One Piece is getting a JRPG adaptation set to release sometime this year.
Titled One Piece Odyssey—what is it about the word "odyssey" that game developers love so much?—the game will plonk Luffy and his fellow Straw Hats on "a mysterious island full of nature" after a storm sweeps the crew up and separates them. It'll feature nine playable characters total: Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Frankie, and Brook.
The music is being whipped up by Motoi Sakuraba, who's produced some bangers for the Dark Souls games as well as the Tales series.
Producer Katsuaki Tsuzuki said he thought the idea of bringing One Piece's sense of adventure into a role-playing game would be interesting, with the past few years being spent "with a development team who held know-hows of creating a full-blown RPG." One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda has also been involved with the designing of the game's characters and monsters.
According to a note from Oda seen at the beginning of the trailer, he designed the characters for the game around three years ago. The note continued: "When I actually saw the game... wow! It feels like I was watching a movie! What incredible immersion!"
There are no details on how the game will play just yet, though from gleaning the trailer it looks like each character will have a unique special move they can execute. No word on how the combat will play out, though I'm expecting a battle system similar to the ones used in other Bandai Namco games like the Tales series and Ni No Kuni. There's some open-world traversal happening in the trailer, like Luffy scaling some vines, so hopefully exploration will be playing a substantial role, too.
While specifics are awfully light, Tsuzuki promises "to share more about this title's attractive points in the future."
