It’s August again, so time for a little One Piece themed small retrospective, this year with a review every 3 days till the 15th (after that i’m going into the usual August hiatus to resume on September), curating some of the spin-off One Piece material i have yet to cover, after a One Piece film retrospective (and one curating the various featurettes), a TV Specials retrospective, and having other various reviews about One Piece related material.
This year we’ll basically picking out manga spin-off, one shots, collaborations, mostly focusing on the manga side of things, for a change, starting off later today with a “blast from the past” for Eiichiro Oda fans.
So here we are, the actual final piece of PW 4 DLC content that isn’t playable characters.
(i’m taking the educated guess of not expecting more content in any shape since there’s a digital Ultimate Edition package of all PW4 content on sale, and given TK’s track record, when they use/release the “Ultimate” edition of something means they’re done with a game)
(FIY, this isn’t the last time i will cover Pirate Warriors 4, i have a final impression/re-review/addendum in the works but i’m waiting to see if they plan to keep doing more Character Passes at a later date or not, i doubt so – see the above paragraph as to why – but then again Xenoverse 2 is still getting a lot of DLC content in a somewhat regular fashion, with no signs of stopping)
The final piece of the Special Log mode offers – alongside the final Soul Map that adds the advertised & expected batch of new skills to unlock and stats upgrades – what’s basically a post-game gauntlet of challenges.
So yeah, this is the final DLC characters batch for Pirate Warriors 4.
Almost can’t believe it.
“Almost” because people datamined the game and basically were able to learn beforehand with great accuracy what the new DLC characters would be, which is especially true for the final pack, Legends’ Dawn, one that indeed is dedicated to the old guard of One Piece big cheeses characters, with Gol D. Roger, his second-in-command Rayleigh and “younger Garp”.
In a way, Roger does feel weird to have a playable character this soon, i would have reserved him as a post-game unlock for Pirate Warriors 5, as in we barely even know bits of his moves and fighting style, but he has been a fan favourite and it will be at least 5 more years (if more, given PW 4 released in 2020) until we see the next PW installment, so yeah it kinda makes some sense.
I quite enjoyed the first Aquaman film, a phrase i’d never expect to write down ever, so yeah, why not a sequel, which thankfully ignores all the DCEU reboot kerfluffle.
No need to known any of that, just having watched the first film, and in this direction continuation we see Arthur Curry having trouble living his double life as a father taking care of his son on the surface, and having to deal with the taxing diplomatic duties of Aquaman, king of Atlantis.
While trying to fix his suit and continue his quest for revenge against Aquaman, David Kane (aka Black Manta) discovers an underwater set of ruins in Antarctica, finding a mystical trident and a material known as Orichalcum, which he uses to power his newfound stash of Atlantean technology also lying in the ruins…
This leads to climate change-based disasters, forcing Aquaman to secretly free its previously imprisoned half-brother Orm in order to find Black Manta and stop his plans…
James Wan it’s back on the director’s chair, and he does manage to expand on the worldbuilding, with many varied locations (including the titular lost kingdom), squeezing a lot of story, action scenes, while also making Black Manta more the proper villain than the “accidental” one it was in the first movie, though that’s kinda undermined by the revelations about the Black Trident.
Which i don’t mind too much since it lets Wan infuse some horror elements in the mix, i’m always up for that, and the movie does manage to fit a lot in 2 hours while feeling just long enough.
Maybe it’s not better than the first, but it’s still a lot of fun, dumb fun, if you must, with a hearthy attitude about action fantasy superhero shenanigans that aims to give the viewers its all.
I initially misread that Namco/Koei planned to release all the 3 episodes in the pack by the end of September 2023…. but it’s actually September 2024, so instead of reviewing all the episodes packs at once, i will do mini-reviews for each of them as most likely they’re gonna accompany the release of the other 2 DLC Character Packs.
I will also release a “review addendum” after the Character Pass 2 and all the additional episodes release, because as Namco made a new bundle for the game and all (available and announced) DLC called “Ultimate Edition”, so it’s fairly logical to guess they don’t plan to do more with Pirate Warriors 4, for better or worse.
Regardless, these episodes are surprisingly cheap, with the Yamato one here costing 3 bucks on its own, and the complete pack of 3 episodes going for 7 bucks.
Which is a bit iffy since 2 of the 3 characters are just variants of previously existing characters that most likely won’t have a completely different moveset, but no, i didn’t write this article just to bitch more about Tecmo Koei and Namco Bandai DLC practices, even though i never get tired of it and it’s always right, especially when talking Tecmo Koei DLC bullshit.
Aside from this info and a glimpse of how Yamato will play, the trailer also included the announcement of a different DLC pack split into 3 parts meant to release piece-meal over time as well, called the Additional Episode pack, as in new actual content to play through, with the first one we know being about Yamato travelling through various stages (including Big Mom’s kingdom, as the first and only image – included below and taken from Gematsu article about the news- about the episode shows), and this one will also include a new power up map to learn new skills, increase stats and skill levels even further, and shit like that.
I feel like a stepped on a monkey’s paw, because YES, finally, new meat for the meat god, actually new episodes/missions/stages to play, BUT it’s paid DLC yet again, for a game that – as good as it is, and it’s a very good Warriors title – could have used some actual longtime support and some free content via update, like they did with Hyrule Warriors, even the base release on Wii U, especially due to its decision to cover less of the story arcs and hence do less unique maps/level.
I don’t need TK to also join the fuckin bandwagon and make “work in progress free to play but 60 bucks to enter” games that change over time, but you know, some support and little things or a clearer declaration of how/when the game will have new content arrived to it would have been better.
Honestly, i’d prefer they actually did a proper Xtreme Legends style expansion pak, but they make more money like this, so they won’t.
As previously said, i will be reviewing the new DLC Character Packs as they are released, with the Battle For Onigashima one still having a generic “September 2023” release window despite the fact we’re almost half-way through the frigging month,while the Additional Episodes Packs have a TBA release date as of now, but yes, i guess i’ll review them as well, why not at this point?
POST SCRIPTUM: Both the Battle Of Onigashima DLC Pack and the first Episode Pack (or whatever they’re gonna call it) of the Additional Episodes Pack will be available from the 14th of September (source: Gematsu)
That’s on me for not checking again before publication, i will take the blame for that because i really should have checked, and i do apologize for this.
I’ve been meaning to talk about this thing since we saw the first trailer (ok, let’s be honest, the announcement of this being greenlit), but i mostly held off because i didn’t want to speculate much but just actually watch the show and then judge it accordingly to what it actually is and NOT what it might or might not turn out to be, as much pontificating on widely distributed promotional material is the bread and butter of this job here, especially when you have to appease the “content God”.
And since we’re being more upfront than usual, yes, i was preparing me own buckets of tar and feathers, even as the trailers close to release did make one wonder if maybe this time we don’t have a huge manga-to-live action stinker, i mean, it comes from the same production studio that gave us the rightfully despised Cowboy Bebop live action shitwreck, let us not forget that.
The trust was not there, at least not for me, despite Oda being vocally supportive and letting it more than know this was not just a random gig he lazily supervised in terms of actual involvement, but that he indeed wanted this to happen for a long time and was excited about this thing, he really wanted for it to work.
I mean, after Franky’s timeskip design…and him helping rehabilitating colleagues (let alone his sensei Nobuhiro “Maybe A CP Ringmaster” Watsuki) of his that in a better world would not have returned with a new serialization on Jump.
Leaving THAT hornets’ nest aside, he was never gonna advocate against it, or something stupid like that, but i did question why he was so hyped about something everyone almost immediatly catalogued as a write-off thing that they’d bring up years later as a “that was weird” kind of story.
So at the very end of August the One Piece live action Netflix series was made available on the plaftorm, composed of eight 45 to 60 minutes long episodes composing the first season, which covers from the very beginning at Shells Town (with Foosha Village visited via flashbacks of young Luffy with Shanks and his crew) up to the conclusion of the Arlong Park arc.
Yeah, bringing back the One Piece retrospective…. kinda, more like continuing it, with a full, detailed review of the last released One Piece movie, Film Red, that hit theathers in 2022, after the EXPRESSO review done at the time it released in theathers here.
For context, that year i was able to see the tie-in episodes of the series during the yearly Lucca Comics & Games convention in Italy, sadly i missed the early projection of the movie itself, but i did see the aforementioned episodes meant to tie-in to Film Red that detailed a young Rufy meeting a young Uta in Fusha Town when Shanks and his crew set anchor there.
Which are cute but as you would expect they’re not mandatory viewing in order to understand the plot of Film Red, it’s a big popular franchise, they’re not gonna risk alienating people who don’t watch or follow the TV series but do follow the manga, for example.
Who’s Uta, you might ask? But she’s the new character and protagonist of Film Red, a world famous livestreamer and renowed singer that is finally having a concert on the island of Elegia, ammassing a huge amounts of fans coming from all walks of life, be it Goverment soldiers, Navy officers or pirate ships, and of course the Straw Hats come too, as Luffy arrives there and reveals he and Uta were childhood friends.
And then he drops the bombshell that Uta is Shanks’ daughter.
For disclosure, i pre-ordered the super duper deluxe edition of the game that came with the big Lim & Luffy figure, and the expansion content also included in the Deluxe Edition version, so i didn’t cash out extra to access the DLC story expansion for One Piece Odyssey that released in May 2023, Reunion Of Memories. Otherwise, to buy the DLC normally the MSRP is 25 bucks.
Keep that in mind because it will come back later in the review, but before beginning i will preface by saying while i will keep this DLC review spoiler free… i’d recommend either reading my full review of the base game or finish the game yourself before reading, because some plot details regarding the finale are simply impossible not to touch upon.
One Piece might not be a franchise that you would immediatly associate with RPGs, but like Dragon Ball its surprising how the genre is represented in their many videogame iterations, especially if we’re talking about older systems, and even more so if we’re talking about Japan-only releases, as the first One Piece videogame was a RPG on the old black-n-white WonderSwan, and more came out for both the Wonderswan family of consoles as wells as for Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and even on the original Playstation.
But sadly most western fans are not familiar with some of these quirky GBC One Piece RPGs where (among other things) the Straw Hats are turned into animals, no, most likely you’ve yearned for years for a localized One Piece RPG, only to find out that it exists, One Piece: Romance Dawn, and that it’s sadly a very shit game, even worse as it’s a port from PSP to 3DS, and a cheap one too, because knowing this it makes all sense for the game to look that much like old ass.
I reviewed that one as well, but today we’re here holding hope to finally retire this status and have a big budget mainstream RPG that can make the series some justice instead of wishing they wouldn’t have bothered to begin with, with the long anticipated One Piece Odissey, developed by ILCA and published by Namco Bandai (who else?) in January 2023 to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary.
Available pretty much on all the platforms, old gen and new…. but not the Nintendo Switch.
For the record, this review is based on the PS4 version played on a PS4 Pro.
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