One Piece: Pirate Warriors

One Piece Kaizoku Musou (ワンピース海賊無双) is the third Warriors collaboration project, following in the footsteps of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam and Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage. The game's story and characters are based on the famous Japanese manga and anime, One Piece. This game is the first One Piece title to ever be made available on the Playstation 3.

The title is being made with the hopes of creating the "ultimate game", as developers claim that it personifies the "comrades" (仲間, nakama) and Warriors themes in a grand adventure. Hisashi Koinuma stated that the collaboration began when he was specifically approached by Shin Unozawa (Vice President of D3 Publisher) for a One Piece title.

According to Unozawa, the game was just going to be called One Piece Musou. The current title of the game took shape when comic creator, Eiichiro Oda, changed it himself.

Kouji Nakajima (Bandai-Namco producer) remarked that each character model is being remodeled from scratch to have a system faithful to the One Piece world. Nakajima has said the game is being targeted to fans who have watched the One Piece anime, but he expects the game will appeal to a wider audience. Both producers remark they are working hard to preserve the quality expected from a One Piece work, trying to keep the heart of Oda's work intact to the best of their abilities.

The Treasure Box edition will include a visual book for this game, an original soundtrack CD, and 15 custom pins. Consumers who pre-order the title can obtain two downloadable serial codes. One of them allows buyers to obtain nine Straw Hat custom themes for their Playstation 3. The other code can be used to obtain a rare figurine in the Mobage social game, One Piece Grand Collection.

Gameplay
So far the Alpha gameplay footage features the extreme flexibility and attacks expected to be seen from One Piece. The world, character actions, facial expressions and other visual cues are being recreated as faithfully as possible. Essentially players can use their character's trademark attacks to thrash several Marines or other opponents in typical Warriors fashion with One Piece stylized exaggeration.

Straw Hat Pirates

 * Monkey D. Luffy
 * Roronoa Zoro
 * Nami
 * Usopp
 * Sanji
 * Tony Tony Chopper
 * Nico Robin
 * Franky
 * Brook
 * Thousand Sunny

Other

 * Portgas D. Ace

Marines

 * Akainu
 * Aokiji
 * Pacifista

Stages

 * Restaurant at Sea Baratie
 * Underwater Prison Impel Down
 * Marineford

Related Media
The game was introduced at Bandai-Namco's stage event at Tokyo Game Show 2011. It shared the stage with another One Piece game in the works, One Piece Gigant Battle 2. A pre-recorded introduction by Ikue Ōtani (Chopper) was included before the games' producers (Kouji Nakajima and Hisashi Koinuma) popped on stage for the opening act. After their preface the trademark opening song for the anime, We Are!, was performed live on stage by vocalist Hiroshi Kitadani. The following voice actors appeared on the stage: Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp), Hiroaki Hirata (Sanji), Kazuki Yao (Franky), and Misa Watanabe (Vivi). They chatted about scenes that moved them from the series, personal issues like losing weight, and their reactions to the present fanbase. Nakajima and Koinuma returned to join the chat for the games. Kitadani ended the event by singing the opening song for the Nintendo DS One Piece game, We Go!, a remixed version of We Are!.

A trial version of this game will be available at the Bandai-Namco and Sony Entertainment Booth at Jump Festa 2012. The special One Piece stage will have Mayumi Tanaka (Luffy), Kazuya Nakai (Zoro), Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp), and Hiroshi Kitadani appear on the 17th; Tanaka, Kazuki Yao (Franky), and Akemi Okamura (Nami) appear on the 18th. It's likely they will highlight this title.