One Piece: Burning Blood

One Piece: Burning Blood is a great experience for fans of the One Piece Series. Those who are familiar with One Piece will be excited to see their favorite characters in a faithful representation of a pivotal story arc. However, there is not enough happening in Burning Blood's fighting mechanics to spike the interests of those who are either unfamiliar with or new to the series.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the One Piece franchise, but that’s actually been beneficial in some ways. For example, when I booted up One Piece: Burning Blood for the first time and checked out its character selection, I was struck by just how utterly hilarious and bizarre some of the character designs really are. That kind of weird “What did I just get myself into?” feeling is fun in its own way...

One Piece: Burning Blood is a great example of a licensed videogame, and it gets so much right, bringing the characters of One Piece to life in spectacular fashion. It’s a shame that the limited and unwelcoming narrative scope and unnecessary difficulty spikes take away from what is otherwise a great arena brawler.

One Piece: Burning Blood understands what makes the pirate life so compelling in the source material, and is fairly successful in channelling that roguish spirit into its chaotic fights. That flashy, firm commitment to action will feel welcoming to One Piece's biggest fans, but confusing to everyone else. It’s great to have something made just for fans, though even Luffy's biggest supporters will ...

Whenever the latest fighting game hits the shelves, most gamers think about the dark and sinister ways they intend to exact horrible vengeance on their foes, cutting limbs from their writhing bodies as they plead for mercy only to be violently decapitated. And then, there are games like One Piece Burning Blood – bright and colourful, overly comedic yet maintaining that base anime-tone of fighting ...

While the combat and variety of game modes can be a lot of fun, along with beautiful cel-shaded cutscenes that recreate the fan favorite Paramount War arc, jumping into a story that takes place more than halfway into the nearly 750 episode anime series makes One Piece: Burning Blood one that might be best left to just the most hardcore fans.

One Piece: Burning Blood is a game full of potential, but ultimately it disappoints. The Paramount War mode is truly the highlight of the package, featuring some fantastically recreated story scenes, but it’s rather brief and is marred by an erratic difficulty level. Other than that, whilst playing against friends either locally or online can be a real blast, it’s just too unbalanced to spend too ...

Burning Blood delivers crisp visuals that ring true to the original manga and anime.

I’m not a fan of One Piece: Burning Blood and it’s not because of the unfamiliar source material. The combat here just isn’t that fun, and no amount of colorful anime action will change that.

This flaw and its others make One Piece: Burning Blood from Spike Chunsoft and publisher Bandai Namco somewhat difficult to recommend even to those that are huge fans of the anime. While it's neat to relive one of the stronger stretches of story from the source material, the core fighting gameplay is marred by an unbalanced roster, and too much time is spent chasing opponents around the arenas. Ev...

Developer: Spike Chunsoft/Bandai Namco Entertainment Platform: PlayStation 4 ($59.99), PS Vita ($39.99), Xbox One ($59.99), PC (Steam - June) Review copy provided by the publisher.

Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I don’t. I’m perfectly happy with admitting I just don’t understand somethings, and I’m sure to some people One Piece: Burning Blood may be just the game they’ve been waiting for, they may be that perfect combination of a person that loves One Piece, fighting games with bad tutorials, can speak Japanese fluently and is perfectly happy with drawn out, non-animated c...