Out of all the One Piece games that have been released since I got into the series, this was the one I was least interested in getting for a few reasons. It is yet another Musou game and unlike the other games in the series, it only covers a few of the major arcs instead of the entire story. Since there was absolutely no way I would willingly pay the full $60 to play this, I decided to wait until it was cheap enough to be worth purchasing. It may not be the best Pirate Warriors entry or One Piece game, but there was still enough to make the $20 I decided to spend on playing this worth it.
The most noteworthy thing to mention is this game got a complete visual overhaul. One thing that always peeved me when I played through the other 3 games is that they all looked the same. Not only does it look different but the visuals are quite pretty too. The extra detail added complemented by the new graphical overhaul make most of the stages look almost identical to how they look in the show. Some of the characters also received updates to their moveset which was a breath of fresh air as the other 3 games pretty much reused the same moveset for each character. These were changes that had to be made at some point and they were handled beautifully. However, there are other changes that prevent this from being the definitive Pirate Warriors game.
One Piece Pirate Warriors 1 & 3 each covered most of if not all of the story. This game only has Alabasta, Enies Lobby, Marineford, Dressrosa, Whole Cake Island, and Wano which has an original story since the arc wasn't even close to being finished in either the anime or manga. It is a major step back from those two games in terms of recapping the story for fans and newcomers to One Piece. Even though the roster adds some of the new characters introduced in the most recent arcs & some other characters that could have been added in other entries like Kidd and Hawkins, there are a good amount of cuts. The most notable cuts being Garp, Moria, Eneru, and Kuma. All of whom I don't think should have been cut.
Even with some of the bad choices they took with this game, it was still an enjoyable experience which is why I rated it a 3.5/5. If you've played one or all of the other games and want a slightly different Musou then I could still recommend playing it but not at full price. For those new to the Pirate Warriors games or One Piece in general, it's better than the first two games, but in terms of story & content Pirate Warriors 3 is the way to go.
The most noteworthy thing to mention is this game got a complete visual overhaul. One thing that always peeved me when I played through the other 3 games is that they all looked the same. Not only does it look different but the visuals are quite pretty too. The extra detail added complemented by the new graphical overhaul make most of the stages look almost identical to how they look in the show. Some of the characters also received updates to their moveset which was a breath of fresh air as the other 3 games pretty much reused the same moveset for each character. These were changes that had to be made at some point and they were handled beautifully. However, there are other changes that prevent this from being the definitive Pirate Warriors game.
One Piece Pirate Warriors 1 & 3 each covered most of if not all of the story. This game only has Alabasta, Enies Lobby, Marineford, Dressrosa, Whole Cake Island, and Wano which has an original story since the arc wasn't even close to being finished in either the anime or manga. It is a major step back from those two games in terms of recapping the story for fans and newcomers to One Piece. Even though the roster adds some of the new characters introduced in the most recent arcs & some other characters that could have been added in other entries like Kidd and Hawkins, there are a good amount of cuts. The most notable cuts being Garp, Moria, Eneru, and Kuma. All of whom I don't think should have been cut.
Even with some of the bad choices they took with this game, it was still an enjoyable experience which is why I rated it a 3.5/5. If you've played one or all of the other games and want a slightly different Musou then I could still recommend playing it but not at full price. For those new to the Pirate Warriors games or One Piece in general, it's better than the first two games, but in terms of story & content Pirate Warriors 3 is the way to go.