One Piece: Romance Dawn

Based on one of the most popular and longest-running anime of all time, One Piece: Romance Dawn is an RPG that lets you roam the seas as a pirate warrior. Covering a major chunk of the story in a brief amount of time, this turn-based title is essentially a crash course on the One Piece narrative, making it a good place for beginners to jump in. Playing as Luffy, an eccentric hero who aspires to become the king of all pirates, you'll battle villains, discover treasure, and live a fantastical life at sea. While it's not a perfect game, there's plenty to love about One Piece: Romance Dawn!

Main Game Features

• Compete in tough turn-based battles
• Recruit a party of pirate pals
• Experience the first half of the One Piece story

Story

As the name would imply, this game covers the Romance Dawn portion of the One Piece narrative, starting the story at the very beginning. You play as Monkey D. Luffy, a young boy with rubber arms who dreams of becoming the best pirate in the land. Inspired by the great buccaneer named Red-Haired Shanks, Luffy embarks on a quest across the East Blue Sea in search of an epic treasure called the One Piece. Along the way, he recruits a bustling party of accomplices, including other pirates, thieves, and scoundrels.

One Piece: Romance Dawn offers a lot of narrative content, but none of the cutscenes are animated and there is a hefty amount of dialogue. For fans of the series, you might enjoy the trip down memory lane, but beginners might be overwhelmed by the excessive subplots. You'll meet tons of characters and go to a variety of cool locations, but some big moments feel glossed over and needlessly shortened. It's impressive that One Piece: Romance Dawn is able to fit so much story into one game, but it occasionally feels more like a summary than a celebration.

Gameplay

One Piece: Romance Dawn offers turn-based dungeon crawler action, with a battle system similar to games like Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei. After completing the first level, you're able to sail from location to location using an overworld map, with each area representing a major chapter of the story. You can explore these areas to find valuable gear and treasure to sell, but the stage design is limited to maze-like corridors without much variety. As you progress through the game, you'll earn new party members to take into battles, which is where One Piece: Romance Dawn excels.

Combat in One Piece: Romance Dawn is simple but addictive, with each character having different attacks as well as various strengths and weaknesses. As you battle, you can build up special ability points that can be used to unleash massively powerful attacks. Some of these attacks can be combined for overpowered team attacks, making it fun to experiment with new characters. The action also looks great and feels just like the anime it's based on, so fans will definitely appreciate the attention to detail.

Conclusion

There are several One Piece video games, and while there are some frustrating aspects, One Piece: Romance Dawn is a decent entry in the series. There's a lot of content to dig into, with dozens of hours of RPG gameplay to enjoy. The combat system is fun enough and there are lots of cool battle combos to discover, which eases the pain of some of the mistakes with the story.

Pros

• Includes all your favorite characters
• Covers a large amount of story
• Straightforward and fun battle system

Cons

• Cutscenes aren't very exciting
• Level design is too maze-like
• Way too much dialogue