One Piece Fighting Path needs an English release, here’s why

There are countless One Piece mobile games out there. However, One Piece Fighting Path is perhaps the most ambitious one to date. Having played (and getting tired of) many One Piece mobile games, Fighting Path is shaping up to be one of the best ones I have played.

At the time of writing, the game is only available in China. The non-Chinese speaking One Piece fans are missing out a lot. While the fluid 3D action combat and opportunities for free roaming/exploration are great, an English version would make it even better.

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I’ll be touching on the features of One Piece Fighting Path and why it deserves an English version, so let’s get into it!

Faithful and Fluid

Officially licensed by Toei Animation, you can rest assured that it’s nothing like many of the other…more dubious One Piece games. It goes without saying that the game features the voice actors from the anime. At the time of writing, the main campaign has already reached the Impel Down arc, spanning over 500 chapters and 400 episodes worth of the manga and anime, with more content to follow soon.

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Putting players into the sandals of Luffy and his crew of Straw Hat Pirates, we get to experience the events of the story in 3D graphics. What really surprised me was how the characters are animated—combos are smooth and fluid. Seeing Luffy toss out a Gomu Gomu no Gatling mid-combo feels really satisfying, as with many of the other characters and their skills.

However, what sets this game apart from other One Piece titles is the presence of the dodge button. Dodging is vital in this game—what makes it even more strategic is that there is a cooldown for it, similar to Punishing Gray Raven. While the game is nowhere as difficult as PGR, there is still an emphasis on player skill in this game.

As it is based on the anime, the game uses many anime screenshots for story cutscenes. While I love this because of nostalgia reasons, some of the screenshots (especially the old ones) does suffer slightly in terms of quality. They’re made even more apparent because of how the screenshots are cropped to fit on my screen. If the screenshots could be better optimised for all devices, that’ll be great, but nevertheless, this is only a tiny complaint in the sea of love and praise I have for this game.

Journey Through the Grand Line

Starting off in the early days of Luffy’s life as a pirate, the game offers great freedom for players to explore and travel between islands. We get to relive fond memories as we meet iconic characters, find hidden treasure and take on other pirates, Marines and everything in between.

Exploration is another major part of the game. Players are free to walk or sail around in between missions. The random encounters and events that may happen add a lot of depth to the exploration—I was thoroughly impressed when I bumped into a Marine patrol. The game gave me the option to face them head on, or bribe them to go away.

Besides that, the NPCs you encounter also progress as you advance the main story. Coming back to an earlier island after advancing the story will sometimes change the dialogue for NPCs. While it’s not a big detail, it does give off the impression that the game was crafted with a lot of care.

From encountering sea creatures to finding treasure, there is a lot to do besides the main story—one of these being the limited-time boss battles. These bosses are a lot tougher than the usual enemies encountered in the story and offer a fun challenge in exchange for rewards. Positioning and anticipating attack patterns are key.

In the game’s latest update based on the Impel Down arc, we had the chance to try out new modes. The first event is inspired by Luffy’s prison break and is akin to faction-based PvP (more on the standard PvP later). Players can choose to side with either the prison escapees or the Impel Down staff as each side takes on the other in 2v2 PvP matches. Winning a match awards 300 points to your faction, while losing gives you 200. Ultimately, player participation is the biggest factor as each player can contribute up to 1,000 points daily.

The second mode is a roguelike PvE event. Players will need to progress to the next stage while keeping a close eye on their HP as it doesn’t recover. Thankfully, players can earn various buffs as they progress which are extremely useful since enemies will get tougher and tougher as they progress. Because many of these buffs only work with specific skills or moves, adjusting your playstyle to synergise with these buffs becomes a lot more important than just using your strongest options, changing things up with a nice layer of strategy.

It’s clear that the developers really care for the game—the sheer amount and variety of content that we’re getting is a lot more than the majority of mobile games out there.

Expanding Your Crew

For a series as massive as One Piece, it goes without saying that the roster is equally as big. Whether they’re Straw Hat Pirates, Marines or Shichibukai, you’ll definitely be able to play as one of your favourites. It’s not just collecting characters—we can also collect ships! From the Going Merry to Thousand Sunny and more, ships not only change how we look as we travel on the seas, but they also provide stats to the team.

Besides expanding their crew, players will also have to enhance and advance them. Leveling up, unlocking skills and awakening characters are all part of the game. Thankfully, unlike many other gacha games, many missions can still be cleared with weaker characters if you are skilled enough.

One aspect of the characters that One Piece Fighting Path does well is how it assigns characters into three different classes—Power, Skill and Support—each with their own play style. Power characters like Luffy have shorter, more damaging combos, while Skill characters like Zoro and Sanji rack up on the damage through longer, elaborate combos. Support characters such as Nami and Robin feature a longer-ranged play style. There is a surprising amount of depth to this system, and I’m amazed to find this in a One Piece game.

Taking the newest character, Magellan, for example—he’s a Skill character. His abilities are based around poison thanks to his Devil Fruit, and the game reflects this well through his combos. His skills have a large area of effect (AOE), making him perfect for PvE battles where you take on large number of enemies simultaneously. You can try him out for free in the roguelike mode of the current event after clearing it.

In addition to strengthening characters the conventional way, the game also offers a few different systems to help you make them stronger. Battle spirit cards are a neat, free-to-play friendly way of improving a specific characters’ skills. While they’re obtainable through gacha, you can also unlock cards by raising the bond with your characters from giving them food.

Besides cards which boost skill, there are also badges that boost stats. Badges are obtainable through special character-specific missions that you can do, divided between several levels of difficult. As long you’ve strengthened your character enough, they shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

However, my favourite mechanic is definitely the ship upgrades. That’s right—you can even strengthen your ships to provide buffs to your characters! Ship upgrade materials are obtainable through Guild missions, so it’s best to get into one for this purpose.

On top of that, different parts of the ship are used to provide certain benefits, such as the Kitchen which is used to generate food, which in turn is used to increase a character’s bond level. From providing stamina to other resources, this is a well-implemented system that adds to the immersion of being a pirate captain.

PvP Action

The points I brought up above would have already made One Piece Fighting Path a worthwhile mobile game, but the addition of PvP takes it even further. Featuring the Corrida Colosseum from the Dressrosa arc, players can duke it out in 1v1 combat, with up to 3 characters in their team.

The PvP mode is wholly skill-based—both players’ characters will have their levels and stats adjusted to ensure a fair fight. The PvP is comparable to a full-blown fighting game—with mechanics like i-frames, okizeme, juggling, and many others taking centre stage in this mode.

I was simply blown away by the level of detail that went into this game’s PvP mode. I’m not exaggerating when I state that this mode is basically a fighting game. This mode is the greatest test of the players’ reflexes, decision-making and understanding of their characters. The only complaint I have is that the lock-on function can be a bit wonky at times, but other than that it’s great.

Closing Thoughts

I have to admit—initially, I didn’t think much of One Piece Fighting Path. There are just so many other mobile One Piece titles out there that I just looked past it. However, upon giving it a shot myself, I can safely say that this is the best One Piece mobile experience that I had to date.

As someone with limited understanding of Chinese, my biggest wish would be to see this game released in English. The polished 3D gameplay, exploration, in-depth character mechanics and fantastic PvP mode make it the definitive One Piece experience on mobile.

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