It’s not often that a game gets DLC three years after the previous one, but One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 just delivered. The series celebrates a milestone along with the entire franchise this year as Gear Fifth takes the stage in the anime. Meanwhile, the live-action series debuted to rave reviews and just confirmed a second season. So, with all this hype, how does the Onigashima Pack DLC for One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 stack up?
This article will contain spoilers for One Piece through the end of the Wano arc, as that’s what the DLC involves.
One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 is available to buy on Steam, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
What’s in the Onigashima DLC?
The Onigashima Pack is the first DLC in One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 Character Pass Two! This pack contains three new characters, Onigashima Luffy, Onigashima Kaido, and Yamato. There’s also another surprise DLC pack that the developers released with a side adventure about Yamato, but that’s covered separately. The only other addition to the game through this DLC is the Onigashima Raid costume for Law, which is a decent outfit but doesn’t add much else.
Onigashima Luffy
To be honest, Onigashima Luffy in his base form isn’t very exciting. He’s just about the same as regular Luffy, with the addition of the black and red lightning of Conqueror Haki to his attack. There’s a slight, slight buff to strength but otherwise, his only addition of note in base form is two new finishers – Gum-Gum Red Roc and Gum-Gum Roc Gatling. Red Roc has a pretty good hit radius, while Roc Gatling is about the same but doesn’t hit quite as hard.
The real star of Onigashima Luffy is the addition of Gear Fifth. Instead of a permanent change, it comes as a Form Change he can equip and use in battle. The moves for Gear Fifth are great, though some of the combos are a little hard to get at first. Once mastered, Luffy zips around the map at max speed with incredible destruction. His specials are the Gum-Gum Bajrang Gun and Gum-Gum Lightning. There’s also a move called “This is My Peak!” which fires a concentrated Haki burst. The best thing about Gear Fifth is that the Form Change time limit is ridiculously long, which makes it feel like less of a slog turning back to base Luffy when it happens.
Onigashima Kaido
There are three words to describe Onigashima Kaido in the Pirate Warriors 4 DLC – Broken as f*ck. The only character in the base game that can compare is Whitebeard at maximum level. Seriously, even in my short time with the character at around halfway upgraded, he was stupidly strong and had the attack range of a damn battleship. Kaido takes his hybrid human/dragon form by default and attacks with Advanced Conqueror Haki attacks. It’s really weird to play as him at the start though because he’s a Speed Type, except he’s also exceptionally slow.
That doesn’t matter once his Full-Force Burst hits. Kaido’s attacks hit overdrive and hit much faster. That’s in addition to increasing his strength, reinforcing his hits, and expanding the area he covers with blast attacks. It’s kind of surprising he doesn’t get a Form Change to full dragon mode. At least he does transform for jumping attacks, which balances a little. His new Finishing Attack is absolutely badass, and can wipe out the entire field around in one swipe if done right.
Yamato
Yamato is awesome because he has two different Full-Force Bursts to take advantage of. The first just gives him the normal attack boost and slight speed boost as a Power Type. That’s not the Form Change though, where he takes on his Hybrid Wolf/Human Form and turns into a Speed Type. He kicks ass too, with new Finisher Techniques in this form and an Ice Breath special that destroys. Yamato is a heavyweight when it comes to the meta aspects of the game, base form even enough to sweep maps in no time.
Seriously, the base form for Yamato has insane attack power. That’s not even the best of it though, as most of Yamato’s extensive combos add a freezing effect to enemies. This is like all the overpowered ice abilities of Kuzan with the ridiculous strength of Kaido, and it DESTROYS everything around. The final smash attack for Yamato’s tornado combo will destroy buildings in maps like Alabasta.
What are Soul Maps?
Soul Maps are the other new thing in this update, and they’re… confusing. It looks like everyone gets Soul Map 0 right off the bat with new ones introduced with the DLC pack. Essentially, new drops come at the end of battle if powerful enemies are defeated. These can be put towards the Soul Map for each character, which in turn over-boosts their maximum stats. It’s basically a way to further overpower characters to keep up with the ridiculous power scaling of the game/series.
Unfortunately, earning the Soul Tokens needed to upgrade is a pain in the ass. They’re completely random as to which ones are given after battle, as well as how many. Once they are given, it’s just the beginning of the battle. The Soul Map starts on a Health Upgrade, and none of it can progress until that Health Upgrade is used. It took twelve matches on New World Treasure Log just to get one Health Soul and finally unlock the map. Hopefully (big hopefully) the balancing of that will be improved with later updates. It’s a cool idea, but it needs a lot of work to make it feasible without being a boring grind.
Is Pirate Warriors 4 Character Pass 2 Worth Buying?
For fans of the game already, it’s definitely worth a look so far. The Onigashima pack is a great start, and leads in with upgrades on two existing characters and a whole new one to play around with. Gear Fifth Luffy ends up being the weakest link of the bunch, strangely, but maybe it will just take some time to grow. Each character definitely adds a fun new toolset for taking apart enemies though, and the Soul Map makes diving back in with characters old or new a little fun again.
There’s no release date yet for the next two DLC packs for Pirate Warriors 4, but expect it to be around December for the second one. The first character teased for this pack is Uta from Film Red, the daughter of Shanks, with the other two currently a mystery. One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 is showing a good start to the DLC though, so the next ones are sure to deliver as well!
