Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 Preview – More Spirit Than a Spirit Bomb!

Recently I had the chance to try out Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and I found it to be a far smoother and engrossing experience than the first Xenoverse game which I felt missed a few notes, though we ultimately reviewed it pretty well. With it releasing towards the end of October, Xenoverse 2 might be the biggest Dragon Ball game yet!

 

 

There was no story content in the demo I played and it was strictly 1v1 in which I played against the AI. There were a variety of memorable characters and stages to pick from including the new Time Patroller (protagonist of Xenoverse 2), Goku, Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta, Super Saiyan Gogeta, GT Goku, Trunks, Android 16, Super 17, Dodoria, Janemba and Cooler Fourth Form. I played around with most of the characters available but spent most of my time playing as Goku on the Tree of Might which quickly became my favourite map out of the ones I could pick from. Other maps included Hell (complete with jelly bean-looking rocks), Planet Namek, Wasteland, Archipelago and the World Tournament Stage. This is only a little taste of what’s to come, but I’m really liking what I’ve played so far.

 

My knowledge on the original Xenoverse is a bit dusty now as I’ve not played it in so long, but I remember not being quite as enamoured with it as I’d have liked to have been. Xenoverse 2 feels smoother with less of an emphasis on auto-combos and feels like it better re-creates Dragon Ball as we know it. Bandai Namco and developer Dimps have taken painstaking efforts to give fans the chance to bring the anime to life and whilst I always had reservations about the series going fully 3D rather than 2D and 2.5D, I admit that Xenoverse is a game I’m now itching to play again and is shaping up to be the best 3D title in the series since the Budokai Tenkaichi games – Budokai Tenkaichi 2 will forever be an excellent game, by the way.

 

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It’s simple and easily accessible for any fan to be able to have a good time with it. Square is for light attacks whilst triangle is for strong attacks, you can fly up or down across massive maps and boost towards your opponent (or away!), and teleport by simply pressing X to continue a combo. You have 7 special abilities which range from trademark attacks such as Kamehameha and Big Bang Attack, transforming into a Super Saiyan, and other various abilities. As usual you’ll need to charge chi for to use and power up these attacks. It’s incredibly easy to get used to how the special moves work, and even easier to pull them off — just a shoulder button and a corresponding button and boom, you’re blasting out cool looking moves all over the place! You’ll be whizzing around in no time participating in explosive battles and whilst it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of depth combat-wise, it’s so fluid and bombastic that it’s hard to not have loads of fun with it!

 

With the last generation behind us, Xenoverse 2 has been able to fully focus on this generation’s hardware. Xenoverse 2 looks a lot sharper, more detailed and is bridging that anime to game gap in a way that the series hasn’t managed to before, and it’s stunning. There’s a dynamic feel to the game thanks to being able to power up on the fly, and the way camera angles are used when performing special abilities. I was getting amped whilst playing. Not entirely uncoincidentally, I watched Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods last weekend too, feeling the Dragon Ball high still going strong. There weren’t any costumes in the demo but the option was there, and I’m looking forward to what else I can do with the characters and how they look. The stages are vast and perfectly re-create what you’d remember from the series and films, and the destructible environment helps to make the characters look as unbelievably powerful as they are.

 

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Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a game I wasn’t overly excited for off of the back of the first Xenoverse game, but now I’m highly anticipating next month when it releases on 28th October across EU and on the 25th in NA. Story-wise it looks like it could be the best Dragon Ball game yet, and I feel that Dimps have really nailed the fully 3D combat here in a way that they didn’t with the first Xenoverse. We’ll be reviewing the game when it releases to see how the full release stands up but if this preview is anything to go by, then it’s only going to leave a smile on our faces.

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