One Piece World Seeker is one of the most ambitious anime games we’ve ever seen, letting players run around a massive open-world environment as Luffy.
On top of this, the game sports a brand new original story and characters created by Eichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece. It’s a refreshing thing to see, considering so many anime games prefer to play things safe with genres and experiences we’ve seen time and again.
One Piece World Seeker may not set the world on fire, but it’s a step in the right direction for anime games, and there’s a few other series we’d like to see get a huge ambitious game next.
Anime That Need the One Piece World Seeker Treatment
Gundam
There are few anime series more prolific than Gundam; one of the franchises that helped define the entire mecha genre and is still running strong today. Of course, Gundam has received a boatload of video games over the past decades, even some that tell original stories.
However, it’s been a long while since we’ve seen something really ambitious from Gundam, let alone gotten many games over in the west.
Lately, all we seem to get from Gundam games are smaller-scale titles that don’t do anything ambitious, like the arena-brawler Gundam Versus, Dynasty Warriors Gundam, or the disappointing New Gundam Breaker.
It’s long past time for a full-blown AAA Gundam title, especially considering a Hollywood film adaption is on the way. Imagine being able to fly around an entire galaxy in a mobile suite, explore different space colonies, or build your crew and amenities inside your very own White Base, Mass Effect-style.
While there are plenty of Gundam games that let you fight in mobile suits, a true AAA Gundam game would get what makes the series so enduring and take you out of the mobile suit as well, making time for some serious character building.
Out of any legacy anime out there, Gundam would be the best fit you could find for an ambitious AAA game. Considering 2019 is the franchise’s 40th anniversary, it’s high time we get just that.
Anime That Need the One Piece World Seeker Treatment
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist may have ended years ago, but it remains one of the most influential and timeless animes ever created. Despite a few brawler-kind of titles, Fullmetal Alchemist never received a truly outstanding video game experience, and it certainly deserves it.
Gaming technology has advanced more than enough to deliver a faithful Fullmetal game, full of different transmutation abilities, over-the-top boss battles, and plenty of drama. An open world title similar to One Piece: World Seeker would be the perfect fit for the Fullmetal series.
Imagine playing as Edward and Alphonse, traveling across the countryside and using alchemy to fix various people’s problems. Much like the anime, you could have an overarching main story, while bringing in smaller, more personal stories as you explore the country.
An RPG system with different trees would also fit right in, letting you focus on the kind of transmutation styles you want to use in combat. Similarly, alchemy opens up a wealth of traversal abilities, just like Luffy’s Gum-Gum abilities.
The 20th anniversary of Fullmetal Alchemist is coming up in 2021, and a brand new story by Hiromu Arakawa in video game form is the perfect way to celebrate.
Anime That Need the One Piece World Seeker Treatment
My Hero Academia
My Hero Academia is the latest anime to explode in popularity, and it’s just about the biggest thing in the anime world right now. It certainly has all the makings of a legendary Shonen anime, but the series is also screaming to be made into a full-fledged video game experience.
There are so many factors that make My Hero Academia perfect for gaming, but sadly we’ve only gotten a middling arena brawler so far, with My Hero One’s Justice. Combining My Hero with elements of RPGs like Persona could make for a fascinating experience, one where you play through the daily school life of U.A. High School, attending all of your various hero classes while interacting with classmates.
The best idea would be to let players create their very own heroes-in-training, and choose from a variety of crazy quirks. However, a My Hero game that has you take control of Deku would work just as well.
We’ve seen countless open world superhero-themed games at this point, like Prototype, inFamous, and Crackdown. There’s no reason that a similar idea couldn’t work for My Hero Academia. Maybe you could even play through the story of an original pro-hero, as they work to protect their city from the nefarious forces of darkness.
The Vigilantes manga has shown that the universe of My Hero Academia has some diverse stories to tell, and an ambitious AA game would be the perfect way to expand upon that.
Anime That Need the One Piece World Seeker Treatment
Tokyo Ghoul
Despite the potential opportunities, survival horror is a genre we’ve barely ever seen used in anime adaptions, and it’s high time that changed. There’s a plethora of anime that could be great for survival horror, but out of all the current shows, Tokyo Ghoul has the most potential.
The series takes place in modern-day Japan, where supernatural creatures known as Ghouls live among humans, blending in as they look perfectly normal. However, the only way for Ghouls to survive is by feasting on human flesh, and the creatures have hugely enhanced strength and senses, skin that can’t be pierced by normal weapons, and a predatory organ that they can turn into a physical weapon.
These terrifying enemies are the perfect opportunity for some terrifying gameplay, especially if you’re playing as a much weaker character that has to use their wits to survive.
Tokyo Ghoul re: Call to Exist is an upcoming game that kind of uses that idea but pits a team of Investigators against a team of Ghouls in a multiplayer brawler. However, there’s so much potential that could come from an ambitious single-player Tokyo Ghoul game, done in the style of something like Resident Evil.
Most anime games out there cast you as their superpowered heroes or characters with ridiculous abilities. Imagine how great a horror anime game could be that makes your enemies the incredibly overpowered ones, and you have to adapt and learn how to recognize and beat them.
Anime That Need the One Piece World Seeker Treatment
Psycho-Pass
We’ve seen some great cyberpunk games in the past, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Observer, and 064: Read Only Memories. Yet for all the great cyberpunk games we’ve seen, none of them have been anime related; a bit sad considering there is also a handful of great cyberpunk anime out there.
Psycho-Pass takes place in a dystopic futuristic version of Japan where an incredible device known as the Sybil System is able to predict when people will commit crimes. Each person is given a “Crime Coefficient,” and should this coefficient get to high a group of elite officers known as Enforcers are sent in to apprehend or kill the emerging criminal.
As you might expect, of course, this system leads to some serious moral quandaries. Psycho-Pass would be the perfect anime for a trippy third-person shooter. An original game could follow Shinya Kogami, the main character of season one, either after the events of the first season or during his time as a police officer.
You could even follow an entirely new cast of characters, and the anime’s themes make it perfect for a game that really digs ethical and moral ambiguity like many cyberpunk games have already done.
So far we’ve only gotten a visual novel game called Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness, and while it was moderately successful at adapting the franchise’s themes, there’s so much more potential Psycho-Pass could fulfill in gaming. With a third season of the hit show recently announced, now would be the time for a studio like Bandai Namco to go all-out.
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