One Piece: Burning Blood asks players to fight with the Straw Hat crew across four platforms — PS4, PC, Vita, and XONE — and mostly delivers. It is a fighting game built around the anime series, and it leans heavily on the show’s characters and its cast of pirates. The result is a solid, if uneven, experience that fans will find worth playing through.
The Fighting System
The core fighting system is simple and easy to pick up. Players strike, block, and dash across the screen, and the controls respond well enough to reward practice. Special moves are plentiful, and each character brings a distinct style to the mix. That variety keeps matches from feeling dull, even when the roster repeats itself across modes.
Modes and Content
Burning Blood offers several ways to play, including a story mode, a tournament, and online multiplayer. The story mode follows the anime’s main arc, letting players see familiar scenes played out in arena combat. The tournament mode is a standard ladder system, while online play lets friends face off against each other. None of these modes is deep, but together they give the game a decent shelf life beyond the initial fights.
Presentation
The presentation draws directly from the show. Character designs are faithful to the source material, and animations are smooth during attacks. The music matches the tone of the series, though it can feel repetitive after extended play sessions.
Where It Falls Short
The roster is smaller than some fighting games in the genre, and the game doesn’t offer much outside the core loop. There’s no deep customization or branching paths to explore, so players who want more depth than a simple fight will find themselves wanting. The Vita version also suffers from performance issues that aren’t present on the other platforms.
Verdict
One Piece: Burning Blood isn’t a perfect fighting game, but it doesn’t need to be. Fans of the show will get what they want out of it: a chance to fight with their favorite characters in a format they enjoy. It doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it doesn’t need to either.
Key Facts
– Platforms: PS4, PC, Vita, XONE
– Genre: Fighting game
– Score: 6.5 of 10
What Each Mode Offers
1. Story mode, for the anime-inspired plot
2. Tournament mode, for competitive play
3. Online multiplayer, for lasting sessions with friends
4. Standard arcade mode, for quick sessions
