- Name: One Piece Treasure Cruise.
- Developer: Bandai Namco Games
- Available in: App Store / Google Play
- Free with IAP.
One Piece Treasure Cruise is one of those Gacha-based RPGs that have become so common after the success of Puzzles and Dragons. This game has the usual structure of these kind of games, so you must be thinking, what makes this game so awesome?
The answer is that is you collect One Piece characters (which is great by itself) either by doing Event Islands, grinding, or by spending your Premium Currency on a virtual vending machine. What sets it apart from similar games (such as Puzzle & Dragons) is a focus on traditional animation during gameplay, from characters to stage backgrounds to special attacks. The production value of the art and animation is much higher than most other mobile games.
- Presentation
- Index
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Story farming: Who, where and why
- Raid Boss Guides and Videos
- Useful Links
- Tier List
- Wall of Shame
- Special Thanks
Question: Is this game pulling any F2P trappings to make me sell my house, car, wife and dog in order to be able to do everything?
Answer: Not really. The game is really fair for F2P players. You get a gem everyday, one every few stages in story mode, and one when you finish a new event island for the first time. And they love to give gems when there is stuff like typos or minor bugs, even if they don’t affect gameplay in any way. And you get 5 (or 10) gems after you finish a new story island.
The Premium Currency can be spent in various ways. On a virtual slot machine called “Rare Recruit” (and named Gacha by players), by increasing storage size by 5 and by refilling your stamina bar. This will be expanded upon later.
Finally, the game doesn’t have Pop-ups or messages with special deals in order to encourage you to spend money.
Q: Is the game fair? Would I be able to beat everything being a F2P player?
A: Yeah, but there is a bit of preparation and theorycrafting when it comes to building a team. If you don’t want it, thankfully, there are awesome resources with guides available. The Slasher class is basically made in order to allow F2P players to do most content. They have some of the best captains in the game with Mihawk and Doflamingo and others with great stats like Arlong, Crocodile or Lucci, and some good utility ones like Mr.1, Mr.3, Halloween Zoro or Brook. Slashers are balanced in order to allow you to clear most (if not all) content in the game if you use the right crew members.
The game is divided by Types and Classes. Types are “colours” and are key to the rock-paper-scissors mechanic. Classes vary depending on the weapon and fighting style used and aren’t restricted to a single colour.
Q: And what about characters other than Slashers? And what if I want to pull X or Y character?
A: Then things become a bit tricky. There are some teams that work really well without relying on the Gacha, like Slashers, DEX (Green) or PSY (Yellow) teams, some that don’t rely much on the game gambling mechanics, like Striker or QCK (Blue) teams, and others that rely quite a bit on them, like INT (Purple), STR (Red) or Shooters. Things will change as the game progresses, and you’ll get many interesting units in the long term if you keep playing.
If you want to pull a certain character, you’re probably going to have a bad time. Your pulls on the Gacha are totally random. You could get the character on your first pull or you could spend a lot of money and still not get it. Still, the F2P selection is quite large, has a lot of fan favorites and their sprites are as good as the premium ones.
Q: Is there some limitation to the amount of time I can play this game?
A: Yes, there is a stamina bar. It’s half a curse and half a blessing, since the game is a bit grinding and unlimited plays will burn people out quite quickly in the long term.
At first it’s like it doesn’t exist. You’ll level up so fast that you won’t have to stop playing, since leveling up restores your stamina to max. As you play and it gets harder to level up you’ll have to stop playing for a while. Most players play a bit in the morning and again in the evening. The current recovery rate is 1 stamina point every 5 minutes and there are 2 ways of restoring stamina. Either by spending 1 Rainbow Gem (Premium Currency) or by getting Meat in the Snail Jackpot (you can use it 5 times a day, the game sends a Tweet and you get the chance of obtaining different random rewards like boosters, stamina, beli or gems)
Q: Soooo I haven’t run away yet. You’ve said the game is quite generous when it comes to premium currency. How can I use them?
A: First of all, there is the Gacha. A pull costs 5 gems, and you can get from crap to awesome units. You can’t pull the characters from event islands and some of the farmable story characters aren’t available either.
Then there is a stamina refill I already talked about earlier. If you’re bored, you may want to use it in order to play more, but, in general, they’re used during special 24 hours Event Islands called Raids. There you fight powerful raid bosses and, if you defeat them on the highest difficulty, you get a guaranteed drop. F2P spend most of their gems stamina refilling during those events, since raid bosses usually have really good skills and you want to lower them by feeding them copies of themselves.
And finally there are box space increases. You get 5 extra slots for a gem. Just upgrade your box at your own pace.
Q: You talked about 24 hour events. Can you explain it a bit more? How do they work?
A: They’re the high end content this game has to offer and they give you some of the strongest characters in the game, but they only show up for 24 hours when Namco decides it. You usually get a new boss once a month and old ones on a more irregular schedule. These characters can be acquired by defeating them, but this requires careful planning and the right set of crew members.
While these 24-hour exclusives are powerful crew members to begin with, their true potential is unlocked by acquiring copies and combining them, which can lower the time required to activate their special ability.
For example, Mihawk, One Piece universe’s strongest swordsman, is a powerful 24-hour unit that boosts all Slasher-class characters attack strength 2.5 times. His special ability damages all enemies for 30% of their current hit points, but takes far too long to activate initially. By combining Mihawk with additional Mihawk drops, this activation time can be reduced, turning him into one of the best characters in the game.
Q: Ok. I’m sold. How do I start playing?
A: There is a day once a month when a special Gacha event called “Sugofest” triggers. In this 24 hour period you may grab an especially powerful unit called “Legend” (so far
there is Whitebeard, Rayleigh, Boa and Sengoku), and there will be a higher chance that you’ll get certain units (they vary each month). Having one (or more) will drastically speed up your in-game progress. When you start playing, you’re given 2 free Premium pulls.
Q: And what if my results are bad? Can I re-roll? How?
Yes, you can. As said above, when starting a new game, you are given two free Rare Recruits. By joining the game during Sugofest, you have the best chance for these two free characters to be of the highest quality.
But sometimes luck is not on your side, so you can re-roll by deleting the entire app (or just your save data) and starting fresh. The truly savvy can manipulate the save data to reroll as quickly as possible, although the method is a bit shady. If you want to learn how to do this, there might be some GAF members willing to teach you, or even do some Sugofest re-rolls for you, if you ask nicely.
Q: Which units should I aim for while re-rolling?
A: Short answer: Whitebeard, Rayleigh, Gear 3rd Luffy, and Sengoku are great starts..
Long answer: Give a look at the Tier List in the second post.
In general, there are 3 ways to get new characters in this game: using Rare Recruit, doing Special Islands or farming a certain mission in Story mode. Every single character you fight in the story can be obtainable, but it will probably require time, pacience and loads of stamina. For that reason, a list below will summarize which units you should farm and which are your biggest priority.
1. Crocodile:
Farming Spots: Nanohana Rainbase Ch. 15 / Alubarna Ch. 10 and 15.
Why? He probably is the best Intelligence Slasher in the game, and you will use Slashers a lot of time during the game. He has 2 Evolutions, a 4* and a 5* one. Choose the later. He has incredible stats and a quite useful special.
2. Mr.1, the Human Sword:
Farming Spot: Alubarna Ch. 8.
Why? He is cheap, has good stats and it’s easy to level up. He is one of the few STR Slashers in the game and has a good utility special which reduces damage taken and boosts your party ATK for the next turn. A nice utility unit that you will use for a long time.
3. Kami Eneru (PSY Type)
Farming Spot: Upper Yard - Ark Maxim Ch. 5, 7 and 12.
Why? He has decent stats (high ATK and nice RCV, but low HP) and a really useful skill. He is the alternative for Impact and Wolf Liar Usopp, and the type booster you’ll bring in your team in those moments when you want Golden Pound Usopp in your team.
4. Miss Doublefinger:
Farming Spots: Alubarna Ch. 9
Why? She is the DEX Class Booster. She is easy to level up (like most BW units), have decent stats and fills a niche. She can be replaced with Halloween Luffy, so if you have him at a usable CD, she shouldn’t be a priority.
5. Mr.2 Bon Clay
Farming Spots: Alubarna Ch. 3 and 4 / Kimono Strawhats / Rare Recruit.
Why? He is Garp’s partner in crime, the best orb manipulation combo for PSY type. However, he is available in a Fortnight (that hasn’t been released yet in Global) and is available in the Gacha Pool. Keep that in mind.
6. Mr.3
Farming Spots: Little Garden Ch. 11 and 15 / Nanohana Rainbase Ch. 14. / Rare Recruit.
Why? He is a turn delayer for Slasher and Intellligence teams, which is quite useful. Keep in mind that he is in the Gacha Pool, so you may get him anyway.
7. Ohm
Farming Spots: Upper Yard - Ark Maxim Ch. 1 and 10.
Why? He is a interesting STR lead (2.5x if HP is below 50%), has a good special, nice stats (outside recovery) and it’s easy to level up. He isn’t a must have, but is an interesting unit to bring to Doflamingo’s raid.
8. Cheff Zeff.
Farming Spots: Baratie Ch. 3
Why? He has bad stats, but a powerful captain skill (2.5x ATK to Fighters) and a decent special, which can be used along Kalifa for full DEX orbs. If you don’t have Izo… you could try farming him, but if you want him as your captain… don’t use him. You’ll get Mihawk soon enough, and in the meanwhile there are decent Slasher alternatives like Arlong, Mr.1 and Slasher Crocodile.
9. Dorry (PSY) and Broggy (INT)
Farming Spots: Little Garden Ch 7 (Dorry) / Little Garden Ch 6 (Broggy)
They are decent enough, but there are better (or at least easier to get) alternatives to them. Farm them if you have nothing else to do with your stamina, but don’t farm them otherwise.
This guide doesn’t include units that can be farmed in Fortnights (well, outside Mr.2, but we don’t know when the Kimono Strawhats will launch in Global). The antagonists of the East Blue islands have their own Fortnights, and Laboon is a rare encounter in the Kraken Fortnight Island.
Mihawk (released):
Monster Chopper (released):
Garp (released):
Zephyr (MIA):
Ivankov (released):
Donquixote Doflamingo (upcoming):
Useful Links:
1.- Guides
- One Piece Strategy site: In-deep site that focuses on raid bosses, the hardest content in the game.
- One Piece Treasure Cruise Blog: A more jack-of-all-trades site. You can follow the game news here and they usually review new batches of units. It has guides for both Raid Bosses and Fortnight Islands, but they aren’t as deep as the previously linked site.
- One Piece TC Blog - Japan version: Same as above. A jack-of-all-trades sites, with a lot of useful information, even though it's not being updated anymore. In the Event Archives you can see what content awaits Global players. Don't pay attention to the release order. Bamco has been trolling us for months.
- One Piece Underdog Gaming Section: Yeah, they’re fairly new, and I’m not sure which is their focus so far, but I’ll link them anyway. It seems they have a solid roster, which includes some former OPTC blog writers.
- OPTC subReddit: A community of players hosted in this site. The top bar has a “Guides” section that covers different event islands and much more.
- Gamewith Japanese: Really useful Google translated source of information in you want to see which teams can beat a certain boss.
- Takashi’s One Piece Channel (JP)
- Zeenigami (English)
- Github Database: My favorite database. It’s updated quite fast, it doesn’t have many mistakes and it’s quite light. It’s mobile version could be a bit more optimized for tiny screens. A lot of nice filters and you can mark which units are on your Pokedex… I mean, Voyage Log.
- Github Damage Calculator: From the creators of the awesome character database we have this jewel. This way you can predict exactly how much damage your units can deal for a turn. An invaluable tool once you want to start trying to build your teams by yourself instead of blindly trusting guides.
- Turtle Time Calculator: This is your best friend. There is a special Turtle island that appears on Mondays in two 30 minutes periods. Knowing when they’re appearing so you can do a few runs and level your units a bit would be really important.
1.- Tier 0 (aka Independent Frigging Awesome Captains)
This are the best captains in the game. They can boost every single unit you may have, regardless of colour or class. For people re-rolling, these guys should be your top priority
Whitebeard:
- Captain Ability: Boost attack of all characters by 3x if HP is under 30%
- Skill: Cuts the current HP of each enemy by 30%
Gear 3rd: Luffy
- Captain Ability: Boost ATK by 3.5x after hitting 3 Perfects in a row.
- Skill: Deals 15x character’s ATK in STR damage to all enemies.
The biggest problem you may have with him at first is that Luffy can be a bit stressful for new players, since missing one of those first 3 Perfects will seriously reduce the amount of damage you’ll be able to do in the current turn.
Gear 3rd teams rely on the last 3 units in order to go all out when it comes to damage, so it’s recommended to bring some utility units, like damage reducers. He can clear most of the content in the game, outside a few islands that lock units for a long time like Blackbeard’s.
Monkey D. Luffy Voyage Dream: Strawhat Pirates (Log Luffy)
- Boost ATK by 4x after a chain of Good > Great > Perfect
- Deals random typeless damage to all enemies. Changes own orb to Strength
Rayleigh:
- Captain Ability: Boost chain multiplier by 4x.
- Skill: Deals 20x character’s ATK as INT damage and reduces bind duration by 5 turns.
As with Luffy and Whitebeard, he can clear most any content in the game. And, like Luffy, the units at the end of the combo are the ones dealing most of the damage, which leaves some room in the team for weaker units with useful special abilities.
Sengoku the Buddha:
- Captain Ability: Reduces cooldown of all specials by 2 turns at the start of the fight and boosts ATK of characters that cost 20 or less and units called Sengoku the Buddha by 3x.
- Skill: Deals random PSY damage to all enemies and boosts ATK of all characters by 1.5x for 1 turn.
An incredible captain for newcomers and F2P players in general. Sengoku boosts his own attack by 3x (only the evolved version) and most of the free units the game offers to its players. He doesn't have a Health requirement (like Whitebeard does) and his skill, which bosts the attack of every unit (regardless of type and class) by 1.5x for one turn should make him both an useful captain and sub. At this point, you may be thinking that it looks to cool to be cool, so which is the drawback?
The main problem is that Sengoku doesn't boost the attack of any Raid Boss (be it evolved or unevolved), other Legends and most Rare Recruits are only boosted in their base form. That could lock him out of some of the most complicated content as a captain, but it isn't a problem most of the time, and no matter how bad your luck is, you will always have a big pool of characters to make your teams (characters from Story Mode, Fortnights and the free Strawhats are boosted: a really solid package all around) and you will be able to reliably kill most if not every raid boss released.
