One Piece: Pirate Warriors continues the repetitive formula of the musou genre in a mediocre game that does little to innovate this age old formula.
At its core, One Piece still follows the tried and true formula in terms of gameplay that the Dynasty Warriors franchise has become known for. Cutting through hundreds of enemies with ease is almost always satisfying, but when you realize you can just continue to use the same combos over and over ad-nauseam the game just becomes another grind. Bosses do help to take away from this monotony by being a bit more of a challenge, especially the final ones of the stage, but even then you don’t need to stray far from your typical formula aside from more dodging. “Unique attacks” using the shoulder buttons and quick-time events attempt to add some spice to this but unfortunately the unique attacks often feel unnecessary and the QTEs are extremely easy although the cinematics that accompany them are thoroughly enjoyable.
Co-op and online are available as well and it consists of killing enemies in areas to take over that territory before eventually killing a boss. The biggest problem with it however is the amount of clutter on screen. Even in single player I often felt very overwhelmed by the amount of messages and effects popping up on-screen, but in split screen it becomes almost impossible to see anything at certain moments and in a game as fast paced as a brawler it makes it difficult to play.
Perhaps the biggest flaw design wise are the tedious and overly abundant platforming and puzzle solving sections. In order to traverse across certain parts of the map in a mission you will need to use Monkey’s abilities to slingshot and fly him across chasms with zero control aside from occasional QTEs to change directions or avoid an object. If these were shorter they wouldn’t be a problem but when it takes 30 minutes to clear a mission where only 5-10 of it is actually spent on fighting action then you have a problem.
