Reviewed: October 4, 2006
Reviewed by: Ken Hutchinson
Publisher
Namco Bandai
Developer
Hand
Released: September 12, 2006
Genre: Party
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Everyone
7
5
5
5
5.3
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Mario Party meets One Piece in One Piece: Pirates’ Carnival. However, like many other games that try to follow in the footsteps of someone else, Pirates’ Carnival comes up a little short. Maybe it’s due to all the other One Piece games that have been coming out, or maybe it’s just Namco Bandai’s lack of experience in party games. In any case, you can easily tell that One Piece: Pirates’ Carnival was made by an inexperienced developer for the party genre.
For now, One Piece: Pirates’ Carnival has the following features:
- Over 30 mini-games in the style of One Piece.
- Choose from 7 playable characters from Luffy’s Straw Hat Pirates, and encounter dozens more.
- Expand your crew and your pirate power: pick a block on the map, win the mini game, and conquer the block.
- Choose your mode: 2 game play modes to choose from: Board Game mode and Versus Games mode.
Pirates’ Carnival has two modes: Board Game and Versus. Board Game mode is what you’ll play to open up the mini games that will be available in Versus mode. Both modes just contain mini-games that you’ll play against 3 other players.
Board Game mode contains various boards that you can play on (only one board to start with). You basically want to control as many panels as possible on the board. You win a panel by winning mini-games or flipping over event panels. You can even steal panels from other players by trapping their panels between two of your own. Someone in first place can quickly drop to last after losing strategically gained panel.
Versus mode contains the same mini-games as Board Game mode, but there is no board. You can just go through and pick which mini-game you want to play and set it up as you’d like (assuming you’ve unlocked the mini-game).
In each mode, you can choose from 7 characters: Luffy, Nami, Zolo, Usopp, Sanji, Robin, or Chopper. Certain mini-games, called captain games, allow you to play as a special pirate, such as Don Krieg. In the captain games, if you’re the special pirate, the game will be you versus the other three.
So what about the mini-games themselves? Well, they are fairly simple and you can pick up on most of them fairly quickly. But the rules don’t exactly explain everything clearly. Some mini-games have little quirks that you’d avoid if you knew about them, but many small things you have to figure out on your own. For example, hiking up the mountain with the bears and chickens, I didn’t realize attacking the snowmen brought on an avalanche. It took a couple times before I drew the connection. If you don’t manage to make that connection early on, you can get pretty frustrated at times.
The one thing One Piece: Pirates’ Carnival needs to work on: number of games. Once you’ve played Mario Party, you come to expect a party game to have a large collection of mini-games.
The color scheme of the game follows the same styles set forth by nearly every other anime-based game out today: bright and vivid. Yet, it still somehow seems to skimp on being very lively. Maybe it’s the booblehead-looking characters. I don’t know why Namco/Bandai decided to do stick-figure players with gigantic heads, but I’d rather see regular One Piece people. They tease you with the opening video, and then that’s the last you see of anything remotely close to the actual One Piece characters.
The screen layout is decent and usually easy to understand. There were a few times though, when I’d lose track of where my guy was after I’d get hit in a game. Also, during the screen that explains a mini-game, there is a small controller icon that shows you the button layout. Well, when there are multiple lines going to a small picture of a controller with buttons that are even smaller, it would make sense to use the same-colored line to refer to a particular button. Don’t use a red line to show an action caused by the A button.
Namco/Bandai did an excellent job with the voices, which shouldn’t be a surprise seeing as how Bandai nearly always nails anime-based games right on the nose when it comes to voices. However, the music and some of the sound effects don’t run in the same boat as the voices. A lot of the music sounds like small clips, maybe around 30 seconds for some of the longer ones, just loop around, quickly getting repetitive.
Fortunately, Pirates’ Carnival is set at $29.99. For a party game, this isn’t much. Mario Party usually comes out at $49.99. However, you do get what you pay for. Your money won’t buy you as many mini-games or as much fun. The mini-games might not be enough to keep you and your friends interested a whole night. You can, however, pick it up and enjoy a game if you have time to kill.
A trial run that’s simply that: a trial run. It really isn’t a contender for the Mario Party series, but it hasn’t completely washed ashore. Hand has just gotten its feet wet. If they want to make a sequel, they have potential to do so. Pirates’ Carnival isn’t the buried treasure party-gamers have been looking for. It’s more like the fool’s gold of party games.