There was a time, believe it or not, where Dragon Ball games weren't all annually released mediocrity. Dating back to the PS2 era, there was tons of fun to be had with Spike’s Dragon Ball Tenkaichi 3 and Dimps’ Budokai series. Somehow, like krillin, the source material refuses to die with Namco releasing new iterations every year. Other anime franchises have found a comfortable playstyle like the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series by CyberConnect2 and the commercially successful One Piece: Pirate Warrior games, however, Dragon Ball can’t seem to find its gaming niche. With Dimps returning for the newest dragon ball game there is alot riding on the quality of this title. So, let’s take a look at Everything YOU need to know about: Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
The dragon ball tale has been done to death with every subsequent Dragon Ball Z game repeating the same storyline in a slightly different way. Thankfully, This entry seeks to change up the formula considerably. The Dragonball universe is in peril as two newly introduced adversaries, Towa and Mira. alter iconic Dragon Ball events from the Saiyan Saga all the way to the God of Destruction Beerus. Trunks seeks to return the balance and he does that by calling on the magic Shenron to summon a hero to fight against these time manipulators. That hero is you. With the character creation featured in Dragon Ball Xenoverse, players have the freedom to customize the main protagonist’s race, gender, head, build, voice, and clothing. Players can choose from the following races; (that should be familiar to any fan of the anime) Saiyan, Earthling, Majin, Namakian, or a member of Frieza’s clansman. This is a huge improvement on the laughable character customization options in Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi.
After this is done, you will be able to become the ‘apprentice’ of certain characters from the show enabling certain benefits. From here, players will be given the option to freely explore the fictional dragon ball world with a notable new location known as Toki Toki City. Here, you will be allowed to meet up with friends online and tackle cooperative missions together. Unlike Dimps’ Dragon Ball Budokai series, the combat takes place in a 3D environment. Here, like previous Dragon Ball games, you will have free roam to battle in the skies, on the ground, or underwater. These battles will take place through the 12 master quests, 50 parallel quest, one on one battles and the World Tournament. The gameplay is smoother than last year’s Battle of Z with a streamlined combat system featuring appropriate nuance and flexibility. Controls are assigned for jumps, ki blasts, normal attacks, heavy attacks, lock on, and dash while holding R2 on PS3 or 4 enables a secondary menu for specials while holding down L2 changes you moveset to Ultimate attacks. Using the D-Pad in any way allows you to analyze a foe’s power level, though its application seems irrelevant to the core mechanics. This time around there are three gauges to watch; one for health, one for ki, and one for guard. Building up ki is done throughout combat while your guard meter begins at 100% and decreases as it’s used throughout the match. Using your guard carefully is key to playing your defences correctly as misusing it may result in a devastating attack that you are unable to teleport from.
Attacking your enemies introduces a range of new options. More so than previous games, stinging attack combinations are fluid and can be performed with ease. These attack combinations also give you the option to attach a special or ultimate move at the end allowing for a destructive finisher. You can also string together teleport heavy attacks to send your enemy flying in any which direction. There are a total of 200 special moves to perform, 450 customization items, and 47 playable characters.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse looks to be the product fans of the franchise have been requesting for nearly a decade now. With Dimps back at the helm and a new vision for the franchise be it with a more robust character creation mode and mmo-esque game style, this could finally deliver on that alternate realities we’ve been imagining for a very long time. Dragon Ball Xenoverse will release on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 on February 24 for North America and will release in Europe alongside the PC version on the 27th.
NiVision's Racket Pinball takes the past time and switches things up to great effect on Meta Quest this review finds.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream successfully migrates its brand of surreal, low-stakes chaos to the Switch with its signature quirky humor intact.
Nagoshi Studio’s YouTube channel with the Gang of Dragon trailers appears to have been removed following reports that NetEase will stop funding.
This really seems like more of an ad for the game than a blog. I mean, there's no real personal opinion on the game itself, just a list of what's in the game and what you can do.
I have the game myself and am currently loving it, though I have some issues. The camera is your worst enemy due to the fast pace the battles can have, you'll find yourself feeling like you have whiplash sometimes. Lock on is troublesome because of this, and also because you can't teleport away from an attack from an opponent you are currently not locked on to, so if you're in a battle you can easily be ganged up on and constantly have to switch up your lock on just to avoid attacks, and a lot of enemies love spamming the generic Ki bursts over and over.
The final problem I have is with the drops. I had to grind the Saibamen's Revenge Parallel Quest literally for hours just to get Nappa's Giant Storm Ultimate Attack. I even went to bed, and the next day is when I finally got it on my very first try. Had a similar issue with Kaioken x3 which was harder for me to get than the regular Kaioken or Kaioken x20 which I got on my first try.
I used to think that the Skill drops were tied into the ridiculous hidden objectives, but they aren't. The skill drops are completely random so you can be a victim of RNG for a long time.
There's also the Clothing and Skill shops which are kind of hit and miss with me. Sure I like being able to buy skills, but sometimes you can't get the skills that would normally be drops until long after you care about them. In my case, I got Final Flash from Vegita well before getting Raditz' Weekend, which I bought instead of waiting for the drop. Most of the clothing options are worthless and really only matter if you are into fashion because the gear that gives you good stat boosts is dropped, not bought, and then your character can really look ridiculous.
Overall a good game, but with many minor annoyances.