6 at best. Kevin Vanord seems to be a One Piece fan based on his review for One Piece Unlimited Adventure for the Wii giving it an 8. Even as an OP fan, I would give it a 7 mainly because of the terrible multiplayer and uninteresting storyline that had little to do with the actual manga beyond boss battles and flashbacks. The gameplay is fun and adventurous (as the title implies), but at the sacrifice of more polished fighting mechanics and a playable 1vs.1 mode. One Piece: Pirate Warriors, on the other hand, looks like it'll provide a better multiplayer experience with online/offline co-op for the campaign and online multiplayer. I read there's bugs for the multiplayer options as there was for DW: Gundam 3, but hopefully it won't deter too much from my experience of playing the campaign with a friend. Pirate Warriors is also the first OP game to actually adapt the storyline from the beginning towards small chunks of the the timeskip (60+ volumes of the manga). It does skip some major and minor arcs like sections of the East Blue arc (Captain Kuro, Morgan), Baroque Works, Skypiea, Davy Back Fight, and Thriller Bark. It's also the first One Piece game to be on an HD console, so I'd say it'll get a better rating than most of the typical Dynasty Warriors fare. Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage/Hokuto Musou and DW: Gundam 3 were probably some of the best DW-related material I've played since DW3 back on the PS2, but that's most likely not good enough by today's standards.

The gameplay for Pirate Warriors looks just about the same as Ken's Rage. Only difference being Eichiiro Oda's wacked-out, awesome art style that definitely gives a visual charm and splendor of sorts for the gameplay despite the mechanics being exactly the same and the CPU being just as braindead. Koei really did try mixing it up by adding some really neat platforming sequences in between beat em' up sessions and OTE's for boss battles (much like the Ultimate Ninja Storm games). Unfortunately, Koei seems intent on not ever improving the basic mechanics for their games. The graphics look great for reasons mentioned above (Oda's expressive and dynamic art style. Awesome, imaginative scenery) and it actually does really push what cel-shading on the PS3 can capable of. Granted, it isn't a Ultimate Ninja Storm when it comes to cel-shading, but it looks pretty good given that Koei wasn't really working closely with Toei Animation unlike when CyberConnect 2 had actual animators from Studio Pierrot working closely with them for the Naruto Storm games. So overall ratings based on impressions? Still a 6 despite the change of pace. It just looks like the change of pace won't be enough to drive a casual/core gamer in to the game beyond the One Piece fan. I'm still going to have blast playing it just because we finally get a One Piece HD gaming experience that actually follows the storyline with co-op play. That's enough for the multiple playthroughs for me.