For fans of the series, One Piece: Grand Adventure is probably already a sell and those people will need little reason to plunk down their money when the game is released. But what about everyone else? Why should anyone else care but those diehards? It turns out, beyond appealing to just the fans, One Piece: Grand Adventure brings quite a few tricks to the party, and there looks to be just as much there for the uninitiated as there is for the followers.

One Piece: Grand Adventure takes a lot of different game style elements and merges them together into one tasty concoction. Part party game, part fighter, and part action adventure, One Piece: Grand Adventure (OPGA from here on out) tells the story of Luffy as he sets out to be a pirate and discover the hidden treasure of One Piece. Along the way, Luffy will run across some friends, some foes, and then some foes who end up becoming friends. If you are familiar to the series then the story of the Adventure Mode will make you feel right at home, but for those who've never read one of the manga volumes or seen an episode of the series, the story of the game is told up to and beyond the anime that is currently airing in the US, and though it doesn't reveal all the key details (you'll want to experience those through the manga/anime after you fall in love with the game) it does tell the main story of One Piece from the beginning, so you shouldn't be confused or lost in the slightest. Told through a variety of cutscenes, the game also includes actual lines of dialogue recorded specifically by the actors who portray the characters in the anime series.

The main draw with OPGA is the Adventure Mode – an all-new mode to the series – which tales the main story of One Piece and a whole series of possible "what ifs" and side story scenarios. First off, you'll complete Luffy's story, which is that of the main manga/anime. After completing this first Adventure, four more await you, and with each new one more and more of the story will fill out, showing you what might have happened or what did happen on the side while Luffy was completing his story. As you traverse the game world/board, you'll complete 'main quest' battles, but you'll also have the opportunity to take on side quests as well, which can lead to such unlockable bonuses as new support characters.

And though the fighting system is setup to be very user friendly (a bit more on that in a little), don't go thinking that OPGA will be a cakewalk you complete in a matter of minutes. Going through Luffy's Adventure alone will take you approximately 6-8 hours, which is the current length of most games nowadays it seems. Throw onto that number the other four Adventures and you're looking at a game that could take you 40-50 hours to complete once everything is said and done. The thing about OPGA's Adventure Mode is that the difficulty gradually creeps up as you complete one after the other, so while Luffy's might present an adequate challenge, don't go thinking the final one will be just as easy; early reports indicate that the first battle of the last Adventure alone (the first battle mind you!) can be extremely difficult and you'll need fairly high character levels to even put a dent into this final Adventure.

What's that? Character levels? Is this a RPG or a fighting game? Actually, OPGA is kind of both. As you play through the OPGA Adventure Mode, you'll amount experience points from completing battles, and after your character amounts enough EXP, they'll advance up a level just like in an old fashioned role playing game. After going up a level, you'll then be rewarded a point that you can distribute to your character, such as upping their attack, increasing their defense, etc. By allowing players to customize their experience, the game really rewards those commitments by ensuring that players are allowed to play the game how they want it. But beyond leveling up characters to help complete the Adventure Mode, OPGA has one more cool feature up its sleeve.

The key to any good fighter is how it plays when it is you going up against your buddy. OPGA looks to raise the stakes by allowing players to truly customize their characters to fit their style and for them to showoff their hard work by actually rewarding them with better characters. Say, for example, you and your buddy both love Luffy, but one of you wants to focus on offensive upgrades and the other defensive – you could both have Level 10 Luffy's on your hand, but the fact you chose to focus on different aspects of the character means that you'll both experience different fights that correspond to how you chose to upgrade. Beyond simply taking a memory card to your buddy, the cross platform ability of the game (characters are given passwords) allows you to train your Luffy while playing the Gamecube version of the game, and should you go over to your friend who has the PS2 version of the game, you can input your password and BAM…there is your hard earned character on the other system. You can also email your passwords to your buddies, so they can load that character data into their game, and then they can experience how you are training your characters. It is a very, very cool idea and feature.

As already said, the game is very user friendly, featuring easy to input commands. The free roaming game style was chosen so that the developers could properly display the styles and personalities of the One Piece characters, whose larger than life characteristics make them perfect for this free roaming world; plus, with the support characters helping you during the battles and an interactable environment, OPGA just couldn't have been done justice had it gone for the more Street Fighter/left to right/2D fighting experience. As you pull off various moves, a power meter will continue to go up, and this special system can be unleashed to pull off several different maneuvers: Level 1) catch your opponent off guard, 2) stop opponent from blocking, 3) the benefits of both previous levels, plus faster speed.

If you're a One Piece fan, you're probably drooling in anticipation now after hearing about all the features new to you (oh, did I forget to mention there are eight new playable characters as well?), and for those who have never read a page of the manga or seen a minute of the anime, I hope you can see how much you have to be excited about as well, because while the game does go after the fans, making sure to please them, it also knows that there is an interesting game there for the casual player who may not know the source material, and there is just as much there for them as those diehards who can sing the One Piece theme song in their sleep.