Game #1141: One Piece - Gigant Battle 2 Shinsekai

  We never got the best One Piece games, it's so unfair.

 One Piece: Gigant Battle 2 Shinsekai is more than a cruel reminder of all the great OP games we never got localized, but it's also a stealth sequel to Jump Ultimate Stars. No, really! Ganbarion took everything they learned from that game and made something even better... which admittedly isn't saying much considering I think it's super overrated, but hear me out!

 Well, this is a platfrom-fighting game in which up to four characters and duke it out. It features beautiful 2-D Sprites on top of 3-D backgrounds which, admittedly, can sometimes be too much for the poor Nintendo DS, as framerate drops can and will happen.

 Just like with the JUS games, the game features a very meaty Single Player mode, in which you slowly recruit characters to your crew as you go through various islands. This is the only way you can unlock every character. It's a neat way to have single player content, and not every stage is a 'beat everyone' affair, sometimes you might need to help a character collect certain items, or you might have to protect a character, break something or prevent something from breaking. It's pretty good, however, some stages feel incredibly unfair to the point of annoyance, as you try to do something while having 3 other characters pummeling you. By the end of the game I was so annoyed I started skipping stages unless they unlocked a character or were mandatory. That said, you will need to consult a FAQ, as sometimes you might need a guide to figure out what the secondary objective is, which you might need to fulfill in order to unlock something.

 If I were to describe the game, it'd be Jump Ultimate Stars but more fun. First of all, you don't need to create 'decks' to play as someone or fight them, just pick your character and the CPU's and go at it. That immediately makes the game more accessible and snappy. The game has a single attack button, but they get so much mileage out of it that it's not even funny, there are two attack combos depending on whether you hold down forward or not when mashing B, then there are Up and Down B modifiers, then there are diagonal Up and diagonal Down B modifiers, you also get different aerial moves, three super moves and a grab. It's very fast-paced, and the sound effects make the combat pretty satisfying. One thing I didn't like.... Support Characters. Anime games LOVE support characters since they are a quick and easy way of adding more characters, but in this game some of them require tapping on the touch-screen, which can be a bit cumbersome in the midst of battle.

 Speaking of characters, this game has a massive 44 different characters, and only six of them feel a bit cloney, the pre-timeskip Mugiwaras. While the game covers the Fish Man Island arc, Jimbei is playable, so you get all the current Mugiwaras as playable characters, however, Nico Robin, Franky and Brook don't get their pre-timeskip forms. And, to be fair, Law, Eustass Kids and the other characters come in their pre-timeskip form, but hey, not much they could've done considering when the game came out. Regardless, it's a massive character roster, and they get pretty fun movesets.

 Now this is a proper licensed fighting game. Solid game mechanics, tons of characters, tons of stuff to do... it puts other games to shame. It's a bit of a shame we'd only get two more One Piece fighting games, and since they came out on the 3DS.... region locked.

 8.0