One Piece is my favorite comic series ever, and potentially one of my favorite pieces of media of all mediums. The story, world, and characters are so rich and make the series a masterwork of graphic storytelling.
One Piece is not only a critical success it is also the highest-selling comic series in the whole world beating out other powerhouses. While One Piece has great merch it has missed the mark in the world of Video Games.
Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure have all had incredible games. This shows that making a great game based on an anime is doable. This makes me think that potentially it might be a problem with the series that doesn’t translate to the medium of Video Games.
One Piece is One Big Story
Long anime is typically divided into large story arcs that can span dozens of chapters. These story arcs are typically a good way to break up content in a way that is digestible to a video game.
If you were to make a Dragon Ball Z game you could have a satisfying game that is from the beginning of the series and ends with the battle against Frieza. However, this isn’t easy to do for One Piece.
Perhaps the best division would be a game about the Dressrosa, Alabasta, or Paramount War arcs. However, each of these is so interconnected to the rest of the story that it feels weird to end it right there.
One Piece is at its best when the events of all of the arcs come together into one great moment. The problem is how do you translate this to a video game? You can’t make a game with proper pacing and storytelling that tackles the whole series.
Developers have made a trade-off of detaching their game from the mainline One Piece story, and this is hard to get right. Making the game feel like it is One Piece is such a difficult task.
One Piece is an Ensemble Story
While Luffy is the main character of the story he is nothing without his crew. One Piece would be empty if you remove the crew members. While the crew is split up throughout the story you still have an ensemble of characters paired with Luffy.
Studios seem to take an approach where you have Luffy run around alone. Luffy is a character that needs to play off of other characters. Whether that is a villain, crew member, or one of his many allies.
This is a factor that some games have actually gotten right. Having Luffy interact with characters in a convincing way seems easy, but the mark is often missed.
If you want to have the whole crew interact together then you need to pick a genre that suits it. However, the choice of genre has been mostly high-action games. The newest game seems promising in this department.
One Piece is not finished
This is probably the most likely factor in why a great One Piece isn’t made yet. Dragon Ball and Naruto have been over for a long time. Naruto had great games made while it was during the story release, but they were mostly fighting games that were loosely involved in the story.
One Piece is more story than action, and you can’t tell a story well without knowing the ending. It is a difficult series to adapt, and even the anime struggles to do it.
The future of One Piece is not well known, and creating new content that will age poorly is problematic.
A Promising Future
One Piece has a die-hard fanbase, and they are begging for a great game. However, their needs might be met with the release of the newest game in the series. One Piece Odyssey is a turn-based RPG that has the whole gang working together. This is the most promising game in a long time.
However, I am blinded as I love the series and will play it regardless of the quality. I will review it, and this article will be referenced.
