This article was originally published in Italian on StayNerd.it in 2019.
After entertaining us in past years with titles based on Japanese animated series, Ganbarion returns once again to tell the tale of Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew in this new game, produced by Bandai Namco to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the One Piece anime adaptation. One Piece World Seeker follows the path paved by One Piece: Unlimited World Red, offering an entirely new storyline filled with cameos from a wide array of characters from the anime, while embedding it all in an open-world exploration formula that breaks away from past conventions and embraces production values never before seen in a video game based on Eiichiro Oda’s work—so much so that the author himself proudly announced it in the pages of Shonen Jump, where the manga has been serialized since the late ‘90s.
The so-called “killing feature” of this production was meant to be the opportunity to dive into a pirate world inspired by the original series, riding the thrill of exploring a massive island and enjoying seamless, fluid gameplay unburdened by loading screens or outdated design conventions. Unfortunately, the game—directed by debutant Makoto Baba—immediately shows the limits of an action-adventure with clunky and imprecise mechanics, where the joy of exploring such a vast and richly detailed world is stifled by a gameplay structure that barely reaches mediocrity.
Playing solely as the world’s most famous straw-hatted pirate, players take their first bouncy steps across the Prison Island, a setting filled with lush pastoral scenery and expansive meadows to spring across using Luffy’s extraordinary abilities. Here, Luffy and friends embark on an adventure that echoes the tone and familiar narrative beats of past arcs, allowing players to immerse themselves in a plotline that, while simple—perhaps even a bit trite—remains devoutly faithful to the dramatic sensibilities of the TV adaptation by Toei Animation.
The presentation, however, is undermined by the reliance on short, sparse cinematics, leaving most dialogue exchanges to static interactions between 3D character models that only mime their lines without the aid of voice acting to clarify tone or emotion. Still, the setting comes alive as more than just the backdrop for a sibling conflict and a crumbling society teetering on the edge of anarchy—it’s also a stage where countless familiar faces from the One Piece saga make their appearances, playing their part without ever stealing the spotlight from the real stars: the emotions and relationships at the heart of the story. In this aspect, One Piece World Seeker truly shines, especially once the main plot picks up and has the room to properly spotlight the original characters pulling the narrative strings.
Other anime tie-in games have followed a similar approach—offering exclusive storylines and open-world formats—such as Naruto Shippuden: Dragon Blade Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii, developed by Takara Tomy. However, while such efforts are commendable—especially in an era where anime-based games often rely on fanservice-heavy narratives and endless battles against cloned or mind-controlled versions of heroes—it’s undeniably disappointing that World Seeker lacks the ability to explore iconic and beloved locations from the manga’s canonical story arcs. This is especially jarring considering the vast array of worlds introduced over the course of the saga’s 90+ tankōbon volumes. It’s a far cry from something like The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield, a PC title that allowed full exploration of Matt Groening’s animated universe through interactive point-and-click screens.
Despite everything, the sense of adventure inspired by such a finely crafted and sprawling island is quickly diminished by a simplistic and incoherent gameplay structure. On one hand, World Seeker features RPG elements like experience-based skill trees, stat-based gear, side quests, and crafting systems. On the other, it offers a fast-paced, seamless exploration model tailored entirely around Luffy’s movement abilities, allowing him to fling himself across the enormous map with ease. Yet the developers seem to have forgotten to build a satisfying combat system around this. Despite the game being peppered with battles, most encounters can be resolved using the basic move set available from the early hours—either with a single button or a simple button-and-trigger combo.
Though players can unlock additional moves to speed up the game’s often tedious scuffles between fetch quests, this feature feels almost irrelevant given how lazily the whole combat system is executed. The result is a watered-down version of any Dynasty Warriors clone, with weak enemy AI and identical behaviors—enemies rush you like bees to honey, only to fall to Luffy’s powerful punches. Even boss fights lack strategic nuance, and what should be climactic encounters often devolve into spamming the same flashy special moves. It’s an unjustifiable scenario, especially when compared to the far more cohesive gameplay experience of Ganbarion’s previous One Piece title.
Add to this a beautiful but lifeless world, side quests that rank among the most repetitive and uninspired of this console generation, and virtually skippable features like crafting, and it’s easy to see that what One Piece World Seeker has to offer rarely goes beyond the first impressions formed in its opening hour—when it still feels like a game with high production values and a visual presentation finally in step with the times.
From there, it quickly spirals into a vortex of disbelief, largely due to the game world’s overwhelming inertia—especially in the early areas, which, though rich in architectural detail, are painfully static and nearly devoid of life. Not to mention the enemies: there’s little variety, and their polygonal models are nearly identical from start to finish. Once you unlock fast travel and enhanced mobility skills for Luffy, the experience becomes little more than chasing glowing icons on a map that, with each passing hour, feels less and less expansive. The island’s steep cliffs and green hills may be dotted with points of interest that reward exploration with materials for side quests or crafting, but beyond the therapeutic joy of picking up everything marked by colorful icons, crafting accessories and outfits (mostly cosmetic) becomes virtually meaningless on the default difficulty setting.
There’s little to criticize from a purely technical perspective, though. Bandai Namco’s title manages to impress thanks to strong environmental modeling and a well-executed cel-shading technique that faithfully replicates the exaggerated art style of the anime. The PC version we tested ran smoothly at 1080p and 60fps on modest setups, though native 4K with maxed-out settings does require a mid-to-high-end configuration, especially for maintaining quality in shadows and effects. What is disappointing, however, is the sound design: a small number of music tracks and the lack of full voice acting—surprising, given how carefully such elements are usually handled in titles of this kind. Almost as surprising as the inexplicable absence of civilians on the island.
In short, One Piece World Seeker realizes the dream once envisioned by games like Ubisoft’s ill-fated Naruto: Rise of a Ninja—that of giving players the chance to immerse themselves in a fully explorable world straight from the pages of a manga. But its ambition ultimately sinks under the weight of obvious gameplay flaws and a production that feels, in parts, rushed. In the end, it’s a game best recommended only to the most die-hard fans of the franchise. Because even though it’s handsomely packaged, Ganbarion’s title never fully lives up to its potential—and it would have taken just a few more tweaks to make it a real contender among the stronger anime tie-in games out there (did someone say CyberConnect2?).
