There are many One Piece videogames, even on the GBA, most RPGs or fighting games, but there is a notable exception, even weirder than usual since it out came out in North America, and North America only. Yep, despite being developed by Dimps (the Sonic Advance series, Draglade, many Dragon Ball and Shaman King licensed games… and shit like Seven Samurai 20XX), it was never released in Japan or Europe, only in the US as simply “One Piece” (also listed as Shonen Jump’s One Piece for cataloguing needs) in 2005.
As of why i’m not sure, sure, it was based/dependant on the 4kids butchered version of the TV anime series, but the same was true for the first OP: Grand Battle PS2 game and that had an European release… so it basically means most people experienced it via emulator, i first did too, until i did found a cartridge for an “okay” price, but unless you’re a fan of the series and-or a dedicated GBA collector, i wouldn’t bother searching for an used copy, since it’s quite pricey today.
I’m not even gonna suggest waiting for a rerelease because it more than simply “unlikely”, unless it randomly pops up on Switch like that Macross GBA game, or Badnai Manco makes a complete One Piece videogame collection in the future.
Regardless, it’s also odd how this was the only One Piece GBA game that released outside of Japan, maybe due to the licensing as the time, most likely the same legal bullshit that saw the first Unlimited game never released in Europe, while the Unlimited Cruise titles never arrived in the US.
In terms of contents, the game does cover the early East Blue arcs, like one would expect from the year of release (and what other One Piece videogame were doing at the times, especially on handhelds), from the initial fight against the pirate Alvida up to the Loguetown Arc.
I said “contents” instead of story because there’s really not much in terms of cutscenes or narration, which is ironically for the better as the 4kids bullshit it’s held back tremendously, since the game uses a lot of assets from the Wonderswan Color game One Piece Grand Battle: Swan Coliseum (also developed by Dimps) and there’s no voice acting, so it amounts to very little, like Zoro being tied to the “non-cross” at Shells Town, Sanji’s cigarettes made infamously into lollipops and other minor stuff, like some of the collectable items you can find or obtain in levels.
The game is divided in 6 world with three levels each: a straightforward first stage, a second one more focuses on exploration with a mini-boss at the end, then a boss battle.
Gameplay is classic 2D action platformer, and it’s pretty good, albeit similar to Dragon Ball Advance Adventure (also developed by Dimps), but also similar to pretty much every licensed sidescroller 2D action platformer on the GBA, in the sense it’s formulaic, no mistake about it, but in a good way, since it’s a proven formula for a reason, it works, and while the decision to only have Luffy as the player character may be disappointing, it helps in that the platforming can take advantage of Luffy stretching abilities to keep things interesting all the way through, at least in terms of platforming, combat is fairly mindless but its fine enough to deal with the various foes.
There is no explicit upgrade systems in order to unlock moves and upgrades, as in getting some items from defeating bosses unlocks more moves for Luffy, but also increasing your overall score/bounty overtime gets you upgrades to the lifebar and such.
My main complaint is the game using a lives system and the design choice of pitfall meaning istant death, you can get extra lives/continues and you do continue from the last area of the level, but since the levels are fairly big, it can be a bit annoying having to redo them because you accidentally lost all the lives/continues to some chasms that you weren’t even 100 sure were pits,
Even odder since the game gives you 3 lives/continues after you game over, and it saves progress after that too, so, really, could have done without the lives systems, as it just makes things slightly harder and forces you to start the levels over, a bit too old school and frustrating, but not a deal breaker, since controls are great and collisions are reliable, so frustration doesn’t come from faulty and imprecise design.
On the plus side, if you’re looking for a challenge, the game can be quite difficult, even the mini-bosses can deliver a solid challenge and genuine effort, but it’s always fair, so there’s some frustration but never enough where you blame the game being shit for losing, it’s fair, difficult but fair and not THAT difficult anyway, though don’t expect this game to hand you victory or progression, ain’t gonna happen.
But yes, the levels are fairly big for a handheld game, stay closer to the source material than expected, reward exploration and some backtracking when you get new moves by defeating bosses, not really Metroidvania-ish but some areas or items require either a specific move to have been learned, or a collectible to be already owned or some walls to be destroyed by using bombs.
Speaking of which, as i was saying before, the game does take full advantage of Luffy’s elastic powers, with the R button letting you stretch your hand to grab on poles and things that you can latch on to launch yourself mid-air, you can jump higher by jump-bouncing over bars, you can enter cannons to shoot yourself a giant rotating ball that bounces off walls, and of course there are the various signature moves fans of the series will know very well, some working as special attacks that require enough special bars that have to be earned via boss fights, like the Gum Gum Spear.
Arguably the upside of having only Luffy as a playable character, which is understandable for the era and the platform in question, so there’s no point in lamenting this, better this way that having them having everyone playable but the game being shit or the characters playing the same.
The game offers decent replay value, with the secret coins in the levels that unlock Boss Rush once you collect them all (that alone will take some time), and the many items that often require rivisiting specific sections of levels with a specific support character in tow to get unique NPC interactions that give you an item needed to obtain another, etc.
Technically it’s a pretty good looking affair, i’ve said the game does use assets from a Wonderswan Color game, but it not counting that as a negative since that game never left Japan (as did the Wonderswan line of consoles, FIY), and the sprites are quite good, so no harm no fowl.
Music is decent, with some nice tracks, some quite catchy, just wish there were more compositions overall, but other than that sound it’s solid if unremarkable and unmemorable.
Not much else to say aside from the fact it’s a great One Piece game i highly recommend playing every way you can, and it’s still quite good if you don’t care much about the series in question, definitely fits the common stereotype of licensed games, as in it’s one of the best games based on a specific series so of course it’s not one of those with a widely available release, but one that had to be imported and nowadays pretty much has to be emulated unless you’re willing to spend upwards of 50 bucks for the cartridge alone, if you can find it.
And even if the language barrier wasn’t an issue for you, you’re not gonna save some moolah by importing the japanese version, because this time around it doesn’t exist, which is actually not that rare, given the Webfoot Technologies developed GBA Dragon Ball games, like the often forgotten Dragon Ball GT Transformation.
Wise Cafe (International) 