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New One Piece Game Shatters Kickstarter Goal (And Here’s Why You Should Care)
One Piece continues to entertain fans with the delightful and oddball adventures of Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Usopp, Chopper, and the rest of the Straw Hats, and those adventures now take place across anime, live-action, video games, and more. The newest addition to One Piece’s ever-growing roster of games has now hit Kickstarter and shattered its goal in no time at all, and after some time with the game ourselves, we are revealing why you should care and breaking down our full impressions.
The newest addition to the One Piece roster comes from KessCo in the form of One Piece: Dawn of Liberation. Dawn of Liberation is a co-op game where 1 to 4 players assemble their crews and work together to save the citizens of Wano and take down the ever-powerful Emperor of the Sea himself, Kaido. One Piece: Dawn of Liberation quickly shattered its goal of $10,000 and is already up to almost $160,000, and while there aren’t stretch goals yet, with 29 days to go, they very well could be soon.
Why Franchise Fans Will Love One Piece: Dawn of Liberation
One of the elements that stands out immediately when you get the game to the table is how much it pulls from the franchise overall and the Wano Arc specifically. The various boards and cards feature all-new artwork of Wano and Onigashima, and the history and landmarks of those locations are built up and explored through the Red Scabbards and literally brought to life with the translucent purple Onigashima Dice Tower.
The roster of playable characters right out of the box is huge at 17, and there are also 4 more secret characters that can be unlocked. The roster is all-star level, with a wonderful mix of main characters and beloved allies that includes Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, Brook, Kamazo, Jinbe, Bepo, and more. The same is true of the game’s villains, as you’ll face bosses like Big Mom, Snake Orochi, Jack, and more as you make your way to take down Kaido.
Dawn of Liberation Blends Fan Service With Core Gameplay, and It Rules
The influences from the anime don’t stop there either, and this is where the game really starts to shine. Dawn of Liberation is filled with cool nods to the franchise but also finds ways to weave those elements into the core cooperative gameplay, and one of the first ways you’ll notice that is in assembling your crew. After you choose your crew of characters, you’ll choose who will be the Captain and who will be the first member of your crew, and you’ll be able to take advantage of different abilities those characters have depending on their role.
If Luffy is your Captain, for instance, you use one set of stats on the top portion of his card, and if he’s part of your crew, you use a different set of stats to boost your Captain. Then each character has a main ability that they can always use, and these will allow you to do a host of things during your turns, including collect additional resources, take down enemy pirates, add samurai to places on the board, and a host of other key actions.
You’ll be able to add other characters to your crew by completing missions and various other methods, and adding new characters to the crew gives you even more options on your turns. To complete missions, you’ll need to gather the required resources and lore the mission requires, and when you submit those, you’ll then distribute those resources to the Tobi Roppo board, which includes the six members of the Beast Pirates.
Just having them included is great, but what is really impressive is how they factor into the end of the game, as the number of completed members on that board will decide how long you have to defeat Kaido during the Onigashima raid at the end of the game.
Dawn of Liberation Delivers a Grand One Piece Adventure
The various abilities you have amongst all the characters feel unique, and you’ll need to communicate with the other players and work together to really bring out the synergistic qualities. There’s also no strict turn order, so teams can break down what will work best for any given situation and execute their plan. Each playable character also has their own set of goals, and once you complete these, you can then power them up by flipping their card over to give you better stats and abilities.
That doesn’t even factor in how to build up lore, the balance between utilizing samurai for defense and player goals, gathering allies and possibly smile fruit from the discover bag, and the fact that you can have characters end up being put in jail, and you will then have to free them to keep the momentum going in the right direction.
Granted, there’s a lot going on in this game, and it could prove to be a bit intimidating at first, but after a few turns, it really starts to coalesce into an experience that will absolutely delight franchise fans but will still remain captivating enough for those who just want to build their crew and throw some dice. One Piece: Dawn of Liberation has already managed to impress me, and I can’t wait to play more in the future.
One Piece: Dawn of Liberation is now live on Kickstarter.
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