| One Piece: Grand Battle Rush review |
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Contrary to what you may have heard, a Golden Roger is not something you might pay forty pounds for on the streets of Soho or Kabukicho. He was the greatest pirate who ever lived, and his last act was to shout from the execution platform that he stashed his greatest treasure - One Piece, the single most valuable thing in the world - in "That Place," and anyone who found it could keep it. Instantly thousands make their way to the most dangerous ocean in the world, Grand Line, and the world enters a new age of cursed treasure, exciting swordplay, three-headed monkeys and unflattering horizontally striped T-shirts.
So much for the plot. Let's meet eight who are going to generate.
MONKEY D. LUFFY - adventurer and captain
When Luffy was a youngster hanging out with Captain Shanks of the Red Hair Pirates, he unknowingly ate one of their treasures - one of the cursed Devil Fruit which grant superhuman powers with the tradeoff that the user will never be able to float in water again. The fruit turned his flesh to rubber, and as a result he fights with Dhalsim-style stretchy arms. Luffy's aim is to find One Piece and become the king of all pirates.
RORONOA ZORO - mercenary and swordsman
As a child, Zoro trained at a kendo dojo where he met Kuina. He and Kuina (the daughter of the head sensei) made a pact that neither of them would ever give up until one of them was the strongest in the world. Shortly thereafter she fell down the stairs and broke her silly neck, and Zoro has been hilariously messed up about women ever since. Zoro's schtick is that he fights three-sworded - a katana in either hand and one between his teeth.
SANJI - savate master and ship's cook
Shipwrecked at an early age, Sanji was marooned on a rock with the fearsome pirate and chef Red Leg Zeff. After a month of starvation they were rescued, but in the process Zeff had to eat his own leg to keep Sanji alive. As a result, Sanji only weakness is an inability to refuse food to the hungry. Well, his only weakness apart from smoking. And womanising. And being an insufferable plonker.
USOPP - trickster and ship's gunner
Usopp and his mother were abandoned by his father Yasopp (one of the greatest snipers in the world and gunner for the Red Hair Pirates). As her health started to fade Usopp began to tell lies and stories about him coming home to comfort her. As he grew older and she passed away, he found himself unable to stop. In the absence of any superpowers Usopp fights using dirty tricks such as explosives, concealed weapons and (when all else fails) playing dead.
NAMI - thief and ship's navigator
Most of Nami's life was spent in bondage to an evil group of mermen who held her in order to map out the globe for them in order for them to be able to take it over. After the Luffy Pirates destroyed the gang and freed her and her village she decided to come along for the challenge of mapping the Grand Line for herself. She fights using an electrically charged staff which Usopp made for her.
TONY TONY CHOPPER - shapeshifter and ship's doctor
Tony is a baby reindeer who ate a Devil Fruit which gave him human intelligence, the ability to change his physical form and a creepy resemblance to Tony Blair. He's also a trained medical physician, a pacifist and a titanic attention whore whose pathetic attempts to downplay his obvious glee whenever he gets praise from someone have won him a legion of fans. His attacks mainly consist of transforming Hulk-style to give himself more impressive muscles, or full-on butting in reindeer form.
NICO ROBIN - gangster and ship's archaeologist
More powerful and with a higher price on her head than the rest of the Luffy Pirates put together, Robin sank an entire Marine fleet for a laugh as a child and went on to be the most powerful woman in the most powerful crime syndicate in the world (Baroque Works). Her devil fruit power allows her to create millions of hands practically anywhere she can see. The reason this doesn't make the good guys invincible? Nico Robin never does ANYTHING that doesn't directly benefit her.
Each character can also choose a support character (Zeff for Sanji, Baroque Works agents for Robin, et cetera) who they can then summon by spending one bar of their chargeup-power. This character then runs around the arena pulling off their special moves from the show and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Each character also has a nemesis from their plot arc (Usopp fights Captain Kuro - the man who tried to slaughter his village - while Nami predictably goes toe to toe with the Merman Arlong) who becomes unlockable as a player character once they are beaten. This increases the character roster to the tune of Buggy the Clown, Lieutenant Smoker, Mister Two, Captain Kuro, Arlong, Don Krieg and Baroque Works' boss Crocodile. Things are topped off with five One Piece uber-characters; Foxy, Enel, Aokiji, Shanks and Mihawk.
Once you've let your chosen fighters rip in the arena, it's time to start learning how the combos work. "Simple as hell" is the answer. X button controls moves aimed at the ground, Circle is for attacks aimed at the air, Triangle to jump, Square to summon your support characters and the shoulder buttons handle blocking and specials. The two heights of attack can be used in combination for up to three attacks, making things nice and easy when it comes to getting into a new character. This Smash Brothers-esque combat system is mixed with a Powerstone-style system where players dash for randomly generated boxes and treasure chests which will endow them with stat boosts and fruit to pump up the special gauge.
All this might sound like it's going to put hardcore fighting-game players off, but fans of the show are frankly more likely to be put off by the simplicity of the art style rather than that of the combat - the entire cast has been re-rendered in slightly deformed chibi-style. It looks and sounds like a stupid and unnecessary idea, until you've given the game a chance for a while. The first advantage is that the graphics are excellent - some of the best cell shading we've seen on the PS2 and no mistake. Secondly, the complexity of the graphics and the overall attention to detail is an absolute joy to behold. A perfect example of this is the fighting arena at Drum Castle, where the players fight on a transparent roof. Every so often the camera will swing round to such an angle that Chopper can be seen watching from the room below the fight, whereupon he notices that the camera can see him and runs away. This leads to the third point, which is that small 3D graphics just don't look very good no matter how well designed they are, so the balloonifying of everything allows for a lot more character and visibility when the camera is zoomed out.
The sheer volume of detail on offer is boosted in several other areas. As well as a tournament mode, event mode and free battle, the game offers a section called Davy Back Fight where the players can compete in Smash Bros-style minigames. Victories in all areas bring a veritable ton of goodies such as zoomable and rotatable scans of hundreds of pieces of artwork from the One Piece card game, short animation clips, game artwork and sound tests. Best of all though, all the voice actors for all the characters in the game can be unlocked as system voices for the menus and in-game announcements, with the two ultimate unlockables being 1) All the Luffy Pirates combined and 2) Sanji and Zoro arguing with each other.
Yes, Grand Battle Rush may be a simple party-style game, but in fairness that's its brief. If there are any faults, then they are only to be found in its very existence as an anime tie-in. The unlockable material, for example, mostly consists of pre-existing stuff they had lying around and just encoded onto the CD. Furthermore there will always be the issue of the ability of fans to suspend disbelief when they see Usopp (no powers whatsoever) defeating Arlong (completely bulletproof). Or Zoro merrily laying into Tashigi (who he can't even bear to look at because of her resemblance to Kuina). Or Mister Three being a backup character when he was powerful enough to take out half the cast single-handedly. These are just geek concerns though - one is always going to have the Dragonball game where Krilin can beat Broly or the Ranma game where Gosunkugi can beat Happosai. Goes with the territory.
All in all, while beat-'em-up-wise this game isn't going to set the world on fire, it deserves a high score simply because it's so difficult to imagine any fan being unhappy with it. Yes the omake material is lazy but the stuff that was actually made by the programming team themselves, the actual product you're paying for - every inch of it smells of a product where those in control knew exactly what to do with it. |
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System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Fighter
Developer: Bandai
Publisher: Bandai
Players: 1-2
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Jun 2005
Writer: Simon Dominguez
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Pros:
- Varied character roster
- Great cell shading
- Simple party-style fighting
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Cons:
- Dull unlocks
- Best played with friends
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