The Angry Video Game Nerd Ain't 4Kids!
"Alright, I'm doing things a little differently this time around. Before I actually get to review any shitty games, I have to explain the concept of the show the games are based off! And really, I shouldn't subject myself to do these kinds of goddamn things, because I heard that there's an informative source you can find on the Internet, so really, what's the point?
Anyway, the show the games I'm about to review are based off is called One Piece, a Japanese cartoon, or anime as it's called over there, based around a bunch of pirates. You know, I find that to be a little sketchy; pirates had next to no business in Japan, so why make a show about something they've probably never heard off?! But, that's beside the point.
The main character is called Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year old boy who eats a mystical fruit which gives him rubber powers, at the cost of his swimming abilities. He is hell-bent on becoming the next Pirate King and finding the former King's treasure, called One Piece. Since when did pirates have kings, anyway? That's like there being a Ninja Emperor, or a Zombie President!
His pirate crew is one of the most randomly put-together characters into one crew. There's a green-haired swordsman who fights with three swords, some annoying bitch who's the navigator, a cowardly dick-face (almost literally) who fights with toys like slingshots, some perverted chef with only one visible eye, a human racoon which is also a doctor, one of the only hot archaeologists in the world, a cola-driven cyborg and a skeleton with an afro. Man, is the author high or something when he figures out new crewmembers?!
So, yeah, unless you're a fan of the show, you're going to get pretty damn confused when you try to follow this shit, and to be honest, I only got into the show to understand what the hell the games were about! But, to be fair, even with its confusing moments, One Piece is a damn good show, and if you haven't seen it, then go check it out. It's a perfect way to teach moral lessons to kids without having to bother explaining a lot to them, and it's pretty entertaining too.
However, I'm the Angry Fucking Video Game Nerd, not the Modestly Irritated Otaku, so let's cut to the chase: The games. Now, most games based off One Piece are only released in Japan, so it's pretty damn hard to get anything without having to import anything, and also, I'd have to modify my consoles so they can take the Japanese format. However, a small number of games have actually made it to the States, so I managed to get my hands on some. So, let's start out with One Piece for the GBA."
The Nerd looked at the box with the game it, before he inserted the game into his black DS Lite. "Alright, so the game has you playing solely as Luffy, who you control through six of the story's arcs, all taking place in the East Blue, the place where Luffy lived for most of his life. Each arc has three stages you have to fulfil, two stages where you just have to get to the end, and one main boss stage, where you battle the main antagonist of that arc. It's basically an adventure game with a few beat-em-up elements added to it, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES. That's a good sign.
Now, first of all, why isn't there any music from the actual show in this game? I know that the music in the Japanese version differs from the music in the States, but the music in this game doesn't sound anything like any of them! It's just some stereotypical tropical music set to Luffy wading through a pirate ship, beating the shit out of goons! That's fitting, right?!
Anyway, you might want to know the basic controls. Well, they're okay: A jumps and B is the basic attack button. You can tap it rapidly to do a machinegun-like barrage of punches, or hold it in conjunction with the D-pad to do special combos. Now, let's discuss the special moves: Pressing the A and B buttons at the same time allows Luffy to do one of his more powerful moves, Gum Gum Bazooka. If you press up on the D-pad while pressing the buttons, he uses a different move called Gum Gum Axe. The R button let's Luffy shoot his hand forward, and if he catches any pole of some kind, he'll grab on.
Now, one of the major complaints I have about this game is this: THE GODDAMN ENEMIES RE-SPAWN EVERY FUCKING TIME YOU EXIT THE SCREEN! Now, unlike some games where enemies drop health or ammunition that your character can use, these don't drop jack shit! So what's the point of having the enemies re-spawn if all they do is contribute to your final score?! And if you get the items, leave the screen and re-enter it, they don't come back! Only the useless items come back, like the bomb! Why do I need a bomb when I'm in desperate need of energy?! At least in TMNT for the NES, when you grab a pizza, leave the area and re-enter it, the pizza returns for you to eat! I should've probably mentioned that in my review of it…
Now, I should have mentioned this earlier, but every time you complete a stage, the game counts have many enemies you killed, and then it gives you a sum of cash to be added to your pirate bounty based on how many bad guys you killed of each kind. Now I know that this helps you get some special moves, but later on, you get nothing for having like, three hundred million berries, which apparently is the currency they use in this show. So, honestly, what's the point of enemy re-spawning?!"
At that moment, when the Nerd was trying to jump on a ledge, he was shot down; losing the little energy he had left, costing him a life. "Fuck! I lost a life!" Later, on that same screen, he actually found a box containing some health. "Oh, thanks a lot. THANKS A FUCKING LOT! This game has some of the worst lay-outs in gaming history! There's spike traps where you least expect it, and enemies just come running at you when you're cancelling an attack!
Now, before I move on, I'd like to introduce your partners. Yeah, you can call upon aid from Moss-head, Whiny Bitch, Dick-Face and Chef-Fucker. I'm just going to call them that for this game, because I don't feel like using their original names, those being Zoro, Nami, Usopp and Sanji. To use your comrades, you use the L button to switch between crewmembers. But, instead of actually controlling them, you simply switch out special moves! What kind of fucking sense does that make?! What if I actually wanted to cut someone to pieces with three swords?! I don't just want to watch that happen, I want to DO that!
Anyway, Moss-head's attacks are Demon Strike, where he chops his enemies to pieces with an X-slash, and Dragon Coil, where he creates a small tornado by whirling his swords around, which makes him the ideal powerhouse. Whiny Bitch can either steal shit from your enemies, or bring down a bolt of lightning, which hits every enemy in the area. Not bad, but not good either. Now Dick-Face brings the shitty-ness to a whole new level of suckage! All he does is shooting eggs and explosives at his enemies, but that doesn't help me squat! Now Chef-Fucker is by far the most useful of the lot, not because of his kicking combo, but because of his deliverance of a chicken which replenishes all of your life!
So, let's talk about the bosses. The only thing unique about most of them is their design. There's this fat, ugly broad who does nothing but swing her mace around like a retard, this gay guy who makes a bunch of goons fight for him before you actually kick his ass, some rabbit-man who controls a lion, a hypnotist who can't help being hypnotized by himself and a whole bunch of random characters.
Now, we'll mainly discuss the main bosses, because they are the most interesting. There's a man with an axe in place of his right hand, earning him the nickname of Axe-Hand Morgan. Most of the time, he's invincible, so you have to wait until he's attacked you. Only then can you actually strike him. It doesn't make any logical fucking sense. There's another guy called Buggy the Clown, some weird clown who can split himself into pieces at will. He totally beats the shit out of Pennywise and that clown from Poltergeist in scary fucking clowns. It's literally impossible to hit the guy without waiting for him to attack, and even then, you have to attack his face to make sure you hit the guy! That means that you can only use the flying kick, which is one of the weakest attacks in the whole fucking game! Why make this guy so damn cheesy?!
There's also this butler guy called Kuro, who got these gloves with five incredibly long swords on each one. That being said, this guy has no idea on how to fuckin' walk! Probably because he teleports via his super-speed, but isn't it a pain in the ass to be limited to teleportation instead of just walking?! Poor guy, I kinda feel sorry for thrashing him. Anyway, next up is Pirate Admiral Don Krieg, the biggest coward this side of Dick-Face. He makes you walk through a hazardous environment while he shoots bombs and shit at you, until you finally reach him, so you can kick his ass for forcing you to go through all that shit!
Now, next up is a Fishman. Yeah, we're talking about Fishmen. His name is Arlong, and he's pissed! Unlike the other bosses, this guy got TWO health bars, so he's going to be tougher than most of 'em. Now you don't want to fuck with this guy, he'll bite you to pieces with three sets of teeth at a time, or skewer you in an instant with his nose. And just when you clipped away three fourths of his life, he gets this giant saw blade, and chases you all the way up to the roof! And did I forget to mention that if you come close to the bottom of the screen when you're ascending, you're dead? What fucking sense does THAT make?! Luffy's able to fight toe-to-toe with a Fishman, but he can't fucking survive a small fall like that?! Especially considering that he's MADE OUT OF FUCKING RUBBER! But, eventually, you beat the guy.
Now, we only got one more arc to worry about. However, the two final stages are simply the mother of all motherfucking hard stages. The first is pretty straight-forward: You figure out several puzzles to open different doors in order to advance further, and if you take a certain path, you'll end up fighting the fat broad, who's now become thin and pretty damn hot, and Buggy again. However, it's basically the same goddamn boss fights over again, except that the chick has the ability to slide on these slide things before she rams you with her mace, and Buggy can now transform into a small car. Now, I have one question: WHY IN THE HOLY MOTHER OF FUCKING SHIT DO YOU HAVE TO FIGHT BUGGY AGAIN?! He, along with Arlong and the final boss, are basically the cheesiest bosses in the history of video game bosses, and now you have to fight him a second time?! Now, I know that they're basically doing this because it fits with the story, but if you had problems with Buggy before, you'll be pretty damn frustrated.
Anyway, let's talk about the worst part of this game: The final two stages. Stage two of the sixth arc has the screen scrolling towards you, and if you get in contact with the edge of the left side of the screen, you're done for. I just hate it when the game I'm playing does this kind of thing without any way to stop it unless I get to the next screen! And just for shits and giggles, the game programmers just decided to make this stage full of impossibly difficult jumps and floating platforms. Well, they wouldn't be so damn impossible if THE FUCKING SCREEN WOULD STOP TRYING TO KILL ME! Luckily, there's a bug in the game that you can exploit. Here's what you do: Hold down the down button on the D-pad, and at the same time, hold down the B button. Luffy will charge his Gum Gum Pistol, and if he comes in contact with the screen of death, he won't die! The screen will just push him forward until you let go of the B button, and when you do, you have a chance of getting as far away from the screen as possible. Of course, this doesn't prevent you from being squashed between walls, so learn to time the bug when you need it.
Now, if you're lucky enough to get through the goddamn stage, you'd expect to be able to just move on to fight the final boss, but guess what?! YOU HAVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKING MINIBOSS! Now, even though the boss is pretty easy, you'd think that battling your way through that hellhole of diarrhea buffalo shit counts as a boss battle in itself! WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY FUCKING THINKING?!
Now, we only got one more stage to complete, and let me tell you, this is going to be hard. The boss is called Smoker, or "Chaser" as the game implies, and like Buggy, the broad and Luffy, he has eaten the Devil Fruit, but he has the ability to turn himself into smoke. Now, this guy justifies the term "impossibly cheesy", not only with his powers of smoke, but also with his THREE units of health! And yes, I'm not making this up: This guy has THREE FUCKING HEALTH BARS! I'm serious too; DEAD FUCKING SERIOUS!
But, eventually, you manage to beat him, and you'd think that you're set to see the ending to this game? Well, guess again: Getting his ass handed to him, Smoker still won't let you escape his clutches, and you have to run all the way to your ship whilst avoiding being caught by him, and only then can you see the ending, which features simply the Straw-Hat pirates, that being Luffy, Moss-Head, Whiny Bitch, Dick-Face and Chef-Fucker smashing a barrel of beer to celebrate their entry into the Grand Line, the most dangerous ocean in the world. To be honest, I'd rather buy the manga volume or watch the anime episode where they actually enter the sea, because frankly, the ending to this game isn't quite as heartfelt as the actual scene from the show."
The Nerd finally took the GBA cartridge out of his DS and placed it on a table. "So, there you have it," he began, "that was One Piece for the GBA. Like M.C. Kids, it's not the worst game out there, but it still deserved a review. Now, maybe the two-dimensional adventure genre isn't what One Piece should focus on, but rather beat-em-ups or fighting games, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went on to. Speaking of fighting games, did you know that the GBA game was supposed to be a port of the Japanese-only fighting game "One Piece Grand Battle: Swan Colosseum"? Apparently, the reason why they didn't port it was that the dubbing company in charge of One Piece at the time, 4Kids, hadn't gotten to the point in the anime where most of the game's action took place."
The Nerd picked up the cartridge again, and shook his head in disbelief. "Have you ever heard such a lame-ass excuse for not releasing a game in the States?! That's like if there was a batch of new Yu-Gi-Oh cards had been released in Japan, only for America to fucking decline the cards entry here because the Yu-Gi-Oh show hadn't shown them being used! It's ass! Who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?! And just to tease us, they never actually ported it as a sequel to this game, even after 4Kids had fucking shown the episodes here! Why couldn't they do that?!" To show his rage, he flung the cartridge in the wall in anger.
"So, maybe you'll think that since it's just a hand-held game, it's not that much to whine about. You think? Well, just to give you another example, I'll show you the PS2 game One Piece: Grand Battle." Sighing, the Nerd placed the CD in his PS2. "Now, again, we're facing a port, this time of the Japanese fighting game "One Piece Grand Battle Rush", the fourth instalment in the Grand Battle series. And I'd wish I could play the Japanese version instead, because this is simply ass.
In the Japanese version, they have the first opening song in the anime set to some newly animated scenes which gave you a good impression that this was a good game. Now in the American version, the opening is just the goddamn theme song used in the American dub set to the exact same opening sequence they used in the fucking dub! Couldn't they just have dubbed the other song instead of having to resort to such laziness?! It's fucking ridiculous!
Now, the biggest insult of all is that it was released AT THE EXACT SAME TIME AS THE GBA GAME! So, you'd probably think that they'd cut out anything that wasn't in the East Blue? Well, actually no! They actually had content that they hadn't aired in America at the time, thus confusing us even further! Who's that guy with sand powers and the hook?! I haven't seen him in the show! And what's with the racoon?! WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY AIR THAT KIND OF CONTENT ON THE CONSOLE GAME, IF THE HANDHELD GAME HAD TO SUFFER FROM NOT BEING PORTED?!
Now, you may think that the console game was left untouched, but NO! They had to cut out lots of content because the Japanese version had content that only Japan had access to at the time! That meant that FOUR CHARACTERS were cut out, and they were the most interesting! That means that the lightning god Eneru, the marine admiral Aokiji, the cunning pirate Foxy, and Luffy with an afro were all cut out! I don't know why, but in One Piece, if you have an afro, you're the fucking man, like you're a kid twenty years ago with a subscription to Nintendo Power.
Anyway, it's not much I can say about the game, as it's a pretty decent fighting game, if not for the needless edits. However, many fans of the series found this port to be flat out horrible because of the cuts, and demanded that the game would be released in its entirety. However, in its place, we received One Piece: Grand Adventure, another fighting game released only in America and Europe. Again, not much can be said, except that 4Kids learnt their lessons and actually brought in some characters they had neglected to show so far in their dub, like Eneru and his most powerful priest, Ohm. Also included was an adventure mode and two extra characters, Red-Leg Zeff and Kuina, basically clones of Sanji and Tashigi, respectively. However, apart from that, it's naught but an expansion pack to Grand Battle, if I can use that word.
Well, we only got one game left to worry about, that being One Piece: Pirates Carnival. It's a party game, like Mario Party and Sonic Shuffle, but really, nothing interesting. However, something noteworthy must be said: Like Grand Adventure, they had the fucking decency to again use characters that weren't in the dub at that point, even some they had neglected to allow existence in the first place! Still, edits were made, such as the removal of anything after Skypiea, the arc where we meet Eneru. So, that's all I have to say."
The Nerd took out the CD of Pirates Carnival out of his PS2, exhausted from learning about the massiveness of the series as a whole (and believe me, you'd fucking be tired too unless you're a fan beforehand). "Well, to be honest, aside from the GBA game's annoying points, these games were okay, but it's really the censorship that fucking fucks the games up in the first place. Really, I dislike having to see that such a good series be repressed of its true meaning just for cash-ins, sort of like how video game developers fuck quality of movie-based videogames in order to release them when the hype is at its peak. And just to let it be said," he began, as he held the covers of the games in his hand, "this is all of the games ever released in North America, with the exception of the Wii game Unlimited Adventure, which I have had difficulties finding anywhere, which is sad, because reviewing it would be a fitting finale to this rant.
So, yeah, it's not the game designers fault (mostly), but rather the distributor 4Kids. Luckily, 4Kids have stopped production of their dub, which means that the video games won't be under their licensing anymore. Instead, Funimation is going to be responsible for the games, Unlimited Adventure being the first game released here under them. Who knows, maybe we'll see a DS port of Swan Colosseum under their hand."
The Nerd sat down in his sofa, and opened a bottle of Rolling Rock, unsatisfied with his rant. "You know, something's definitely missing. It feels kind of wrong to end with only having said this and not being able to end it with a final review, especially since I don't even feel like I've vented half as much as I normally do every other fucking time. If only there was some way I could vent my anger at the horrid censorship found in these games…" Sighing, the Nerd was about to take a swag of cold beer, when suddenly a loud noise coming from his game collection made him startle. "What the fuck?!" he yelled, as he jumped out of the sofa and ran to see what happened.
Strangely enough, most of the games had been flipped down on the floor, leaving a mess bigger than… Well, it was a mess! "Aw, shit," the Nerd aggressively began, "I spent three fucking days trying to arrange all this shit! What the fucking shit did this?!" At that very moment, another sound made him turn 180 degrees to the left, where he saw a giant vortex on his wall. "Okay, either I'm insane, or I'm on drugs, and I'm definitely sure that I'm not on drugs." the Nerd said, as he dropped his bottle of beer in complete shock. At that moment, a huge hand attached to a chain shot out of the vortex, grabbed the Nerd by his stomach, and dragged him into it. Time seemed to stop, and the Nerd's right hand started acting like it had a seizure. Then, only moments later, the Nerd crashed down on a wooden floor.
"Hey, Franky, are you sure that this is the correct person?" someone said, but the Nerd was too exhausted to open his eyes to find out.
"I don't know, Brook," another voice, possibly this "Franky" person, replied, "he seems a bit scrawny, if ya ask me." At that moment, the Nerd stood up, and came face to face with his two guests: A man with a metallic nose, a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, a pair of speedo's and blue, Elvis-like hair, together with a skeleton dressed in formal attire, wielding a purple cane and sporting an afro on his head.
"Wait… what the fuck?! You two are from One Piece! You're that cyborg that's fuelled by cola, and you're that living skeleton! What the fucking shit?! Have I been smoking crack up my asshole in my sleep, or am I dreaming?!" the Nerd yelled off the top of his lungs, startling both Franky and Brook.
"Yohohohoho, he sure has a foul language! It reminds me of a sailor I encountered fifty-five years ago…" Brook began, but he was cut off by Franky, who pointed towards the Nerd's right hand.
"Yo, bro, what's that thing you got on your hand?" he asked, directing the Nerd's attention to his right hand. And to the Nerd's horror, he found that on his right hand, there was a Power Glove strapped on to it, with a small letter attached to it, reading: "Fight injustice, and conquer your enemies with power!"
At that moment, all across the Grand Line, the sea in which the Nerd found himself in, a horrible cry of anguish, anger and frustration shook the foundations of the world: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKK!!"
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Thanks for reading! I want to thank Charles Xavier for starting the idea of AVGN fanfiction, and I'd also like to thank James Rolfe, the creator of AVGN, for giving people a good reason to stay away from shitty games. Also thanks to his buddies at ScrewAttack for hosting him in the first place. Kudos to all of you!