One Piece: Grand Battle Swan Colosseum plays very similarly to games like Super Smash Bros. The game takes place on a 2D plane, and the levels are large and freely navigate-able. There are two types of basic attacks, light and strong attacks. In addition there are also special attacks that are preformed by doing certain button combinations, and super attacks that can be done when the players fills up a super meter. The game only has two combatants on screen at a time, but is very fast and fluid.

Multiplayer is available when you use the Wonderswan link cable to connect two Wonderswan Color systems, each system needs a copy of the game.