Recent reviews by [KT]Mr. Thumb-Dick Cum-Quick

Havent been able to play the dlc characters since they aren't showing up anywhere in the game. Anyone know where to find them?

I know its early access but there are much better games out there

TLDR: Cashgrab, get if under 20$/euro AND youre a big One piece fan, and are fairly up to date. Otherwise, not worth it right now. 6/10, but if it wasnt one piece related, it'd be a 4/10. 14 hours of gameplay completed the main storyline and almost all side missions and collectibles/chests opened. Maybe the DLC can pull it out of the ashes, but I doubt it.

Here comes the long review:
Negatives:
•You can only play as Luffy. No other playable characters, at all.
•Environment/world/art style doesnt feel like something in the OP universe. It feels like a game was half built for something more "realistic", ie, not as cartoony, and then a OP filter was added to everything. Slapping a big MARINES sign on a castle that looks like it should be from Chivalry:Medieval Warfare, doesnt make it One Piece.
•The world, while pretty, is boring and kinda empty/dead. Apart from enemy camps randomly spotted along the roads/buildings, there isn't much going on. Sure, there's a few NPCs just wandering around each village/town, but they dont do anything apart from give you some random information.
•The game's difficulty pacing is pretty poor imo. By difficulty pacing, I mean that, it's kinda hard at the start of the game when you have no abilities/skill points invested. However, very quickly, you become overpowered for the rest of the game, until the lead up to the last boss fight, where suddenly the difficulty just takes a huge leap. The boss fight itself isn't that hard really, but it's the minions/robots he sends out that seem kind of overtuned imo,but maybe i'm just bad.
•The combat in the game is mediocre at best, and that's pretty much 80% of the game. Luffy has 2 stances, and each stance has only one combo. You can add a move to a combo through skill points, but thats it. Also, there's only one takedown per stance, and each is a punch to the back of the head. Some boss fights have different takedowns on stunned bosses, but that gets repeated too.
•The lock on system is absolutely atrocious. You lock on to where the target is, but it doesnt follow them if they move. Almost all the enemies at the end of the game have a lot of range and can fly, so you have to use your one long range ability, which sucks on controller.
•Almost no voice acting, and lots of long loading screens make it a bit of a bore at times. Found myself skipping a lot of dialogue/checking my phone, which is never a good sign
•SOOOOOOOO many fetch quests and missions where you go across the map, talk to an npc, fight one group of 4 pirates, then come all the way back across the map. Basically, 2 minutes of travel/fast travel loading screens, 30 secs of dialogue, 20 seconds to kill enemies, then back to another 30 sec dialogue, and another 2 minutes of travelling back to the quest giver.
•The skill tree seems kinda like if they made Luffy have all the abilities from the start, then randomly said "Let's take away some random parts of his abilities, just to have something to unlock, later"
•The Free Battle gamemode, which I was hoping was going to be a Burning Blood/Jump Force style fighter where I could play, even if only as Luffy, against some of the characters you encounter. No, instead, its just waves of 3 marines who attack you on the Thousand Sunny, your pirate ship, over and over. Also, you only get base, start of game Luffy, so you don't have your cool abilities from levelling up in the main gamemode/storyline.
•The lack of interaction with the other characters in the game is so sad and such a waste of potential. So, for all the crew members/special guest/cameo characters like Buggy, Smoker, etc, you can do some side missions for them, but they're almost always just "Hey, Luffy, my enemy, lets fight, and then once you beat me, I'll suddenly have to go, but next time I see you we'll chat and interact pleasantly". Also, regarding allies/other Straw Hats like Zoro, Sanji, etc, apart from doing some basic missions for them, they don't do anything cool really. You can't play as them/tag them in for special abilities, etc
•The game feels kinda lazy and unfinished, and there are some small, quality-of-life features that really should be implemented at this stage for this much money. A big example would be opening chests. There are lots of chests littered around with various loot. However, opening the chests is a pain. The prompt area to open the chest can kinda bug out/be really finnicky, with lots of having to walk back, then turn around in front of it again. Also, Luffy just stands there with a blank expression for 10 seconds while you hold the Y button to open the chest. Surely putting in an animation where he kneels infront of it and fiddles with the front of it wouldnt have been that hard to add, right?


Pros:
•The swinging around like spiderman, and the free-roaming-type open world stuff is great, once you get one or two ability upgrades
•The game is pretty.
•It's a One Piece game where I can actually run around, and not be a jrpg/platformer, or not have to be like Pirate Warriors where you just beat thousands of enemies in one battle.
•Honestly, imo, the main pro to this game is that it's a One Piece game.

In conclusion, this game had amazing potential, but it really just fell apart. Maybe every One Piece game is cursed to be just meh at best. No excuses for it being this poor of a game.