Reviews// One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP

Namco Bandai has a solid history of satisfying the almost-constant rabid demand of anime fans, with its range of action-based video game tie-ins. Perhaps one of the most... active of these licenses is One Piece, which in twelve years has seen 31 titles released in its name. Unlimited Cruise SP, the 32nd, sounds brilliant on paper. A beat’em up adventure for the 3DS sounds just like the sort of elegant work CyberConnect2 have accomplished with the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series.

Alas, in reality this is a poorly designed brawler that’s more movie than game. The campaign’s story follows infamous stretchy pirate Monkey D. Luffy and his merry Straw Hat gang as they explore a mythical island said to be riddled with treasure. The catch? The island contains a number of trials, which must be overcome if the group want to lay any claim to the booty.

If this all sounds incredibly familiar to fans of the series, that’s because Unlimited Cruise SP is in fact a port of an episodic double-bill of the same name, that were originally released on the Wii. But here’s the stinger - while the Japanese 3DS version of this game includes both Episode 1: Treasure Beneath the Waves and Episode 2: Awakening of a Hero, this European release only contains the first chapter.

This rather cruddy deal could be somewhat forgiven if the game itself was any good. The opening storyline speaks of journeys across the ocean, but all your traveling is made on a single island that leads you to various themed zones. The landscape is quite pretty, highlighting the colourful visuals that really add life and character to the One Piece world.

However, the same can’t really be said for the actual gameplay content within the island. A lot of the time you’ll be traipsing around in sparse areas with little direction on where to go next. Waypoints for mundane tasks are always a fair distance away from you, which makes the wandering around feel like a hard slog. Although your chosen character skips about quite happily at a reasonable pace, exploration feels painfully slow.

To break up the monotony, you’ll encounter some random-looking enemies that you’ll need to beat down in order to progress. This is where the meat of the gameplay side of things come in - the combat. And it’s really rather uninspired, amounting to a clumsy and slow-paced button-bash affair reminiscent of early 3D beat’em ups like Fighting Force.

In the world map, you’ll usually be surrounded by a large number of foes. Because the camera is always positioned behind you, it’s difficult to get a handle on your surroundings, making for a rather awkward experience. When you start playing the adventure mode, your characters (you can switch between Luffy and a number of his crewmen using the touch screen) will be incredibly weak, and all you’ll be able to attack with is simple double-tap combinations using one button. One on one battles are just as painful in design - a lock on function using the Y button is rendered pointless when you lose camera focus every time you get hit or run out of range.

As you beat more enemies up your characters begin to level up and learn more moves, but it’s difficult to know exactly when you’re about to do so as there’s no RPG-style status bar to track your development. It just seems to be a vague case of hitting as many folk as possible until you hear a level up jingle.

When you’re not engaging in some simple and clunky brawls, you’ll be scratching your head at the tedious environmental challenges that are thrown your way. These puzzles require both treasure sacrifices and the use of a random currency called GP. Various doors, thickets and other blockades will only open after collecting a specific item in the surrounding area, and only once you have enough GP from converting trinkets collected in the wilderness. It’s arbitrary padding, essentially, and it’s a right chore. For those playing this for the first time, it’s a frustrating one at that as the GP system is never really explained in detail.

In an attempt to make up for the loss of an entire chapter to our Japanese gaming brothers, this game also includes a bonus chapter called the Marinefold Episodes. Although nicely presented and cleverly thought out, it’s a simple series of one-on-one battles that sadly only serves to highlight how irritating and boring the battle system really is.

About the only truly redeeming feature of One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP is in the fantastic cinematic cutscenes that not so much pepper the game’s events but almost drowns it. It’s a testament to the strength of the manga and anime’s storytelling, and the talent of the voice actors and scene direction.

But it really feels like this is an animated movie with some bizarrely-designed and frustratingly dull gameplay sequences tacked onto the side of it. Diehard fans will - and should - enjoy a portable version of the Wii adventure game, bankrupt of fun and poor value for money as it is, for the excitement of the cutscenes alone. But ultimately, One Piece fans and 3DS owners alike deserve more than this.

SPOnG Score: 4/10