Since I’ve reviewed quite a few One Piece games now (and finally started watching the series), I was looking forward to the new One Piece Unlimited World Red as it promised to be a full RPG with free-roaming and a new story that was written solely for the game. While the graphics in this latest installment are a bit disappointing, the story and gameplay is new as promised.

First off, on the smaller PS Vita screen, the graphics aren’t so noticeably bad as they were on the PS3. They aren’t very detailed, but that’s ok. You can still tell who is who and they look more or less like the anime characters that you are used to seeing. The city and the dungeon areas are simple, but it fits with the anime. The colors in the city are vibrant and happy and the dungeons look like the areas that they are supposed to represent. Your enemies are basic, lacking detail, but enemies are generic in a lot of games.

All of the voicework is in Japanese with on-screen text. Most of the time this isn’t a problem as I am used to reading the subtitles on the anime anyway. When you’re fighting, it can be a problem as you’re trying to read and fight at the same time, but they don’t talk much in this game while you’re fighting, so it’s not a big issue. The background music tends to fit well with the gameplay. It changes somewhat based on where you are and what’s happening, which keeps things from being monotonous.

The One Piece Unlimited World Red Main Mode starts out on the ocean. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates have rescued a new friend, Pato, from the ocean. Pato is a cute little raccoon. They help him further by taking him back to the island that is his home. This should be a simple stop, but while they’re out running errands, everyone is kidnapped, everyone except Luffy, that is. Pato finds Luffy and informs him that they need to go rescue everyone else. Rescuing is the easy part. After the gang’s all back together (which doesn’t take very long), the real story starts. Luffy finds out that not is all as it seems to be.

While rescuing his friends and solving the rest of the mystery, Luffy also needs to help rebuild the island. You do this by using materials collected while you’re wandering around. I recommend trying to break anything that you can possibly attack to see if you get materials. Rebuilding the island is to your advantage. The various places that you open are all beneficial to you in one way or another. You’ll also find that you can play mini-games at random spots. These can be fun and addictive at times, plus they earn you items.

You can also choose to play in Battle Coliseum Mode. There you will fight against your comrades and random enemies. The battle is all to see who will come out on top. It’s a good place to practice your skills and learn everything there is to know about controlling your characters. It’s also nice to just unwind while killing enemies without worrying about the storyline.

I found that One Piece Unlimited World Red is about average difficulty. The PS Vita feels like it has the same difficulty level as the PS3 version, which would make sense as they are cross-save compatible. If you find that things are too hard for you, you can drop the difficulty level in the Options. You need to note that this will not affect the difficulty of the quests that you can take at the Tavern. Of course, these quests are optional, so you can just wait until you’re a higher level to take them on. On the PS Vita version, you can also get help from other players online. This can be quite beneficial if you’re trying to get past something too hard for you to do alone.

I found that it wasn’t difficult to get through the areas, but sometimes I would get a bit lost as to where to go next. There are red flags that signal your next area, but if it is on a different map in a different area, you might have a bit of trouble finding it. Otherwise, I didn’t have any trouble beating the game. I do believe I lost to one boss as I failed to catch the trick on where to hit him. If you do lose, you can choose to resume at the last save or start back at the previous area. You don’t really lose much for dying. I would like to have had a harder mode available, just to see if it was more of a challenge.

The controls in One Piece Unlimited World Red are quite easy to get the hang of. They work exactly like the controls on the PS3, which means that unlike the DS version, camera movement is easy. You just move the right stick. You can still re-center the camera behind your character with (L1). I was hoping that since the PS Vita has touch screen capability that you would be able to catch fish and bugs by tapping on the screen or pressing the right buttons, just to have a bit different way of doing things, but that is not the case. Bug catching and fishing are still as in the PS3, rhythm games without the beat behind them. A music beat would have made them more fun.

Overall, I have enjoyed One Piece Unlimited World Red. The more that I play it, the more I enjoy it, especially on the PS Vita where the graphics look better. I like that it is now a full RPG with a free-roaming town, side quests, and even mini-games. I quite enjoy being able to cross-save between the PS3 and the PS Vita so that I can take my game with me wherever I go. I don’t find myself playing the Battle Coliseum Mode very often since I prefer working on a storyline, but it is a fun place to go to let off a bit of steam. If you’ve enjoyed the previous One Piece games, I think that you will really like the new One Piece Unlimited World Red.