Released in early 1999, the WonderSwan was a bit of a latecomer to the handheld party. Despite arriving half a year after the GameBoy Color, the original WonderSwan featured a black-and-white display with eight shades of gray— twice as many as the original GameBoy— and offered a slightly wider display, albeit with the same vertical resolution. Bandai hoped to capture a segment of the handheld market for themselves, and while the WonderSwan was far from perfect, it had some potential. The Japan-exclusive handheld managed to go head-to-head with Nintendo’s offerings for several years before support was dropped entirely. But in those few years, Bandai managed to develop and published six One Piece games for the WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color.

One Piece: Aim to be the Pirate King was the first game for the WonderSwan, and it’s also the first One Piece game ever published. Unlike many One Piece games, this one isn’t a brawler or adventure title. Instead, it’s something of a strategy game with very light RPG elements. However, it is like many early One Piece games in that the story is basically a retelling of the early arcs of the series, right down to recreated scenes from the manga.

When starting the game, you select a mode to play, represented by members of the crew, and in the main story mode you can select a boss to fight. All of the characters are from the East Blue Saga except El Drago, a tie-in to the first One Piece film which was released the same year. The roster is very comprehensive, covering every major character introduced in the manga at the time. Each member of the Straw Hats has their own stats, but only Luffy is playable when you first start. There are only three stats: Attack, Defense, and Speed, plus an assigned Type. You can unlock more characters by playing the campaign, and you’ll acquire them around the same time they appear in the story as a reward at the end of a level.

Most of the game is played via tile grids. Luffy’s mode, which is the campaign, begins by selecting a character (chosen from a list) and an enemy, of which there are eight. Everyone from Alvida through Smoker, plus the aforementioned El Drago, are represented here. Each has their own map to play on. The goal is to build a route to their island. The game is turn-based, and you open by selecting a card. Each card has a tile type and number on it. You select from one of five cards, and then that card is added to your hand, which also consists of five cards. The number represent how many moves, or “hops,” you can take in that turn. Each dot represent a hop, and will deduct one point from your movement meter. Furthermore, cards come in two varieties: standard, which are white, and reinforced, which are fixed and cannot be replaced. It’s fairly easy to break the AI of other ships with these cards, and they come in handy during battles, but you can also lock yourself into a corner if you’re not careful.

The game’s campaign consists of a series of semi-scripted events. Some of the earliest challenges include fighting a Sea King, doing a couple rounds of battle with Alvida’s crew, and racing Helmeppo to an island where Zoro is kept. You actually have to be a bit careful, since careless tile placement early on can hinder you in a future situation. After certain events, characters will have some dialogue with each other, and the next challenge will be presented, usually in the form of a new island popping up on the screen. Once you beat the final boss of a map, you’ll be rewarded with prizes, usually a new character, and the next campaign map will unlock. New concepts are trickled in, like landmasses you need to navigate around, or islands with multiple entrances & exits.

When combat begins, you’ll be prompted to turn your handheld to the side; The WonderSwan was designed to allow play in either orientation, and the extra button pad on the left side sees most of its use in portrait mode. Like the Movement Phase, the Combat Phase uses cards. Both sides begin play with a ship and a route along the top and bottom of the grid. There are three cells, along the middle of the grid, that you can place cards in and assign characters to. Each round, you will select up to three cards to play. The shape and rotation determines the route, and the number determines whether your card can replace the current tile; a sum of the card numbers will determine Initiative for the round, encouraging you to play cards you don’t need so you can move first. To determine what route you want your characters to follow, place that card under their portrait in the selection screen. Characters will follow the route, and if they come upon the enemy ship, they will deal some damage. Once you understand the basics, combat boils down to playing your best cards to ensure you have a route while trying to guess which way the enemy will move so you can block their route. Early on, you can just spend high-point cards to always determine what the grid looks like, but later enemies will have stronger cards, at which point Initiative plays an increasingly important role.

Strategy in the game lacks a bit on depth. There are a few strategies that will work most of the time, and they don’t require much thought. The cards system is consistent, though, and you can expect cards of certain shapes to perform well where they do, and cards of a higher number to be better than ones of a lower number. Moving around the campaign map requires a little forethought to avoid boxing yourself in or wasting movement points. Combat has a bit more to it, but when your hand is mostly decided by luck, you’re going to spend a lot of time learning what tricks enemies will throw at you and then preparing to counter them during the next attempt. If you lose, you’re given a Game Over screen and tossed back to the menu. Once you play through for a second, third, or fourth time, it becomes clear how much of the game is scripted. Enemy hands are often pre-determined, with the rotation being random. Some bosses will throw special attacks at you, encouraging you to spend extra cards to avoid being killed in one shot. The basic ruleset has some potential to it, even if it’s a bit clunky, but the AI leaves a lot to be desired and doesn’t make a very compelling opponent. Most of the game ends up being memorization of where certain cards are useful and then attempting to acquire and save said card for the right moment. Thankfully, the card drawing system seems designed with this in mind.

The game also features three multiplayer modes. WonderSwans can connect to each other via the headphone jack, but Aim to be the Pirate King only uses this to important data from another cartridge. Sanji’s mode lets you build a series of characters with a Point-Buy system that will battle it out with either a friend’s roster or a CPU opponent’s. Everything beyond your stats is entirely random; once the battle starts, it keeps going until one person loses their entire roster. It’s simplistic and it plays itself, so it’s not particularly interesting except to play with stats.

Zoro’s mode supports up to four players, and is meant to be used in conjunction with the Carddass Hyper Battle card game. This was a series of cards produced in Japan from 1998-2001, around the same time the WonderSwan was produced and One Piece was gaining in popularity. The “Hyper Battle” mode allows you to select a series of cards, gained from playing the Campaign, up to three times each. A roulette wheel will spin to select a card, and then it will choose between Luffy or Buggy. Each player takes a turn using their “Wonder Wind” ability (using the WonderSwan) and then it randomly chooses which player is affected by the card (represented by Luffy for the current player or Buggy for the opponent). The next player may then take their turn. It adds an additional element of luck to the card game, but is useless on its own.

Nami’s game mode is probably the best of them all. It’s a competitive mode for up to four players. You will select a map and then race to various checkpoints. Gameplay is functionally similar to the Campaign mode, where you lay down tiles, except here you can sabotage other players by replacing their tiles or laying down trap cards that are now in the deck. Only local play is supported, meaning you need to pass the WonderSwan back and forth. It has a sense of humor about this, and characters will tease you about sneaking peeks during someone else’s turn. Passing around a handheld can be a very social experience, and when combined with the good sense of humor and easy-to-learn gameplay, you have a fun distraction for you and a couple friends.

Overall, the game’s interface is clear and presents most of the information you’ll need. You can see at a glance what turn it is and how many movement points remain. Combat is a little less clear, because your enemy’s stats are upside down, including their remaining health. Menu navigation is somewhat clunky. Using characters to represent modes and levels is confusing, especially if you can’t read Japanese. Some critical information— notably including character statistics in the campaign— are hidden within a submenu. Menus aren’t very deep, but you still spend quite a bit of time in the game digging through them to make selections.

The artwork is ripped straight from the manga. This works well on a colorless system, but I can’t help but feel disappointed there’s no original art here outside of the UI. Despite that, Oda’s art shines through. Eight shades of gray is more than enough to smooth out the line work, and while the resolution leaves something to be desired, the art style hasn’t suffered as a result.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the music. The score is entirely original. No adaptations from the soundtrack, here. There’s only a handful of tracks, but a couple of them dominate: the map theme, and the combat theme. Neither of them are very long, clocking in at well under a minute, and the shrill chirps of the WonderSwan’s sound chip don’t make them very enjoyable. After playing for some time, the sound really begins to grate, and I found my patience wearing thin. Some of the slower tracks, like on the Start screen, were better. This isn’t the kind of soundtrack you’ll want to listen to outside of the game.

As a One Piece game, Aim to be the Pirate King gets a lot right. The art is appropriate, and has some variety to it. You spend part of the game navigating miniature oceans, and traveling from isle to isle. It was up-to-date on content at the time, and covers the East Blue Saga with some attention to the details. It’s simple enough to pick up quickly, and the core concepts are reused throughout the game. The spirit of the series is captured in the gameplay, though the mood is somewhat deflated by the soundtrack. It gets a lot right for a first stab at a One Piece game.

The game works really well as a portable title. The gameplay is segmented into chunks that don’t take too long to play. Basic concepts are simple to grasp, but you can create some advanced strategies with them. Replaying levels is still fun, and unlocking new characters lets you try different strategies. There’s not a whole lot to it, but it’s the sort of thing that will hold your attention on a long trip or during some downtime. It’s meant to be played on-the-go, and it excels when played in short bursts. There’s enough variety to remain entertaining even as the card system begins to wear thin. If you own a WonderSwan, and you’re a One Piece fan, this game belongs in your collection.