places. There's the beach/forest area, the desert island complete with the odd dinosaur bone, the frozen ice island, and the island with the obligatory volcano. They're often confusing and mazelike, with the unhelpful map frequently failing to point out that many of the paths are one-way. Shortcuts can be unlocked by, predictably, gathering a ton of items to create more items. The problem is, for a game that focuses so heavily on exploration, the areas aren't fun to explore. They're filled with awkward, fiddly jumps, which frequently see your character bouncing off a cliff edge. There's a general feeling that the environments haven't been designed with character movement in mind, and while the game doesn't punish you for plunging headfirst into chasms, such falls are still an annoyance when there's such a reliance on trekking about looking for things.

Combat is basic but fun, with Break Rush adding a tiny bit of depth.

Getting in between you and the collectibles are a bunch of mud monsters, pirates, zombies, navy officers, and the occasional venomous plant. Most of the enemy types require the same approach to defeat them, although some fun can be had with the combat--when the camera is behaving itself, at least. The nine playable characters, for the most part, have noticeably different styles, and you unlock more moves for each character simply by using them in combat. Luffy uses his rubber limbs to perform fast, far-reaching kicks and punches, Robin attacks with magical hands from below, and Usopp is a ranged fighter, using a slingshot to dispatch foes. Messing around with the different characters is fun for a while, although some of the attacks (dash + regular attack, for example) can be fiddly to perform, or the combo simply doesn't register.