Working Out Why Certain Arcs Were Added and Skipped (Spoilers)

[Everybody do the flop]

The list of arcs may seem all over the place, like adding in Alabasta over Skypiea. It makes more sense when you think about WHICH arcs were added over others. Why Alabasta? What does it have? Well, it has one of the seven warlords of the sea.

Marineford is a major arc that stirs Luffy to his core. More importantly, it has warlords of the sea.

Dressrosa is the first post-timeskip arc highlighted. The end of Dressrosa was also the first time the government sees how the cracks start to show in the chaotic world. After this, nothing is the same again for the seven warlords.

Big Cake Island is a big stepping stone, as it's the first time Luffy fights against one of the four emperors of the sea.

Wano (or Fano in this game) really cements how the (pirate) world is going to change. By the end of it, there are two less old Emperors of the sea.

Enenies Lobby (mostly the Water 7 part) is somewhat the odd one out because it doesn't feature a Warlord or one of the Four Emperors. It seems to be the designated marine chapter, probably because Impel Down doesn't have many marines in it. This is likely why they cut it instead of combining it with Marineford Arc.

In conclusion, the game seems to prioritise arcs featuring the seven warlords and (former) Four Emperors. There are some inconsistencies though. Even though he appears in-game, Kuma isn't playable. Additionally, the game skips out on Thriller Bark, which means that it's the one arc not in the game to heavily feature a warlord.

In the end the game is a re-telling of the old order of the (pirate) world and encompasses (nearly) everything that the world of One Piece used to be built on.

[Noon]

Omega Force is known for being as lazy as lazy can get, I mean take a look at Akainu, they didn't even bother to copypaste his NW alt costume from PW3, and that was just his model with a beard, they didn't even bother to add the scar that WB gave him.

In all fairness tough they did made a (mostly) pretty solid job with the story mode for PW3, but truth is that, they knew what that would entail, and just didn't want to bother this time around with 4 for a reason or the other, since that would have most likely meant a lot of time wasted remaking most stages almost from scratch to play nice with the new gameplay mechanics (That would also explain why they also cut so many characters), I still honestly don't understand why they rushed 4, it took them damn near half a decade to release that game, you would think they could have found the time.

But then again is it really even rushing? or just unabated laziness?

If we'll ever see something that's anything near 3's in terms of arcs/episodes for PW5 (If that game will ever come out before the heat death of this universe of ours) they'll probably start the game at Marineford and continue (Hopefully, without cutting arcs this time around) all the way to whatever comes after the Egghead arc, fanon ending included ofc.

[Everybody do the flop]

Originally posted by Noon:

Omega Force is known for being as lazy as lazy can get, I mean take a look at Akainu, they didn't even bother to copypaste his NW alt costume from PW3, and that was just his model with a beard, they didn't even bother to add the scar that WB gave him.

In all fairness tough they did made a (mostly) pretty solid job with the story mode for PW3, but truth is that, they knew what that would entail, and just didn't want to bother this time around with 4 for a reason or the other, since that would have most likely meant a lot of time wasted remaking most stages almost from scratch to play nice with the new gameplay mechanics (That would also explain why they also cut so many characters), I still honestly don't understand why they rushed 4, it took them damn near half a decade to release that game, you would think they could have found the time.

But then again is it really even rushing? or just unabated laziness?

If we'll ever see something that's anything near 3's in terms of arcs/episodes for PW5 (If that game will ever come out before the heat death of this universe of ours) they'll probably start the game at Marineford and continue (Hopefully, without cutting arcs this time around) all the way to whatever comes after the Egghead arc, fanon ending included ofc.

Honestly, the game wouldn't be so bad if it also had its own story instead of making all the manga content canon and gutting it.

What I would have changed:
1. Have Chopper join the Straw Hats from East Blue instead of from the Grand Line. Everyone on his home island's dislike of devil fruit users would have made more sense if they were from a more sheltered area of the world like East Blue. Of all the cuts in the game, East Blue made the most amount of sense IMO.

2. Instead of the Strawhats getting their gold from the belly of a snake in Skypiea, have Vivi wire them some money for helping her out. I can't stand how many arcs amount to "and then this important stuff happened off screen".

3. Have Franky join the crew as his post-timeskip self instead of making two separate models and only letting one be playable. Maybe make his injuries worse when he was young, which caused him to become more cyborgized sooner.

4. I can't think of a good way to bring Brook back into the story without adding back in Thriller Bark. I said it before, but that arc really shouldn't have been cut as it wrecks Luffy's climb to power by beating warlords, then emperors if they wind up skipping one. Maybe Luffy could have found him at Marineford and added him to his crew during the timeskip or something.

5. Instead of chopping an entire 3rd of the New World, just have the Straw Hats go right to Dressrosa. They could have also changed it so Momonosuke and Kinemon were found on Dressrosa instead, with amnesia of events.

[Noon]

Originally posted by Everybody do the flop:

Originally posted by Noon:

Omega Force is known for being as lazy as lazy can get, I mean take a look at Akainu, they didn't even bother to copypaste his NW alt costume from PW3, and that was just his model with a beard, they didn't even bother to add the scar that WB gave him.

In all fairness tough they did made a (mostly) pretty solid job with the story mode for PW3, but truth is that, they knew what that would entail, and just didn't want to bother this time around with 4 for a reason or the other, since that would have most likely meant a lot of time wasted remaking most stages almost from scratch to play nice with the new gameplay mechanics (That would also explain why they also cut so many characters), I still honestly don't understand why they rushed 4, it took them damn near half a decade to release that game, you would think they could have found the time.

But then again is it really even rushing? or just unabated laziness?

If we'll ever see something that's anything near 3's in terms of arcs/episodes for PW5 (If that game will ever come out before the heat death of this universe of ours) they'll probably start the game at Marineford and continue (Hopefully, without cutting arcs this time around) all the way to whatever comes after the Egghead arc, fanon ending included ofc.

Honestly, the game wouldn't be so bad if it also had its own story instead of making all the manga content canon and gutting it.

What I would have changed:
1. Have Chopper join the Straw Hats from East Blue instead of from the Grand Line. Everyone on his home island's dislike of devil fruit users would have made more sense if they were from a more sheltered area of the world like East Blue. Of all the cuts in the game, East Blue made the most amount of sense IMO.

2. Instead of the Strawhats getting their gold from the belly of a snake in Skypiea, have Vivi wire them some money for helping her out. I can't stand how many arcs amount to "and then this important stuff happened off screen".

3. Have Franky join the crew as his post-timeskip self instead of making two separate models and only letting one be playable. Maybe make his injuries worse when he was young, which caused him to become more cyborgized sooner.

4. I can't think of a good way to bring Brook back into the story without adding back in Thriller Bark. I said it before, but that arc really shouldn't have been cut as it wrecks Luffy's climb to power by beating warlords, then emperors if they wind up skipping one. Maybe Luffy could have found him at Marineford and added him to his crew during the 3 timeskip or something.

5. Instead of chopping an entire 3rd of the New World, just have the Straw Hats go right to Dressrosa. They could have also changed it so Momonosuke and Kinemon were found on Dressrosa instead, with amnesia of events.

See, the problem is I think that it's possible that they were limited in what they could have done with story stuff since Toei can be pretty strict about that sorta thing.