There is a hope in gamer fans of a long running series, be it a TV Show, animation, a film or book series, that one day a game will not only be made based on that series but one that will also do it justice. There have been many Dragon Ball games but for me personally, none of them have enabled me to really immerse myself in the Dragon Ball games until the incredible fighting game Dragon Ball Fighters Z. But that was a just a fighting game and whilst it managed to bring all the characters I loved from the anime to life with their moves and iconic battles, it was still limited. But to my delight, there is finally a game that allows me to relive and experience first hand all the iconic Sagas from Dragon Ball Z and boy…does this game not disappoint!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf85wwJuFBE&t=11s
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has absolutely and continues to just blow my mind with the experience it allows me to have finally. The original show was my way into anime shows, when I first encountered Dragon Ball Z it was unlike anything I had seen before and just went beyond the weekly throw away episodes of the Western animated shows I had grown up with. The scale was bigger the fights took episodes to finish not minutes and the characters were so bombastic that they became such a source of fun for me over the years. But I never managed to get into the Xenoverse series of games, I cannot really place my finger on why but they just never clicked with me, but DBZ Kakarot has managed to accomplish that and more, far more than I could have hoped for as a fan.
I was fortunate enough to have an early taste of the game at X019 back in November where I experienced the combat and just loved how intuitive it felt but it left me wanting more. Finally, the day game and oh it could not install fast enough having avoided the early streams of it so I could go in fresh. Right from the very moment the main menu appeared on my TV, I just had to take a moment and soak it all up because I had the sense this was going to be special, and it overwhelmingly was, but a lot of that is down to the amount of fan service the game gives aspect of Dragon Ball Z and because of my fanboyism for the universe, all this was then heightened.
DBZ Kakarot features four of the most iconic story Sagas from the anime series which begins with the Saiyan Saga then moving quickly on to the Frieza Saga, Android and Cell Sagas and finally the Buu Sagas. To a fan this is just a delicious menu but to a newcomer, most if not all of that probably has no meaning at all. The way in which DBZ Kakarot serves up the sagas however is in chronological order, a full on living through them as the anime told them which for me is one of the reasons why early on, this game is welcoming to all comers, both fans and non-fans alike. Beginning with the Saiyan Saga, the game introduces you to the world of Dragon Ball rather gently, as we see the characters at a time where Super Saiyan was just a legend and the world being under threat from powerful Universe conquering level enemies.
What I did enjoy most about the start is that all the characters are fairly under-powered compared to how they will evolve to become across the sagas. This adds the element RPG to the game as you the player, has control of the growth of each character in how they get stronger, improve their moves and even learn new ones via the skill tree system that each character has and at first look, it is incredibly daunting to see the sheer size of the skill tree and just how much is there to be unlocked and what level you need to be before unlocking quite a lot of it. Thankfully, the early Saiyan Saga is balanced enough so it scales to how you are able to improve each character and gives just enough room to learn how the various systems work before the difficulty ramps up having expected you to have gotten to grips with it all.
A mixture of gaming styles come together for DBZ Kakarot that for me, is a winning cocktail of ideas. First you have the almost open world nature to exploring as the world features the iconic locations from Dragon Ball and expands them just enough to give you a reason to explore them to tackle both main story missions as well as substories. Substories are a way of introducing some of the side characters to offer rewards for their completion with some eve allowing you to take a character’s “emblem token” but this system I will explain a little further on. The story will switch which character you are in control of but there is something satisfying about flying around these locations helped by the fact the art style is as close to being the actual show as you can get. The original musical score and sounds have all been used for the game making every moment authentic as possible, and just being in the world is just so joyful and this is good, because you will spend a lot of time between the story missions doing exactly this, hanging around in these locations quite a bit.
In order to level up and evolve and learn new moves, experience points and materials need to be gathered. Experience is earned from completing substories and main story missions but also from the Final Fantasy style of continuous random encounters which are fights with scaled to your level enemies. You really are unable to fly around for very long before you get the alert that an enemy that has been lying in wait has suddenly spotted you and now after you, which you can either try to escape from or have the battle to try out your combat skills, and this early on is a great way to practice with each of the characters you get to control. The combat as I said earlier really is rather intuitive. In basic mode you have the ability to dodge with A and by holding A you will speed dash helping to avoid projectile attacks, with X you have basic Ki blasts. Holding left bumper gives you access to your super moves which is where you will find the iconic special attacks of each character and they vary from powerful energy projectile attacks to ones which are muti-step attacks causing huge damage if timed right. Every move uses Ki, which is the blue meter underneath your health bar which can be charged up by holding down Y, but this needs to be timed as it leaves you vulnerable to attacks so knowing where and when to charge your Ki meter is also crucial.
Some characters such as the Saiyans, will develop the ability over the sagas to change their form, so Goku for example will learn the ability to turn Super Saiyan or to use his Kaioken form which boosts his damage output. These forms do have a price however with the Super Saiyan form using up your Ki meter as long as its activated whilst Kaioken will use up your health meter whilst activated. I actually really loved this due to being a fan of the anime where the characters would often mention how their more powerful transformations took a toll on their stamina or energy and in the game, this has been translated into a very clever game mechanic which is easy to understand and adds that little extra buzz to each encounter. The control scheme gives quick access to all the abilities and you are eased into how they all work nice and slowly so by the time you are hitting those big famous main story boss fights, you will have a good handle on the combat and as you progress further into the game you can get a real sense of how powerful you are becoming by unlocking new moves and improving others.
Community boards were an interesting surprise which brings me back to the “Emblem tokens” you can get from substories. One of the RPG elements in the game comes in the form of the Community boards, where different aspects of your character build can be influenced by these boards, each one representing a different aspect that can give a buff such as Chi Chi, Goku’s wife and mother of Gohan, looks after the bonuses you can get from the mostly lifted from Monster Hunter World’s mechanic of being able to cook and eat meals to give you a buff for a short time. Goku himself looks after the Z Fights board which gives you buffs in combat to boost attack damage. The boards are very close to how the FIFA Ultimate Teams work in that the character emblems can be placed in any of the community board slots but by pairing them up with another related emblem, the synergy can boost the community board further if applied correctly. So how you place these will help give you that extra buff as well as how you evolve and improve each of the characters.
There is just so much Dragon Ball in this Dragon Ball game that its hard to grasp it all at first, but you are allowed time and space to learn how it works so by the time you have completed the Frieza saga, you should have enough experience to know how it all works and then its up to the player to make best use of all the elements. But what makes the game work so well for me is in the Saga encounters, the first time you meet Vegeta and he is exactly how you would expect him to be from the anime which has been kept completely true to the stories, putting the player right in the middle of it so you are experiencing it as it would be as if you were watching any of the Dragon Ball Z anime shows or films. They cleverly made sure that all the crazy moments that would take three to four episodes to get through are shortened to either be a text box on screen with the narrator explaining what has happened instead of making you live through the five days of waiting for an event to happen. When you do get to the big encounter moments, they are animated so beautifully you could be actually watching the show itself, though some moments are shortened sensibly because for example, Goku’s transformation into a Super Saiyan featured a lot more screaming over a good few episodes so unless a player wants to sit through a minigame for hours to make it happen, making it a solid cut-scene instead was wise.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is huge with so many elements that takes quite a bit of time to manage on top of simply just playing the game. This is a game that caters for players like me who like to take their time and do everything such as just shy of the 40 hour mark I was only half way into the Cell Saga whilst near to the same time another friend of mine was able to complete all the sagas by ignoring largely a lot of the RPG and open world elements. How you choose to play is something that the game takes into consideration and what may feel like padding and filler to others, and this game can have those moments, will be cherished times in the world for others.
This truly is the most immersive experience I have had with a Dragon Ball Z based game and the potential to do even more with it in terms of exploring other sagas such as the more recent Dragon Ball Super elements is mouth watering in just thinking about it. Even now, just a week after release, quality of life improvements are being added to the game such as the fact that some substories are time sensitive so that if you missed them by moving on from a saga, you will now be able to use a “time machine” which is canon to Dragon Ball Z, to return to previous sagas in order to complete them and collect any emblem tokens you may have missed. There has been so much care put into the attention to detail that really, there are only a few niggles that I have experienced. I love how it has both the original Japanese voice overs which really is the best way to experience the game or you can have the English dubbed dialogue, both are amazing no matter which version of the anime you know and love.
There is a lot here for die hard fans to sink their teeth into and a hell of a lot for newbies to take on board when it comes to getting the most from Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot but for me, it ticks all the boxes I needed it to tick. The length of the game does mean taking breaks from it but I appreciate that, if you are feeling fatigued by hitting level caps before learning new moves and having no substories to do, take a break and return to the game, the auto and manual save system allows you to save at any point, go away and come back to exactly where you left off. The satisfaction of getting to control these amazing characters as they evolve into their final forms is off the charts for me but like I said, a lot of the game appeals to my fanboyism for the game, if you are not into Dragon Ball Z than it could come across as padding and filler and could be a distraction. You do not have to be a die-hard fan to play this game but knowing the source material will only enhance what you already know and love about Dragon Ball Z.
This has been an incredible title to kick off 2020 playing and is a great way to experience all things Dragon Ball Z which can easily be used to diver further into the world of Dragon Ball in the future.
