Game:

One Piece: Grand Adventure (2006)

Duration: 12:59

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And now for something entirely new! Yes, I'm here, I'm alive, and so seems to be my capture device. Great news all around, right?

I still haven't forgotten about my earlier "projects," but it can get to be something of a grind if I don't vary my material somewhat, right? So I'll be bringing you another game that I happened to pick up recently, One Piece: Grand Adventure for the GameCube. It is also available for the PlayStation 2.

Yes, yes, another "novelty" fighter, designed for a quick cash-in, right? Well, maybe that was the intention when the forces that be commissioned its creation, but this was a game in good hands, and those willing to peel back (or perhaps, as fans already of the series it draws from, embrace) the One Piece veneer will find an unexpectedly detailed work underneath its upbeat, colorful, and slightly-super-deformed trappings.

It and its several cousin games are actually developed by Ganbarion, known to some for bringing us the Jump Stars series, although that one unfortunately never actually made it outside of Japan. A lot of things are obviously going to be different for them, since this is a 3D arena fighter in the same vein as Power Stone, but there are also a lot of similar stylings that carry over, very distinctive of Ganbarion, and hallmarks of a game crafted in a labor of love.

Of course, the other major contributing factor to this game's existence is due to 4Kids and its adaptation of the anime and introduction of the series to our shores. This game was made back in the days before FUNimation acquired the rights and rendered unto us a far more accurate depiction of the characters and scenarios contained within One Piece, and as such this game will bear a few of the quirks of that era, although it manages to be far from as oppressively scrutinized as the animation that was meticulously scrubbed clean of any potentially objectionable content so as to make it fit for Saturday morning standards and practices.

So yes, as a consumer and a fan of the One Piece series, I share your outrage and bemusement over the more egregious 4Kids alterations, but at the same time I want to assure you that by and large, it does not manage to degrade the overall quality of the product you see before you...and who knows? You may even get a good laugh or two at some of the sillier and half-hearted attempts to maintain congruence with the One Piece source material and the 4Kids edited version at the same time.

This game is actually an interesting anomaly...it has no direct Japanese counterpart, but is rather an unofficial half-sequel to the Japanese game "One Piece: Grand Battle! Rush!" and sequel to "One Piece: Grand Battle" in the West. This is because Grand Battle was a severely pared-down version of the Japanese Rush, with several features removed, whereas this game includes several elements that were excluded from Grand Battle and some that were not even present in Rush.

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The first thing I wanted to make sure to do is to start things off with a look at the intro video...which, seems to have some understated "rap" elements to it, but these remain rather unobtrusive, as the main focus remains largely instrumental.

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Next, because I think it's important to give you a small taste of what the game is like before really tackling the finer details, I skip straight into Grand Battle, the primary versus play mode, and luckily I have a friend in the hotseat tonight, making things far more interesting than as if I had been using an AI-controlled opponent...but I'll get into that another time.

I consider it almost as important as showing you the gameplay itself to give you a little peek at the underlying interfaces. Before reaching the character select screen, you're privy to several menus and the various choices and customizations they provide. The six characters chosen to "face off" against each other while you're making these choices are randomized, and sometimes people get in the way of others, like you can see with Crocodile completely obscuring the view of Eneru in the very back.

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Rather than give you a play-by-play at this point in time, I figure that the best thing I can do is leave this video to serve as what it is: a sampler...a demonstration...something that you can look at to get a feel for the game's elements and atmosphere without burdening you with all the intricacies at once.

...plus, this description is already getting kinda long with the overarching explanations as it is, so I don't think the limit will tolerate that kind of in-depth commentary.

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