Dragon Ball XenoVerse Review (PS4)
You’d be forgiven for thinking Dragon Ball XenoVerse is an MMO. It borrows many elements from the now defunct Dragon Ball Online. However it meshes these online elements with a simple but rewarding battle system and enjoyable story to provide a truly unique experience for long time fans of the series. Oh, and it has Vegeta’s butt.
The story of Dragon Ball Z was already told countless times. This is why Dragon Ball XenoVerse adds something new to the formula to keep things fresh for the fans. You play as a Future Warrior, a person Trunks summoned using the power of the Dragon Balls. Time is being changed as you speak and opponents from the famous battles in history are becoming more powerful than ever. You rethread old grounds as you are sent to help the Z Warriors and restore the correct balance of time. While the majority of the story follows the Dragon Ball Z timeline there are frequent diviations which are rather enjoyable, giving you the feeling that you are actually influencing the story.
As a new character in the Dragon Ball universe you get to decide how you want to look. You can choose between the Majin, Saiyan, Earthling, Namekian and Frieza’s race, each with their own traits. All races except Namekian and Frieza’s race have the option of male and female which further influences base stats. After that you can fiddle around with your character’s size, color and voice, making the warrior you always wanted.
You start in the central hub of the game called the Toki Toki world. Future Warriors can buy items, skills and clothing, synthesize new items using materials, do side missions and participate in online and offline matches. As you progress through the campaign characters will start appearing here, offering new missions and options. If you select the online lobby, you will be able to see players in real time running around, however even in offline mode the game populates the world with online avatars to keep the place from being too empty.
Battles allow for quite a bit of freedom. Battles support up to 3 versus 3 players, however the number of characters during story missions can be higher. You can freely fly around the map and lock a specific opponent. More often than not you will be facing off against multiple enemies. You can get by most opponents by just mashing the basic attack button. This makes the basic attack stat the most important one in the game, which in turn is why I had extreme difficulty with some enemies as a ki oriented female Saiyan. You can also execute an infinite juggle combo with standard attacks, allowing for specific difficult battles to be bypassed with ease.
That is not to say that ki attacks are useless. Every one of them has its own use, such as paralysing foes, hitting multiple opponents at the same time, dodging incoming attacks and buffing your character for a short amount of time. Special attacks can also be naturally tied into combos. In one instance I sent an opponent flying with a punch and then teleported in front of him, finishing him off with a Kamehameha. ki attacks are also most useful when you have someone stricking the enemy in close combat so you can focus supporting them from afar.
Aside from the ki meter, used for special attacks and the Super Saiyan mode, you have a stamina meter. Your stamina bar allows you to vanish, dodging blows and delivering counter attacks, which prevents those frustrating moments of being relentlessly pummelled to death. Defending also uses up your stamina bar, so you’ll usually want to keep a chunk in case your opponent decides to use a super attack.
One big disappointment is the lack of transformations for all races except Saiyans. I would have loved to see Frieza’s race have multiple transformations, Namekians become giants, Saiyans turn into Great Apes or have Majin transform into Kid Buu, despite all the potential balance issues.
At its best Dragon Ball XenoVerse has you playing scenarios you may have wished happened in the show. You can help Raditz on his quest to take down Goku, assist Napa invade earth and even help Guldo with the entrance exam for the Ginyu Force. These side quests offer very little story, but they still manage to feel enjoyable especially for fans. Whether it’s defending Hercule from Cell, fighting against a Great Ape, or even sucking it up and becoming Krillin’s apprentice (oh the humiliation), these moments make you feel like part of the Dragon Ball universe.
Depending on your race and allies, characters will have different things to say. It’s here that the game shows its personality. Goku expreses his kind heated nature, Cell keeps making egocentric comments whenever possible, Raditz cannot hold his delight when you beat another opponent, and Vegeta taunts you every time he delivers the finishing blow.
Another great aspect of Dragon Ball XenoVerse is that you can select to be an apprentice of various characters from the Dragon Ball universe. They give you quests and task you with mastering their unique techniques. Krillin will teach you the Destructo Disk while Vegeta will show you the Galick Beam among other things. Your mentor even adds witty remarks after battles depending on how you did.
This ties into the massive amounts of skills the game offers, over 200 in total. You can equip 4 basic skills and 4 ultimate skills depending on your class. All of them feel unique and add a sense of depth mimicking that of the series.
As usual in these titles the camera could have been better. It has its moments of blocking the view and clipping through floors, even during cutscenes. However it’s never that bad that you lose a match. One thing that was really baffling is how missions sometimes skipped specific battles because they somehow didn’t manage to trigger.
The game can get fairy repetitive especially when played in longer sessions. This is because there are some really big difficulty spikes throughout the campaign, forcing you to grind to your heart’s content. The first example that pops to mind is beating four forms of Frieza in a row and later on fighting 6 Majin Buus at the same time. This is why the game allows you to bring up to 4 consumable items in battle.
Don’t expect to finish Dragon Ball XenoVerse in one sitting. Even after you get through the 10 or so hour campaign there is a staggering amount of side content, from side missions, character quests, collecting the dragon balls, becoming everyone’s apprentice and mastering all the skills, multiplayer battles, improving your rank in all the missions and trying out a new race.
As the first Dragon Ball game on this generation of consoles it is the prettiest Dragon Ball game to date, but that is not saying much. Equipment is visible on your character, and environments have a basic level of destruction. Still, it doesn’t feel like anything that was impossible before. On the plus side the game is available on both the PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC, with the PC requirements being extremely low.
The majority of the original voice cast from the anime is here, making it one of the rare instances I actually kept the voice audio in English from start to finish. Their voice acting is amazing and it feels like you are actually partaking in a new episode of Dragon Ball Z.
While it definitely has room for improvement, Dragon Ball XenoVerse is ultimately an enjoyable title. It has a decent story, simple but enjoyable combat, a good number of online modes and massive amounts of content. However because it assumes that you know the Dragon Ball Z storyline newcomers won’t get as much bang for the buck as longtime fans. Dragon Ball XenoVerse might very well be the Dragon Ball title that everyone has been waiting for.
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Don’t forget you can pick up both the standard and limited edition of Dragon Ball XenoVerse in our Rice Digital Store.
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