When it comes to fighting games especially games like Dragon Ball FighterZ, the most accessible they are the better. with this year’s title I finally feel part of the universe.
Dragon Ball is an iconic anime and the fact that they have partnered with Arc System Works to develop the game is perfect, as someone who quickly forgets even basic combos Dragon Ball FighterZ helps me on my way all while caressing my eyeballs with some truly gorgeous graphics.
When you first load your eyes the intro video is a colourful attack on your eyes and it doesn’t really calm down after that. Once you have gone through the initial license agreements and set yourself up your loaded into a hub where you can begin your journey through the game.
You get give a chibi avatar that allows you to walk around the hub and communicate with other players, there are stickers, emotes and more avatars to unlock via loot boxes, but before we start kicking them it all seems quite generous as it’s pretty easy to earn in-game currency. It’s also here where you can navigate to various parts of the game, whether you decide to play through the fun arcade mode, take part on battle arenas, play locally or take on the story mode.
Arcade mode was probably my favourite mode to play, as you progress through each fight you are graded and that determines which path you take to the next fight, the high, middle and low paths essentially just change the difficulty, as you’ll still go up against the same teams as you progress, I don’t think I’ll ever manage to stay in the high path!
Story mode, is pretty entertaining, even if the story was a bit hard to keep up with, there are three unique chapters. In each of you’ll be out in control of various characters in the Dragon Ball universe. You travel around rescuing you friends all while fighting evil clones of yourself along the way. There is plenty of conversation to take in, and as you mix and match your characters you’ll discover unique conversation arcs along the way.
The game teaches you all the basic moves trough in fight tutorials, you’ll learn about different combinations and how to move your character around as well as learning how to defend against your opponents. You’ll also get show how to manage three fighters. Thankfully as a newbie there isn’t too much to learn if I just wanted to get through the game. One you have mastered the basic 4 buttons to the game, you can apply it to each character in the game, meaning there is no need to have to ‘learn’ each character. Big combos are much easier to come by, even just by bashing buttons (my chosen style) as the game automatically creates combos.
I bravely tried the online world expecting plenty of losses but thankfully it was nowhere near as bad I was expecting. It’s just a shame I’ve experience plenty of problems actually getting matches. Trying to play friends in private matches is a real pain, you have to find your way to the same lobby via the hub and it all feels about cumbersome. I was also surprised at how many rage quitters I’ve experienced, there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for it either, hopefully that can be addressed over time.
Dragon Ball FighterZ is full of fan service, it’s a fantastically presented game and I was really pleased at how accessible it is for newbie fighters who aren’t used to 3v3 combat while still giving more experienced players a challenge. There is a huge amount of content that will keep players coming back, I just hope they give the online world a bit more polish.
Thanks to Bandai Namco & Xbox for supporting TiX
