Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome to my first game review of 2016.
Have you guys ever heard of Dragon Balls? If you may not now, unless some die-hard fans know about, Dragon Ball is a famous Japanese franchise that was created by the great Akira Toriyama. It has a action, sens of humor and, likable characters and plenty of actions. And also fan-services (Sometimes...). The early Dragon Ball was an interesting to see, even it may or may not for kids, because like i said, some mature moments. But then Dragon Ball Z came in and it was soo damn good to see with a Holy $!#& moments, some funny moments and of course, more actions.
Ever since DBZ was so popular, it became a legacy with merchandises, special appearance of anime or manga, video games and even anime movies. Unless there's Dragon Ball Evolution, which its stupidly movie that what we got. I mean come on, only Japanese know how it works in DB universe!
Anyway, since i was looking for a video game, there's a tons of them that its either interesting, or some that are pretty crappy like Dragon Ball Z Sagas and even Dragon Ball Z with Kinect on XBOX 360. I was searching many of DB gems to think myself "Is there a good Dragon Ball games?". Well there's Dragon Ball Z: Budokai franchise that although they're rather good, but i've never play them. However, there's one game that i bought in PSN store that i really want to give a shot, that is Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse is a 2015 game that developed by Dimps (The same company who made a biggest (if not) disappointed game of 2016, Street Fighter V with Capcom) and published by Bandai Namco Game. Its an RPG fighting game that was released on February 2015 for PC XBOX 360, One, PS4 and PS3 (that i got, until i get another one, but in PS4) and it was the first Dragon Ball game that it was released on current gen consoles like PS4 and XBOX One.
So can this game holds up for DBZ fans or gamers, or its gonna be a pretty bad one as DBZ Sagas? Lets find out.
Lets talk about the gameplay itself. Like i said, its an RPG fighting game in DB universe. Unlike any games that you play as Goku, Vegeta, Trunks or maybe Krillin? (anyone? Krillin???) You play as a customized character,whether its an OC or you can create yourself in the game. But customization character is not as interesting than WWE 2K games. There's no customized colors that you can make, option of sizes and even some of hairstyles. But you can chose a species for creation, Earthling, Saiyan, Namekian, Majin and Frieza's race. But they have some specials like when Namekian has a lower health, it regain not only health, but with stamina and when Saiyans has lower health, they regain their Ki power. Which its an interesting idea. :)
After customization, you started in hub known as Toki Toki City, there's three section, 1st there's a parallel quests and battle with online or single player. The 2nd is a multiple of shops to buy some outfits, accessories, skills and a few items for regain health, stamina, Ki powers and even healing your character. And the final one that has tournament room for a local battle and Online reception, there's one place that has thing for 7 Dragon Balls (You better find them that its either from quests or some bonus that you fight the other time patroller) and there's a portal to Time Vault, which is a story of the game. You can walk around to meet some NPCs and some Custom characters by players (either you check him/her for fav or look at its account). You can buy something that need to be powerful like outfits that has plus powers and minus powers or even by some skills that you wanted or some that are useless (Depends you felt like or not.) You can jump in the hub, why would like to jump around? I tried to jump over benches or other stuff, but it doesn't work from invisible blocks, so your jump in a hub is pretty useless, its just for a show. You can even chat or do your pose in online if you meet them. Not to mention, there's some characters of Dragon Ball that you familiar appears somewhere that its either a parallel quests or some that are your mentors.
Finally the main event of the game, once you select or keep going through your story, you're ready to fight. The control is depends if its your character doing great or not. For your basic attack, its obviously a weak attack and a strong attack. To do your skills, you have to hold R2 chose your buttons to use your special attack. You can even hold two triggers of your control that you can use your ultimate attack and some that its called Evasive skill which it uses with stamina. However, your special and ultimate attack are limited on your Ki meter. Your stamina is also limited for your meter like using a teleport behind your opponent, fly faster, getting up quickly and even Evasive skill. I mean, you will probably waste your stamina when you really want to beat a hardest quests, which most AI use their unlimited powers and easily beat you down. Its pretty frustrated to play when i tried some hardest quests. You better have to do grinding in the same quests to leveling up to boost your attributes like health, maximum of Ki and stamina, basic attack (which it use for you weak or strong attack.), Ki Blast super (Which i think it used your Ki damages) and Strike Super (Which i think it used for your special or ultimate attack's damage).
Despite the control is kinda basic, but it might be delayed, like when your opponent attacks you try to block yourself (And yes, you can block in the game, but i think it has a same button as Mortal Kombat), but it doesn't work that you probably think your controller is broken, but no its the delay or even your character doesn't wanna cooperating your defense from a multiple of Ki attacks. but sometimes your opponent will use their grab attack, combo breaker and even teleport behind you. If you wanna play with yourself against your opponents like more than 2, they'll easily gang up on you like a football players jumping at you while holding a ball all alone. The only way that you can defend yourself is to have "evil explosion" or some other ways to break free from your enemies. you really have to use it, but its limited of stamina. Because without them, you will die like 30 seconds. But thankfully if you beat the quests, you can retry it and pick your partners to easily beat the quest to have a higher rank, unless you're lucky to have more than 2. The AI may or may not be work. the NPC partner may or may not be work like being stuck in-front of the wall or even flying around on circle like a drunken dude who uses a jetpack around and around and you know what i mean... ^^; But the NPC enemy are pretty good and other times being overpowered.
For the type of gameplay quests, its either you fight your opponent to drain half its health or even try to hunt them down. But some are my favorite like try to hunt down a number of enemies or even finding seven Dragon Balls to your pod. Its pretty much simple, depending on the difficulties. However, the camera may or may not be good. If you're in lock-on at your enemy, its pretty obvious you have to face-to-face your opponent. However, the camera doesn't let you control it, it can switch to your other opponents. Which its gonna be annoying for whoever you fight anyone.
For the story, the plot takes place in Toki Toki City where everyone work as a Time Patrol, the city was created Supreme Kai of Time. Suddenly the demons come out to manipulate the timeline of DBZ sagas and even GT (only in DLC) to ruin the heroes. So Trunks (who works on Toki Toki City) grant his wish to make you appeared in the game (il explain it later...), its up to you to fix the timeline and fight the demons. I gotta say, the story itself is pretty interesting that you going back and help anyone to beat the bad guys like Raditz, Vegeta, Frieza and few others. Nothing else to say, its an interesting story to say... ^^;
For the game graphics, it looks great, it feels like it is on the anime, but with video game graphics. Speaking of anime, it has an anime cutscenes in the game like Trunks introduced you to meet Surpeme Kai of Time with her pet owl name Tokitoki, although its great, but it also have a sense of humor like in the show. I mean you feel like you're the show to save timeline with Trunks from the future, which it kinda feels like South Park and the Stick of truth. :D
Finally, just to give a fun fact that this isn't the first Dragon Ball online game and customized that we got, the first is Dragon Ball Online for... Well, online PC. Sadly, this game was only played in Asian Area like Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea and it was closed on September and October 2013 due to project of Dragon Ball Xenoverse's project.. Not before it brought back with an English translation. For customization, not only DB Online for the first time, the second one is Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi for PS3 and XBOX 360.
Overall, Dragon Ball Xenoverse is an interesting game i've ever played with my PS3. I did beat the story and even some sub-plot that has something about a wormhole and i need a redeem code card to buy a season pass to meet DB GT characters like Pan. However, not matter if its too much for a game mechanic, my game gets slower which i was nervous that its about to crash. Since i completed the story, i have seven more characters that i created, which i showed you in my Blogger. I might gonna by a PS4 version to not only do the same, but also play much better than PS3 version for a game mechanic and make more characters.Its simply fun, but again, its pretty frustrate to play a hard levels that you really want to unlock something.
Il give this game a 8/10. :)
PS: I eventually bought the PS4 version and its much better than PS3. The control of this game is work well, but still, it has a delayed problem for your special or ultimate attack. And im having a trouble of online connection, if its either a server is off or maybe my internet connection isn't work well for a WiFi. As for my daily gaming, i actually beat it and my first character in the game is the opposite gender of me named Annie (Who's Earthling). since i finished the main story, il keep thinking about my next idea of custom characters.
So this ends of my game review, if you guys have your opinion or suggestions, let me know in the comments bellow.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out. ;)
Dragon Ball Xenoverse PS3 characters: http://anthonyotherstuff.blogspot.ca/2016/02/my-dragon-ball-xenoverse-characters.html
