One Piece: Grand Battle is quite possibly the most basic fighting game we've come across this year. It takes a leaf out of the book of popular Dreamcast fighter Power Stone, but lacks any of the extra depth and variety that made Capcom's brawler successful. Each character (sixteen in total) is identical in the way they control, with the exact same move set, which consists of four combos, a couple of throws and three special moves of varying power. One Piece's fighting engine is seriously broken, with matches simply consisting of a race to see who can get their ridiculously powerful super move executed first. These super moves are actually quite impressive in their presentation, but consist of lengthy animation cycles that put Final Fantasy VIII's summons to shame, making them quite annoying after repeat plays.
Luffy admires his latest podiatric manicure
The playing environment in each of the game's seven arenas (of which only five are initially available) are somewhat destructible, and are filled with a few items and traps (such as a rampaging cow in Luffy's stage) with which one can use to damage his/her opponent. Occasionally these items will have other items within them, such as fruit for healing or increasing your super meter, and the occasional offensive or defensive power up. Fights only consist of two players at any one time, with a support character (of which there are 32) that can join your character in the ring for a short time. It?s disappointing that Ganbarion decided to limit the game to just two players, as having four participants would have made the game considerably more enjoyable.
There's only a very basic selection of modes in One Piece: Grand Battle, with a Story mode, Grand Battle mode, Mini-games, Grand Tourney mode and Training mode. The Story mode is extremely basic, and basically ignores anything that has happened in the series, instead opting to solve petty disputes amongst Luffy's crew. Over the series of five fights, you'll duke it out against four members of the Straw Hat crew, before taking on a final enemy. Before each fight, a small conversation will take place describing the situation which has caused the two crew members to fight. These are quite stupid - e.g. Luffy wants to eat a tangerine from Nami's tree, but she refuses, therefore Luffy must beat her up so he can have one. Funnily enough, there's no justification for the battle against the final adversary, who actually poses a threat to the Straw Hat crew. Defeating the final opponent will earn the player a brief clip from the anime, narrated by that particular character. After finishing the game with each of the initially available characters, you'll unlock four boss characters; finish it with those and you'll unlock the last four characters.
Usopp loves a good pull
Grand Battle mode is essentially your standard two player versus mode, while Grand Tourney is a basic tournament system. Training mode allows players to practice combos and special moves in a stage of their choice. None of these modes differ in any way from the rest of the game, not even going so far as to allow different stipulations for victory. Mini-games offer a reasonably short diversion, but there are only two of them initially available; Usopp Race has you racing other pirates - stop them from reaching the finish line first using your bombs, while ensuring your boat wins. The other mini-game is Battle Bowl, which has players using Gaimon as a ball, which they must throw into the opponent's net in order to score - highest score at the end of the time limit wins. The other three must be unlocked. Mini-games are okay, but don't really offer any long term value.
Unlockables are many, but the variety is somewhat lacking. There's the typical art, character profiles, extra mini-games and the aforementioned bonus characters and stages. The process of unlocking these bonsus is arduous; the player must finish the story mode with each character - and given how boring the story mode is...well, you get my drift - it's not really worth it.
Everybody loves a clown, so why don't you
One Piece: Grand Battle features a reasonably good presentation, with menus that are easy to navigate and a decent amount of footage from the anime, including the opening sequence. The game's graphics are cel-shaded, but the technique is not as pronounced here as it is in recent Dragon Ball Z games, for example. One Piece's characters appear in a slightly deformed form - not super deformed or chibi, mind you, but they're certainly not replications of their cartoon equivalents. Animation is reasonably good, but there's a noticeable lack of transition animation, which makes the fights look a little silly. Speaking of fights, the game's melees are quite hectic, almost to the point where the proceedings can become difficult to follow. The framerate gets upset quite often, but is generally fluid outside of super moves. The game features the exact same voice talent featured in the American version of the show...which is alright if you're a fan of the dub (I'm not, I find it causes my ears to bleed - Ed). Music generally takes a back seat in the battles, though only the opening theme from the show appears in the game.
One Piece: Grand Battle is stuck in the middle ground as far as fighting games go. Not as flashy as Budokai Tenkaichi and lacking the depth and content of Super Smash Brothers Melee, One Piece: Grand Battle feels really quite unremarkable. Everything featured in the game has been done better before, particularly by Power Stone which predates this game by some six years - that should give you an idea of how dated Grand Battle feels. Fans of One Piece might find a rental is worthwhile, as there's just not enough depth of bonus content to justify a long term investment.
Editor's Note: Wondering why you can't find a copy of this game? Well, it just so happens that it's only available at Virgin Megastores in the UK. Bit of a bummer for the fans, but you could always import the Japanese version of the game, which includes three characters that were omitted from the localisation.
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