Video Game / One Piece: Unlimited World Red

One Piece: Unlimited World Red is a 2014 video game based on the manga/anime franchise One Piece, third in a series (Unlimited Adventure and Unlimited Cruise being its predecessors), set after the two year Time Skip, and features an original story with characters developed by series creator Eiichiro Oda. Back when Blackbeard broke out those really dangerous criminals during the War of the Best two years prior, one particularly scary individual managed to slip out: Patrick Redfield, otherwise known as "Red the Aloof," a pirate who was on par with the likes of Pirate King Gold Roger and Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate, though he admittedly left less of a mark on history than either of them. His rep is well founded, as he's seen taking out a full platoon of Marines, seemingly with the aid of Vice-Admiral Smoker and Admiral Aokiji. So, of course, with a major threat out there on the seas, the Straw Hat pirate crew are drawn into conflict with him. Not that they realize it at first. Their adventure begins when they accidentally fish out an odd raccoon creature from the ocean and agree to take him home...

The game is a fairly standard action/adventure game where you take Luffy and his crew on an adventure through many areas and against many foes taken from major arcs in the series storyline (with an in-game justification of these areas and characters being copies created by Redfield himself). Each level has the player take a team of three Straw Hat Pirates, each with their own battle style, through an area crawling with marines, angry wildlife, and other pirates, all the while gaining experience points and leveling up, until they face a boss character at the end, each one being a major Arc Villain from the franchise. Along the way they will pick up various materials and pieces of junk which can be used to expand the services provided in the games Hub Level town, or power up the Straw Hats themselves, which is a staple of the One Piece: Unlimited games.

Also comes with an Arena Mode, which is notable for being loosely based on the show's then current Tournament Arc, with longtime villain Doflamingo as the final boss.

It was released in America on July 2014, on the Nintendo 3DS, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, and Nintendo Wii U (both download only, but the Vita version's Physical copy is exclusive to GameStop). In 2017, an updated Deluxe edition, with all DLC included, has been released for the Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.

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Examples

• Arc Villain: Many of the bosses were these in the show, though they serve more as a Monster of the Week in the game. Justified as they're illusions taken from the crew's memories.
• Badass Creed: The 'Strong Voice' system in a nutshell.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: Saying who they are and when they appear would really spoil the fun, but there are a few cases, which almost straddle the line of Giant Space Flea from Nowhere, except for the whole creations-of-Redfield thing.
  • For example, Blackbeard pops up in Drum Island as the main boss, Wapol being a mini-boss. As stated within the cutscene, this makes sense, as Blackbeard was the one who drove Wapol off originally.
• Big Bad: Redfield for the main game, Doflamingo for the Arena.
• Big Brother Instinct: Ace for Luffy, as usual, despite being a memory-induced clone.
• Bloody Murder: Implicit. After eating the Bat-Bat Model Type: Vampire, Redfield gains a Flash Step ability in which he dissolves into and reforms from swirling curves of crimson, which are implied to be him dissolving into blood and then reforming himself elsewhere at super speed, similar to a Logia. A similarly "wet"-looking crimson Battle Aura also accompanies many of his attacks, implying he can manipulate blood to augment his attacks. Even his smoke screen attack is implied to be him flooding the arena with a mist of aerosolized blood particles.
• Bookend: The first fight and the final boss take place at the Transtown City Circle near the docks.
  • Likewise, both the first and last adventure area (Punk Hazard and Marineford) have the Hailfire Peaks theme.
• Boss Rush: For all purposes, the story section of Marineford. You first fight Jinbe only a few steps into the level, then a few scattered Mooks, then you halfway fight Kizaru, then switch over to playing as Ace to fight Aokiji, finally you take control of Luffy and work alongside Ace to take down Akainu. Most of the level is blocked off and forces you down the straight path.
  • A word-for-word option in the arena. Five boss battles back-to-back! (Actually, five fights. You could end up fighting more than five bosses).
  • To say nothing of the Marineford War Quest, the last quest in the game and one that can only be unlocked after you having completed every single quest on the "Four Emperors" level. Technically, your only task is to defeat Akainu — the hard part is actually getting to him, as you start at the initial iceberg and have to make your way into the main battlefield. First you have to defeat Ace, Jinbe, and Whitebeard, then some scattered mooks, then Hancock and Mihawk, then transverse the ice battlefield and avoid the meteors, then beat and/or dodge Pacifista, then (if you're a glutton for punishment, desperate for experience, and/or a bit dim and decide to go to other two boss sites on the map) defeat Shanks and/or Buggy. Then, at the center boss site, you have to face Kizaru and Aokiji before you finally get a shot at Akainu. It is easily the hardest quest in the game — there's a reason why you can't do it until you've beaten practically every other quest on the list.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: In-game example of this as you could very well get the materials needed to upgrade the town, your gear, and your characters through travelling to previous levels to collect them from enemies or the breakables therein, or you could just purchase them from shops that even have materials that can't be found until the later levels of the game.
• Butt-Monkey: Caesar Clown. Luffy smacks him around before the fight proper, during the fight Smiley throws him off leaving Caesar open, and after the fight he tries to bargain with the knowledge of Zoro and Franky's locations...right before Pato finds the two himself. Luffy then promptly sends Caesar on his way.
  • Buggy, like always. His introductory scene in the arena has him blowing himself up with his own bomb, and his special can be stopped by attacking him. When being controlled however, his special can't be interrupted. He's even easier to beat when controlling Luffy and/or Chopper, as they can deflect his Muggy Balls, causing massive damage — deflecting them back twice can even defeat him, so if you want to avoid getting hurt too badly or wasting SP, all you have to do is play the waiting game.
  • Caribou is in the game as an enemy, but he's stuck in a barrel and can't even be considered a boss with how little danger he poses.
• Combination Attack: A generic one, but as long as you have two-man team, you can wipe out all the enemies at once!
• Compressed Adaptation: Not the main story, but Coliseum Mode arguably is this, since it combines the Tournament Arc from the first half of the manga's Dressrosa arc with other important things that happened during that story outside of the tournament in the manga.^note  It should be noted the arc was still ongoing when this game was made. The most prominent examples are:
  • Fujitora confronts Law and Luffy about their alliance together in the Coliseum, and Law's declaration that he and Luffy are equal partners (the dialogue of which was taken straight from the manga) happens right there, causing Fujitora to attack both of them. In the manga, Law didn't even participate in the Coliseum battle at all, and while Luffy was taking part in it, Fujitora confronted Law and Doflamingo in a completely different location, with Law's declaration sparking a three-way battle between them.
  • Also, Luffy's and Law's final battle with Doflamingo here happens as the final boss fight of the Coliseum, since the premise of the tournament was that the winning team would get the chance to battle him as their final fight. In the manga, Luffy and Law do tag-team battle Doflamingo (and one of his Co-Dragons) for part of the fight, but not in the Coliseum; there, another of Doflamingo's Co-Dragons, Diamante, is the final boss of the tournament, and not even Luffy fights him, since Luffy switched places with Sabo for the final round of the tournament so he could go save Law from Doflamingo. Their confrontation with him happens well after the tournament has already concluded.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Inevitably going to happen in this game considering how Pato's Devil Fruit powers work. In the main story mode, Red makes individual clones of different characters to serve as boss fights for the Straw Hats and they took effort to defeat. In the final battle, Red creates clones of all the Straw Hats, Hody Jones, a Fire Dragon from Punk Hazard, and seven Logia-type Devil Fruit users. It's a 2 to 1 battle, but the Straw Hats defeat them all with ease. It's especially jarring with the Logia users as most of the Straw Hats besides the Monster Trio don't possess Haki, so it would've been impossible for them to defeat said Logia users without their elemental weakness.
• Dodge the Bullet: Press the button at the right time and your character will get out of the bullet's path. Or reflect it, it depends on which character.
• Fishing Minigame: Staple of the series. You can upgrade the fishing pole in town at the factory. Which you need to: the mini game is timed and if the pole isn't strong enough, you won't be able to win.
• Flunky Boss: When encountered during the story Hody Jones and Wapol are fought amidst a large swarm of respawning mooks. The former even uses them as human (or fishman, if you want to get technical about it) shields as part of one of his attacks.
  • The Battle Royal fights in the arena may generate two bosses together, or one boss and several mooks.
  • When facing Buggy in quests and/or the main storyline (on the difficult mode), he tends to be surrounded by mooks. He otherwise subverts it in the arena.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In Coliseum Mode, for anything except Special Matches, including boss fights, you can use whichever unlocked characters you want in the fights, and depending on what kind of match you choose, you may only be using one fighter instead of two. However, within the story of Coliseum mode (which is a Compressed Adaptation of the Dressrosa arc and its Tournament Arc within), you are canonically fighting through it as a two-man team of Luffy and Law, while the other eight Straw Hats participate as well on their own teams separate from Luffy/Law. This is reflected through conversations between the characters, as well as the cutscenes before, during, and after the boss fights. It can get pretty jarring to see Law and Luffy preparing to fight the bosses...and then jump into the actual fight using two completely different characters. And then win with those characters, and jump back to another cutscene or conversation of Luffy and Law celebrating "their" victory. The most egregious example is one Special Match where you fight as Chopper against Law...but winning this fight still increases your rank meter, which has Luffy's and Law's faces next to it, counting as a victory for them.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The Coliseum doesn't seem too difficult at first: You just have to rank up through C League, fight a boss to reach B League, do the same through B to reach A League, and the final boss of A is Doflamingo. How hard could it be? But then you reach Fujitora, the boss of the B League. Once you get his health down to 50%, your part in the fight ends and he becomes a Cutscene Boss...who defeats Luffy and Law thanks to Doflamingo cheating from the sidelines. Doflamingo then punishes them (and thus, you) by making them start all over from the beginning, thus requiring you to repeat C and B Leagues (with different bosses each time). You do get a rematch against him once you reach the top of the A League, which plays out this time like a normal fight.
• Hub Level: Trans Town, the sleepy, friendly town the Strawhats first land on. Expanding the town is a major part of the game.
• It's Personal: For much of the game the Straw Hats are chasing after Redfield because, well, that's what they do. Then come Chapters 7 and 8, which dredge up a number of very painful memories and rubs them in Luffy's face. Then it becomes very personal for Luffy, and a lot of players as well.
• Lazy Artist: A subtle downplayed example, but, the previous Unlimited games were known for their new, often elaborate takes on the main characters' outfits. This game just sticks them with their basic post-time skip looks.
  • There's DLC which gives you different costumes, which includes brand new outfits for the 15th anniversary of the show.
• Lethal Joke Character: Buggy's sluggish attacks and low endurance would make him a regular Joke Character if not for him having an Item Word that grants him (and any partners that are with him) unlimited SP for a very short time. This can potentially allow him to perform three super moves (which do not by themselves, have high damage output or range) or two Combination Attack moves (which are devastating no matter who is in the party) right at the start of a battle. The only character in the game with a similar Item Word is Donquixote Doflamingo, the big boss of the Battle Coliseum, and Luffy himself, though the unlimited SP applies only to him and the Item Word itself is only earned after completing the hardest quest in the game.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Hey, remember when Usopp burnt the World Government flag in Enies Lobby? Good times. You can do it again for a achievement!
  • Many of the strong words are actual quotes from the characters.
• One-Winged Angel: God Enel doesn't waste any time in his normal mode, and goes right into "Giant Thunder God" mode. Same thing with Lucci and his leopard form. And, of course, Red.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The dragon encountered early in the main story's Punk Hazard arc serves as the first boss (in the recreation of Punk Hazard, no less) but side missions will also send you out after ice and lightning variants.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Courtesy a Devil Fruit, naturally. The Bat-Bat Fruit, Model Type: Vampire is a Mythic Zoan variant of the Bat-Bat Fruit. Eating it grants Redfield the power to steal the youth from others to rejuvenate himself, and some implied blood-manipulating powers. After transforming, and we're never told if this is is Redfield's "Hybrid" or "Beast" form, Redfield gains bat-like ears, a mouth full of fangs, fur on his head forming a cowl-like shape similar to the mask Batman wears, and elongated, furry arms with patagia and clawed fingers.
• Remember the New Guy?: Sort of. At the end of the story, Brook remembers a few things about Redfield from his early days.
• Running Gag: The gag of Chopper getting confused with a tanuki comes into play here, with some added hilarity over the fact that there's an actual tanuki involved in the story.
• Skewed Priorities: Luffy is supposed to be saving his crew, but after the dragon disappears, he becomes more concerned with whom stole his dragon meat. Caesar Clown even points this out...right after Luffy has socked him and right before Luffy uppercuts him.
• Story-Breaker Power: Pato's Inu Inu no Mi, Model: Bake-danuki is this. It allows Pato to create virtually anything as long as he has access to leaves. He can create inanimate objects, animals, people, and environments for any given situation. All clones created will be utterly loyal to the user despite the original person's personality and loyalties not aligning with the user. Clones who are from people with Devil Fruit powers will have them upon creation, which gives the user a huge advantage as they can create numerous amounts of servants when he needs a certain ability. Lastly, there's no limitations to how many clones Pato can summon. As long as there are leaves, he can make any amount of clones he wants. The only weakness with this Devil Fruit is that the clones created aren't as powerful as the originals, but this weakness feels more for obligatory gameplay and plot reasons than an natural weakness.
• Team Power Walk: Luffy and Law do one in Coliseum Mode once they reach the final boss fight.
• Thirsty Desert: Alabasta, natch. Being in the desert section has a permanent SP drain active, but in exchange you have wells that allows for unlimited SP filling.
• True Companions: Unsurprisingly for a One Piece game, the concept is a major theme of the story.
• Video Game Dashing: Several variants are spread throughout the characters move sets.
• Video Game Stealing: One of Nami's skills, she can steal materials or money from mooks that have been knocked down.
• Villainous Valor: After Luffy impresses Redfield with his conviction that stealing youth from others is disrespectful to one's own dreams, even allowing Redfield to steal his own youth and fighting on despite being seemingly overwhelmed, Redfield restores the youth he stole and vows to achieve his dreams without his new Devil Fruit's rejuvenating powers, even taking on Luffy in his aged state.