One Piece: Pirate Warriors Launches to Sea With Final Trailer/Screenshots, 5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

It is just another day on the Grand Line.

It can be rough out there for American One Piece fans. After all, despite being the worldwide best-selling manga series of all time (more than 260 million volumes had sold in the lifetime of the series by the end of 2011 in Japan alone; by way of comparison the best selling book series of all time, Harry Potter, has sold 450 million copies combined worldwide), One Piece has never achieved a similar level of success here in the US. Indeed for much of its publication in the States, it has often been overshadowed by fellow Shonen Jump manga Naruto and this extends into the medium of video games as well. Whereas the greater majority of Naruto games have managed to make their way stateside over the years, the same cannot be said for One Piece. The series has had any number of titles released in Japan and even Europe, only for a US localization for these games to fail to ever materialize. Indeed, Naruto even got a couple of well received US original titles for the Xbox 360 to add extra salt to the wound.

So it is understandable that whenever a One Piece game does manage to get a US release, fans get excited regardless of the actual quality of said game. Which is why anticipation for One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Dynasty Warriors creator Omega Force’s attempt to apply their classic formula to the world and characters of One Piece, is so high among said fans. Yet here is the thing: OP:PW has been legitimately well received by critics (master of the Japanese gaming scene Famistu, for example, gave the game a score of 36 out of 40) and consumers alike (the game sold 655,774 copies in its first week alone) and has been hailed as a game that even non-fans of the series can enjoy. So for once US fans might just have a reason to be legitmately excited for a OP game. Tomorrow US audiences, fans and otherwise, will finally have a chance to find out for themselves but first there is one last batch of screenshots and a launch trailer for the game to deal with. Check them out below:

One Piece: Pirate Warriors is out in Europe and the UK as a full retail release for PS3. It arrives tomorrow in the US exclusively via PSN. Stay tuned to Blistered Thumbs for our official review of the game and be sure to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.