One Piece Grand Adventure Preview
By: Andrew Hayward |
Monday August 14, 2006 |
| We take the call from Namco Bandai and chat about their upcoming anime-inspired release. |
| A curious e-mail popped up in my inbox early last week; Namco Bandai had invited me to a conference call with a selection of other journalists to discuss their forthcoming title One Piece Grand Adventure for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. I knew the game was coming, having scoured the release lists just recently, but I have never watched the show, and know only the bare minimum about it. Still, I'm always down for unique press experiences, so I agreed and found myself on the phone for some time on Wednesday afternoon. Rannie Yoo of Kohnke Communications moderated the call, which put Associate Producer Masahiro Knittel on the spot as our questions were fired off at him.
One Piece is a hugely popular anime series, currently airing in America on Cartoon Network. The series takes place on a world similar to Earth, but with a greater abundance of open water. One Piece focuses on Captain Monkey D. Luffy, a young man with special powers in search of treasure. As a child, Luffy encountered an older pirate, and grew to respect and admire him in the years that followed. One day, Luffy ate a mysterious Gum Gum Fruit, which gave him the ability to stretch his body in bizarre ways (think Mr. Fantastic). Now able to fend for himself, Luffy is seeking out crew members in his attempt to find the One Piece, a great treasure left behind by the former Pirate King, Gold Roger. Despite being based upon a Japanese anime series, One Piece Grand Adventure is being developed specifically for the North American market, and is a sequel to last year's One Piece Grand Battle. In fact, some of the gameplay was cut out of the North American version of Grand Battle, due to the fact that the American version of the series lags significantly behind its Japanese counterpart. Grand Adventure restores this content and adds so much more in the process. Knittel describes the game as a "party-fighting-style-action-adventure-game." Fair enough, but what does that even mean? The biggest difference over Grand Battle is evident in the game title: Grand Adventure. The enhancements made to the Adventure Mode should prove to extend the life of the game much further than I would have expected. According to Knittel, "the Adventure Mode is much more in-depth. There [are] five different adventures that you can follow." The term "adventure" can be used rather loosely; I have seen it describe journeys of lengths between 30 minutes and 60 hours. So how long is One Piece Grand Adventure? Knittel claims that the entire game should take somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 hours to complete. Luffy's adventure should take between six and eight hours to finish, though the more difficult follow-up adventures will take even longer. Knittel could not reveal much about the later adventures, but claimed the final one would be "extremely difficult." While Luffy's adventure draws directly from the series, the subsequent adventures are distinctly in "what-if" territory. These adventures fill in the gaps from the Luffy's adventure, and are told from the perspective of other characters.  As Luffy, you will navigate a sea map as you travel from point to point. At each stop, you will encounter characters that will either want to fight you or join you. Aside from the required stops, there are additional side missions that reveal bonus characters and features. The battle engine seems to be similar to that of the Power Stone games, with full 3D environments that Knittel says allows the characters to "express themselves through battle." Like other anime titles, cut scenes rendered with the in-game engine are activated when your character does a special move, and should be visually compelling. At first glance, the cel-shaded graphics resemble those of the Naruto fighting games, but a closer look reveals much sharper-looking characters and colorful environments. If the game looks as good in motion as it does in the still shots, Grand Adventure should prove to be quite the treat for fans of the show. Many of the battles have special conditions for defeat, like having to beat the enemy in a certain amount of time or in a certain way (like in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja). Occasionally, gamers will be thrust into a "Rumble Battle," in which they will have to take on up to 20 opponents either at once or in waves. The amount of experience gained from any battle depends on the variance between your current level and the level of your opponent - defeat an enemy more skilled than yourself and reap the benefits. One Piece Grand Adventure allows gamers the ability to choose which attributes to level up when they earn enough experience points. You can upgrade your character's attack or defense, among others, or spend the points leveling up one of your support character's attributes. Knittel detailed a very interesting new feature that allows you to take your leveled-up character to a friend's house for battle. This can be done either via a memory card or a cross-platform-compatible password.  With two dozen main characters and over 50 supporting characters, One Piece Grand Adventure seems to have quite a bit going for it. Despite being largely a fighting game, it should pack as much content as an RPG. The voice-actors from the television series have lent their voices to the game, helping to create a very authentic experience for the fans. It seems entirely likely that series loyalists will eat this game right up, but what about those of us who have never watched it? One Piece Grand Adventure ships for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube next week, and will retail for $39.99. We expect to have a review of the title up in the coming weeks, so check back for that if you are interested in this Grand Adventure. |
External Links
|
|
  |
Random Features
- Adventures in Voice Acting
- Guitar Hero Rocks
- Coraline Sneak Peek
- Lollapalooza 2005 Day 1
- True Scary Stories
|
|
|
|