'One Piece Burning Blood' gets Drake, Roronoa and more characters confirmed

Bandai Namco announced a number of new characters for the upcoming fighting game “One Piece Burning Blood,” based on the incredibly popular anime and manga. Some of the new characters are fan-favourites in the manga and anime version of the franchise, including X. Drake, Roronoa, Frankie, Zoro and Aokiji, all of who will be playable once “One Piece Burning Blood” is released next year.

In a press release, the developer confirmed that the game will have an “advanced battle system” that will let players perform Devil Fruit and Haki techniques with ease. Each character should have a unique technique, which should add plenty of variety to the anime-based fighting game.

Devil Fruit is what “One Piece” lead Monkey D. Luffy ate to gain his powers of intense stretching, similar to Plastic Man or Mr. Fantastic’s abilities. He’s not the only one, obviously, as a number of other characters have also eaten the fruit and gained distinct abilities.

According to Gematsu, these abilities can do a number of things, including increased strength and the ability to nullify other attacks. It will be interesting to see how these abilities are used in the game, considering how diverse the moves are in the anime and how positively and widely-received the franchise has been.

Most of the characters introduced are fairly unique as well and it should be pleasing for fans to see how their favourite characters play. The recently-announced Zoro, for example, fights with three swords – one on each arm and one more in his mouth. Not only does he outmatch a masked vigilante with the same name, but also it makes him a formidable character that should be fun for fans to use.

“Burning Blood” will be a one-on-one fighting game and judging by the screenshots, it looks like it has some similarities to the “Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm” series. This isn’t a coincidence, since Bandai Namco have also published the aforementioned series, along with a number of “Dragon Ball Z” fighting games.

“One Piece Burning Blood” will be coming out sometime next year for the PS4, Xbox One and PC, though no specific release date has been given. Fans looking for more “One Piece” action can pick up “Pirate Warriors 3,” which are slated for the same platforms.

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