One Piece Grand Battle

One Piece: Grand Battle is an arcade-style fighting game based on the immensely popular anime and manga series One Piece. The game was originally released back in 2005 and features 19 playable characters from the One Piece series, including Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji. If you’re keen to know more, be sure to read on as this game has plenty of features that make it stand out from other popular fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter.

Mechanics and gameplay

Fights take place in an enclosed 3D environment where players can take advantage of all sorts of movement options such as running, jumping, dashing, and blocking. It’s also possible to interact with the surroundings! You can collect food items to charge up a food gauge and pick up things like barrels, crates, or bombs to throw at your opponent.

As is typical for fighting games, specific button combinations can be used to chain attacks and deal large amounts of damage if done correctly. There are also things called rush techniques that can be used after charging up the food charge gauge. There's a support rush that summons a support character to fight alongside you, a grand rush that sends out a strong attack, and a secret rush that involves a cinematic scene and does huge amounts of damage if it lands. Status effects like poison or burn can also be inflicted by various attacks!

Support characters

As mentioned, there are 19 playable characters in One Piece: Grand Battle, but there is also a support character system in place. When you select a main character to play as you can choose one of up to 3 different support characters associated with that main character to come join you during the battle. They're non-playable, unfortunately, but still provide invaluable help during fights.

Support rush (mentioned earlier) is used to summon a support character for 15 seconds during which time they attack in one of three ways depending on their type. Running supports use ground attacks, jumping supports use aerial attacks, and stationary supports use projectile-based attacks.

Five unique game modes

In addition to all the features mentioned, let’s quickly go over the 5 game modes available in One Piece: Grand Battle:

• Grand Battle: This is the main game mode in which you can compete against friends or CPU opponents purely for fun
• Story Mode: In this mode, you face off against a range of opponents in a series of battles as part of a story. If you succeed, a character-dependent cutscene plays at the end, and the credits roll
• Davy Back Fight: This mode features a variety of mini-games hosted by Foxy. If you want a break from the standard fighting game format, be sure to try this out!
• Grand Tours: Grand Tours are in place to allow up to 16 players to participate in a bracketed tournament
• Training: This game mode exists purely to provide a space for you to practice moves and test out abilities

Pros:

• Both singleplayer and multiplayer options
• A diverse cast of playable characters from the One Piece universe
• Fun cutscenes add humor to the game that One Piece fans are sure to appreciate

Cons:

• There aren't that many playable characters to choose from
• The game lacks innovation in terms of game mechanics