UNEQUAL NARRATION MY CAPTAIN
The topo is clear and it perfectly sums up the main basics of the gameplay of this One Piece Pirate Warriors 4, which follows the third part of the name. In this episode, six arcs are on the menu, obviously taking up the main lines of the anime, namely the hectic quest of Monkey D. Luffy towards Grand Line and the treasure of Gold Roger, the greatest of pirates. The trouble is that at the level of the frame, we realize that we are rather unequally served. One Piece is more than 800 episodes (926 precisely at the time of this test), 95 volumes since the launch of the publication of Eiichiro Oda's work and inevitably it is complex to compact everything on a big fifteen hours, the approximate time to overcome the six proposed Arcs: Alabasta, Enies Lobby, Marineford, Whole Cake Island, Dressrosa and finally the Wano Arc, the conclusion of which is intended to be original in order to have an end since it is currently currently airing, featuring the big main villains, the greedy and hysterical Big Mom and the ruthless and overpowered Kaido. Between the clear absence of certain passages or even of certain entire Arcs and certain choices of cutscenes (to the detriment of others, you will have understood it), the accustomed to the tribulations of Luffy will be able to feel a little frustrated, when the simple curious will have a little trouble understanding all the branches and the richness of the original work. That said, most of the main lines are present and that is the main thing.
The challenge is there, it's up to you to take it up, knowing that the imbalance between combat styles is quickly felt as soon as the level of difficulty rises.
Back to the game and its gameplay. Pirate Warriors comes in three early game modes: Story, Free, and Treasure. To be able to take full advantage of the last two (Free allowing you to replay at your leisure and in the order you want the missions of the Story and Treasure mode offering you special challenges with the unlocked characters by going to explore the four seas of Grand Line , North Blue, East Blue, West Blue and South Blue), it is better to tackle the copious Story mode, which will allow you to expand your roster, obviously incomplete at the start. It is the latter that establishes the tone but also the weaknesses of this 4th part. For the regulars, nothing changes or almost: the progression is done by the fight and the distribution of enormous mandals and well-felt combos to an almost infinite host of enemies, with objectives to achieve and bosses to sleep. The feeling of power released is still just as pleasurable (this is also the basis of the musô), even more so with the inclusion of four specific combat styles: technical, fast, powerful and aerial.
AT 43, THE PARTY IS CRAZIER, WELL NOT QUITE...
If the ease will be to lean for the third (we do not hide from you that we have very often placed our fate in the hands of Luffy eh), to shine in the three other disciplines and in particular in the technical sector will require a certain challenge, because the way of attacking and performing combos will be less of a hassle than the other styles. This is the case of Usopp and his slingshot that will have to be raised to a certain level to do damage as devastating as that caused by another class of character. The challenge is there, it's up to you to take up, knowing that the imbalance between the styles is quickly felt as soon as the level of difficulty rises. In short, if the roster is loaded with 43 fighters (distributed according to their class of membership, namely Marines, Straw Hat Crew…), six more than episode 3 (pending the arrival of future DLCs) , we find ourselves very (too) quickly favoring the same players, for the sake of efficiency and this, even if the general and individual skill tree for each protagonist allows him to progress. Here too, we could still see that a certain type of character developed faster than others... In any case, we will note Omega Force's desire to vary the pleasures, which will please the fans. who will be able to live their adventure (especially in the Free mode), fully with their favorite pirate.
For their part, the combos are enjoyable and we can only welcome the inclusion of aerial combos, which bring a real plus to the battlefield and even more feeling of power. The destruction of the decorations also has a lot to do with it and the combination of the two gives the games a real feeling of open warfare, with obviously terrible consequences for your enemies in the event of violent contact with a wall or another element of the decoration. And to make it even more enjoyable, we can only revel in the characters' Japanese voices, their easily recognizable facial expressions and the animations accompanying some of their special moves (ah Luffy's Gear 4 or Sanji's devil leg) , just as faithful and highlighted by a very beautiful staging, reinforcing their overpower and the considerable damage they cause on the battlefield.
COMPLICATED READABILITY, TECHNICALLY TO PICK UP BUT...
But now, the few good ideas brought by Omega Force unfortunately come up against a technical and graphic realization that dates as much as it finally sins. One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 seems to come from another age and if the spirit of the anime is respected, if the wacky and crazy side of its universe is there and recognizable, if, finally, the cutscenes are of quality, they do not are not all. Some shots are even quite ugly, not to mention the decors stripped to the maximum (the Musô Touch) and therefore quite empty apart from the enemies. We may quibble by specifying that apart from their destruction, the sets have no other interaction with the player… when they are destructible. We can slap everything and everyone on the battlefield but it is difficult to jump on an element of the decor, because pushed back by an invisible wall. Yeah. The textures are runny, the destruction of the elements is sketchy, with polygons for debris. We understand that it's not necessarily the sinews of war, especially if the anime is visually respected, but it's still messy.
The mess is damn deep when the camera gets involved, with terrible rotations, making the action sometimes unplayable.
And the mess is damn deep when the camera gets involved, with terrible rotations, making the action unreadable and sometimes unplayable (where are we friends there?) for the player. Readability is also undermined by a mini-map that is not always easy to understand (even if fortunately it can be zoomed in), a mess of information that can drown out the player who is unaccustomed to so many objectives to achieve, not to mention that we are on great back and forth competitions with regard to the famous challenges in question. Finally, and this is the most unfortunate, the management of aerial characters, once in the air, is still problematic, especially when you want to get closer to the ground to hit the enemies a little below. As for the lock of enemies, it clearly does not help in sequences, at least the lack of readability that we are talking about.
There are dross and dross even in this One Piece Pirate Warriors 4. The real question is whether all these weaknesses are discouraging enough to make die-hard fans give up. Not sure. And not sure that in this period of confinement, some do not see in this fourth installment the possibility of feeding their impatience in a capital way, what is more with the original conclusion of the current arc, the Wano arc. The life of the game is substantial, especially with characters to be unlocked under certain conditions (the S rank to be obtained in certain missions will make you sweat a little). The proposed challenge is ultra-repetitive, ok, with almost no real difference between the first three initial modes, of course, but it doesn't prevent you from coming back to it whenever you want, especially with a multiplayer available in several modes, some even allowing you to play online from 4 up to 12 players! In short, a classic component, richer and a little bit (but really a little bit) more varied than its predecessor... but not better technically and this, after five years of beating.
