One Piece: Great Pirate Colosseum

For many years, there have been so many video games based on anime that it's really hard to keep count, but we don't worry about that 'cause we love them. Especially when they're based on the Shonen anime we grew up with. This time we're talking about one of the biggest anime series ever created, and one of the longest-running ones too, of we are obviously talking about One Piece. This time it's One Piece: Great Pirate Colosseum released for the Nintendo 3DS and developed by Arc System Works and Bandai Namco. So, what's this game all about?

About the game

The game was first announced in the Shonen Jump manga magazine, and it was also announced there that it would be an exclusive title only available for the Nintendo 3DS. And it is, as basically all other games made by Arc System Works, a 2D fighting game. Other games developed by this team include the BlazBlue and Guilty Gear franchises, and more importantly for this case: Dragon Ball: Extreme Butoden, but we'll come back to that one later on.

There are plenty of characters available in the game, it's not just limited to Luffy's crew, there are 23 playable characters available, and over 80 support characters to team up and use their help in fights.

The gameplay is pretty much standard for a fighting game like this, with a few twists here and there, such as the ability to swap between characters at any moment during the match. Also, there are some special moves available, which can be performed in the air or while attacking. And each character's move set is pretty close to how they fight in the original content.

Now, a couple of paragraphs up we mentioned that Arc System Works also developed Dragon Ball: Extreme Butoden for the Nintendo 3DS, and well, that's because this game is basically the same thing, but with One Piece instead of Dragon Ball. But also because these games are more closely related than we might think.

Crossing dimensions

One Piece: Great Pirate Colosseum and Dragon Ball: Extreme Butoden are incredibly similar when you look at them, and when you play both of them you realize that the mechanics are identical. Of course, relative to the source material of each. But one of the coolest things these games have is that you can actually connect them together. There's a crossover vs mode in these games that allows you to connect with friends and online players that have the other game. This means that you can play with your One Piece game VS your friend that has the Dragon Ball game. You can think of it as how two different versions of Pokémon and how connect with each other.

Fight with Luffy's crew vs the Z warriors from Dragon Ball and have the craziest encounters you can think of. However, there's one condition, as you can only choose the characters from the game you own. This means that if you're using the One Piece game, you cannot play as Goku or any other character from the Dragon Ball universe.

Pros:

• A lot of characters available
• Lots of features
• Fun gameplay

Cons:

• The visuals are a bit choppy
• Short story mode