Gotta admit, i kinda expected this one to release in early February, but nope, that “Early 2026” turned out to be indeed very early, as in, this DLC Pack just released January 22th, as in, 3 days ago.
I guess why not since it was also the pack that revealed earlier who was gonna be in it, after all, people were eager to see who alongside Enel (which was indeed as obvious a prediction as it could have been) made the cut from the OP character popolarity survey polls’ results, with DLC Pack 8 being the “Legends” one, so to speak, more than the previous Egghead Pack.
(probably is also due to TK demands since the Dynasty Warriors Origins extensive DLC/expansion Visions Of Four Heroes came out the same day, and alongside the Switch 2 release)
I’m not even gonna try and say once again that this might be the last DLC pack for Pirate Warriors 4 as a whole, only to have to rectify that months later, especially now, as i will explain.
As most of you already know, this specific DLC character pack is a fan favourite heavy selection, and while Enel and King were the easily predictable guesses everyone thought, i was pleasantly surprised to see Zephyr/Z from One Piece Film Z made the cut, as i said before, very happy about that, can’t deny i’m a big fan of him and that film as a whole.
No Kaku playable, but i’ll take “Mr Z.” gladly, guess japanese fans do love him more than most expected, and how these polls are often made to be skewed towards the new popular characters seen in the anime.
Starting from the top, Enel is back, after being culled (alongside Skypiea as a whole) in the base PW4 roster from despite being there since PW 2.
Easily the most request re-integration, and i can see why as he was really fun and one of those character with an unique gimmick-system in PW 3.
Now he’s back as a Tecnique type, which makes sense, and since there’s no “tension bar” for its gimmick due PW 4 doing away with those, he now has some combos releasing electricity orbs that he can collect to further strenghten and expand its electrical based moveset, with the Full Burst making him immediatly and constantly charged to the max.
Not much to say, honestly, but yes, while ironically he’s not a Sky type, he has the Sky type level of extensive airborne combos, alongside with the typical Technique character counter special.
In terms of moveset, there’s not much new, just his PW3 one fitted into the PW 4 more traditional combo system, a couple of new specials, he’s still fun as before, and yes, i would dare say this is what people would have expected him to be in PW4…. as in, the base game, not paid DLC.
He’s a blast to play as he was before, yes, but he’s really no different from his PW3 iteration, nor has an expanded moveset or new systems, so yeah, in this sense he’s no different from many characters that were in PW3 and were refitted for PW 4 base roster.
Maybe they could have made him turn into a Sky type with a Form Change turning into his “god form”, but honestly, given people reception of Sky types, maybe it’s for the better.
Zephyr is a Power type as one would expect, and speaking of that, i am gonna glaze him, because he’s great to play as, a fucking beast.
His combos do make good use of his weaponized arm-cannon Buster for long range coverage via lasers, explosions, gatling gun stile bullet rounds, shockwaves, fire bombardments, and his power up system made his normal and charge attack make the Buster glow, powering up his next Charge combo, with the Full Burst – as expected by now- making the power up state costant as long as the Burst lasts.
But wait, there’s more, than since the Buster Arm weapon he has is made of Sea Stone Prism, that means he deals extra damage to the armor gauge of Devil Fruit using characters.
Yes, it’s OP as it sounds, which makes him being a DLC character make some sense.
Wish we had a Film Z map to play him on, because yes, even when these characters are fun and not slapped together for obligation, i wish they were part of some real expansion that include maps and stages made new for these characters.
King is also a highly requested fan favourite, but an obvious one due to his debut during the Land Of Wa arc, so he never had a chance to become somewhat obscure.
I mean, how could he, since he also had a frigging dinosaur Devil Fruit.
He’s a Sky type, since he has a Pterodactyl fruit ability, but like Lucci CP-0, one made clearly for this game and taking into account the issues with most Sky type characters, in this case it helps he’s also giant sized (which i dunno why it took me by surprise, but it did), so he’s actually fun, really fun, though i’m surprised how much of his moveset is imbued with fire properties, like, even more than one would surmise.
Again, most likely to “compensate” for the Sky typing, but it works, heck, he’s a better “fire based swordsman” character than Kin’emon, and there are plenty of usage of his wings and hybrid form for some really devastating air combos.
Plus, fire carpet bombing while in dino form is a delight, love it,
Curiosly there’s no “fire wings” system to indicate if the character attacks are gonna be powered up like for S-Snake, the gimmick is in how many attacks generate fire and blazes everywhere, with the Full Burst further making the screen a vision of hellfire everywhere.
He’s also great, my only gripe is that they could have given him a Form Change into full dinosaur mode, yes, a Pteranodon, but still, come on, Omega Force, what you were afraid of, that he’d still be a Sky type even more?
Overall, very satisfied this time around, even if Enel should have been part of the base roster.
There’s no getting around that he should have, let’s be real.
As i hinted at the beginning, despite this being an ever shorter Character Pass still asking for the same money the previous one did while offering 9 characters instead of 6, and implying Namco Bandai is kinda sputtering, hinting of winding down before stopping development for any future DLC characters or modes or PW4 paid content in general… i do not believe this will be the case.
Why?
Well, since the One Piece anime will become a seasonal release this year, meaning kicking off the Elbaf Arc with just 26 episodes released annually.
While most people didn’t expect quite that, some kind of hiatus or delay had to happen as the manga isn’t even done with this arc, cue that Gintama clip.
Again, given how both PW 3 and PW 4 had to invent original stories for the last featured closing story arc (Dressrosa and Wano respectively), and how even the Bonney DLC character had to update itself with a Form Change after launch, by design to avoid any potential spoiler to anime only watchers, which are aplenty.
So with that in mind it would take forever for the anime to finish the Elbaf arc, hence they wouldn’t be able to feature that canonically in an hypotethical PW 5, which could include a canonical retelling of the Land Of Wa arc, all of Egghead, and ideally also all the cut scenarios omitted in PW 4.
This seems a possible case to me, since PW 4 did feature canonical Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island arcs before having to make up an original story for the Wano/Land of Wa one, BUT the new rhythm imposed on the anime, while most likely for the better (especially so for animators, i wanna hope) in the long run, might get some higher ups at Namco Bandai cold feet at even putting a PW 5 in the pipeline, i would imagine it would be safer and easier to continue produce DLC for PW 4, which has proven to be one of the more profittable spin-off Warriors games ever-
And – more to the point – one they do have and are selling now, instead of something that might not even happen or end up being “rushed”, given how current big budget (or even mid budget) AAA productions take way longer to deliver a “finished product” than ever before.
As usual, time will tell if this is the last DLC Character Pack review i make for Pirate Warriors 4 or not.
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