One Piece Treasure Cruise is a repetitive yet incredibly engaging mobile game.



I was unaware of a One Piece mobile game existing and I’m not a fan of mobile games due to the whole microtransaction issues that most of them have. Typically there’s a point in all of the games where you need to pay to play and it becomes irritating because you enjoy it but you just can’t experience it fully. If not for the pay to play feature, it’s usually having to wait several hours for things to refill or upgrade before you can do anything else. Almost every mobile game to some extent that included micro transactions as a main part runs into this issue, and I was expecting the same with Treasure Cruise. Turns out I was wrong. I would like to shout out who I consider to be the best One Piece YouTuber JoyBoyTheories who actually got me intrigued in playing this game.



Treasure Cruise takes all of our beloved One Piece characters and gives us a sort of fighting game that’s based around timing and combos to defeat enemies. Each character has a certain timing set for their attack to be Perfect, Great, Good, or a Miss. it’s up to you to figure out when exactly the right timing is so that you can keep the combos consistent. Aside from the simple tapping of each character, there’s no real amount of skill involved like dodging or anything like that. I know some people may complain about that, but I actually enjoy my games being relatively simple like this one is. You also get special moves that become available after so many turns so of course you get to see some of the characters signature attacks.



There are a lot of things that this game does well and the simplicity of the fighting style is just a start. As I said before with microtransactions, this game does have them like most other games of this nature, but it doesn’t rely on them at all. One of the best parts of this game is getting to unlock all of your favorite characters which happens through the mystery box kind of reveal. You can unlock characters through gaining gems that you get while playing through the story. Of course you can also purchase gems if you’re not willing to play through and earn them. I think that the prices on buying gems is a little steep in comparison to some other games, but I believe this may be to push players to earn the gems the normal way. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get the characters you want, but they make it fairly easy to gain gems or to unlock characters through the mystery box.



They have tie ins with the movies like Stampede and when they showcase these recruit opportunities they also discount the amount that they cost to give you plenty of opportunity to unlock new characters. When a new showcase comes out, they also allow you a free chance at 11 new characters. Really that’ll why give you every opportunity to not have to pay to play and I really respect that they do that. The characters are what make this game because of my love of the series as a whole. I’m always excited to unlock new characters and while I don’t always get who I was hoping for, I do end up using characters that I never thought I would use and end up loving them as part of my crew.



You may be thinking that gems are the only way for you to unlock some of your classic characters but that’s not true. As you play through the story and finish certain arcs, you will unlock many of the characters without having to randomly receive them through the mystery box. Many of the staple characters are received through story alone which makes it that much more enticing to actually play through the story. The advantage of the mystery box is that you’ll have a chance of receiving characters that are further in the future of the story that you normally wouldn’t unlock for a very long time. Another interesting aspect of characters is that your crew consists of any five characters you want, but you can also add a guest character to join your crew, some of which are friends that you’ve added. The cool thing about this is that a lot of times you get a chance to play as some Sugo Rare characters that may take you a while to unlock like Whitebeard or Sabo. It gives you a chance to try them out and see what many of the other characters can do.



The story is really what makes this game so much fun to continue playing. I wasn’t sure if it was going to feel kind of empty with the story being very quick to complete but it’s not by any means. It would take you weeks and many hours to actually complete the whole story. It takes you through each arc with multiple battles per arc before you’re able to complete it. It lets you live through the story of One Piece through each arc, each event, and each character. As a longtime fan of One Piece, I appreciate the time put in to give us so much depth into this game and making everything available to play through without having to pay to play.



I only have two major downsides, one being the loading that the game goes through after each battle or before giving you the next pet in the story. As long as your connection is good, it doesn’t take long to load, but if your connection is iffy then it may take a while or not load at all. It only sucks because you have to have some kind of connection to continue playing. The second downside is that there are soooo many battles to go through to complete an arc. I enjoy it because it makes the game something that you can invest a lot of time into, but sometimes it gets so repetitive that you just wish you could skip to the important parts. It’s a minor downside, but one that may turn some people off from wanting to play it.



Overall, One Piece Treasure Cruise is a real treasure in its own right. Among all of the mobile games out there, it actually stands on its own as being one of the best in how it handles everything whether it be the characters, story, or use of microtransactions. There may be some other games out there that match up with this that I’m not aware of, but of all of the games I’ve played, this one seems to give you the most content and an enjoyable experience. It does tend to be repetitive but I’ve honestly not minded it all that much as I get to try out new characters have in my collection and to better my overall timing with their attacks. I haven’t completed the game at this point, but I’m very much enjoying it and enjoying experiencing the story again while also interacting by fighting all of the characters that our heroes do.



Of course this isn’t a game for everyone and will only appeal to those who are fans of One Piece, but it’s a game that I applaud for the creators taking so much time to develop. It’s also a game that I could see being adapted for many other Anime or Manga like Bleach or Naruto. It’s just a fun experience and if you’re a fan of One Piece or this even sounds slightly appealing to you then by all means give it a shot! I think you’ll enjoy it.



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