It's been a while since Switch Online's Game Trials had something I was interested in playing. BACKGROUND:
Between my enjoyment of fighting games and having grown up enjoying my fair share of Dragon Ball (with the most prominent piece of media from my childhood being DBZ Budokai 3 for the PS2, also a fighting game), I've naturally heard of this one. I actually watched a bit of high-level play for this game in the years its competitive scene was most active, and I was always entertained by most matches. Part of me obviously wanted to play the game for myself, but given my terrible track record with tag fighters, I decided to be content with being a spectator. There was also a demo for it at one point, but I only ever played through the tutorial and never got a true sense of the game's mechanics. When this trial came up, I resolved to try slightly harder to learn the game. Jury's still out if I actually learned anything, though. PLOT: The game does have a story mode revolving around one central event: clones are overrunning the planet, and many of the powerful fighters of Earth are unable to use their full strength. Adding more to the chaos is the fact that the souls of separate beings appear to be inhabiting the bodies of some of these fighters, and for some reason, having them be in control of the body allows the fighter to be at full strength. It's then revealed that Android 21, a completely original character created for this game, is behind a lot of all this, and it's up to the cast of iconic Dragon Ball characters to get to the bottom of the whole mess. Story Mode is split up into three arcs: the Super Warrior Arc (which follows Goku and friends), the Enemy Warrior Arc (which sees resurrected foes like Frieza and Cell begrudgingly teaming up), and the Android 21 Arc (where you follow Androids 16, 17, and 18 as they appear to work alongside Android 21). The game makes it seem like these three arcs offer different perspectives for the same series of events, which is true until you get to the latter portions of each arc, where a bunch of details surrounding key events are changed. These inconsistencies are quite glaring, but other than that, most of what's shown in each arc aligns well enough with each other to paint a clear enough picture of what's really going on. Overall, I think the story's so-so. It's your usual world-saving plot but with a silly twist as a lot of familiar characters have to deal with the nonsense that is another soul (implied to be you, the player) taking control of their bodies in combat. I was amused to see various characters from across Dragon Ball Z's history interact with one another (especially with the villains resurrected), but other than that, there's nothing really compelling going on in terms of character growth. I suppose the only exception is Android 21, but I feel like the story mode moves way too quickly for me to get truly invested in her situation. This game mostly pulls from Dragon Ball Z for its story, but characters from Dragon Ball Super do appear briefly. I'm not really sure if the story would appeal to anybody who isn't familiar with at least Dragon Ball Z, as it assumes that you know major arcs of the anime. PRESENTATION: I would describe this game as simply the anime in game form. Akira Toriyama's style is alive and well with all of the character designs, the backgrounds feel like familiar territory for fans of the anime, and the action is as flashy as you'd expect from this series. Part of the reason why I love watching competitive matches of this game is because of how great this game looks in action and how faithful it is to the character's designs and moves. On the flip side, I felt like the story cutscenes didn't quite match the level of polish of the main gameplay. It looks fine in a vacuum, but there's a noticeable change in quality when transitioning between the two. The music is solid as well and fits the action perfectly, though I typically didn't get opportunities to properly listen to it since there's a lot I need to think about in a match. Also, the nostalgia I have for Budokai 3's OST is so strong that I have a hard time not thinking about its tracks when I look at anything Dragon Ball. GAMEPLAY: Dragon Ball FighterZ is a 3-on-3 tag team fighting game featuring many iconic characters from the series. The most well-known tag fighter out there is probably Marvel vs. Capcom, and if you're even vaguely familiar with that game, that's kind of all you need to know if you want a general idea of how this plays. Nonetheless, I'll discuss some of the mechanics. The control scheme is a bit simpler than something than Street Fighter, as you simply have buttons for light, medium, heavy, and Ki (projectile) attacks (instead of things being split up between punches and kicks on top of that), and you don't really perform any motions more complicated than your usual quarter-circles for command/special moves. I had an easier time remembering normals as a result (and it helped that there aren't as many to remember in the first place), but it's the game's many other mechanics that makes things tricky. The game is also pretty lenient and gives you auto-combos for specific button sequences, though there's room to mix and match normals as you please. Movement is quite fast and multidirectional between dashes (both on the ground and midair), jumps and high jumps, and a variety of ways to recover/tech out of damage, but this game takes things the extra mile by having a Super Dash. This lets your character zoom into the opponent (ignoring basic projectiles) and, if they don't block it, you can follow up with an air combo. It's probably a terrible idea to spam it against human opponents, but against the CPU, it's hilarious to always be up their ass and rushing them down every other knockdown. You have a super meter that you can spend for super moves and enhanced normals, and like old Dragon Ball fighting games, you can manually charge the meter (you know, if by some miracle you find an opening). As with your special moves, you can cancel moves into supers, and that's always satisfying. Instead of standard grabs, you have what's called a Dragon Rush, which performs the same function of breaking an opponent's block, but is the same flurry of strikes for everybody. Plus, you can spend one bar of meter to perform a Vanish, which lets your character instantly teleport behind the opponent to deliver an ass-whooping. Both these mechanics are fun since they really fit the over-the-top action of the anime, and in the case of the latter, you can set up for some tricky conversions with the right timing. As expected from a tag fighter, you're able to tag your other characters in to extend your combos, and like in Marvel vs. Capcom, you can also choose to call in Assist moves to cover your unsafe options or keep a combo going without tagging out. You can even tag a character in while your current character is in the middle of using their super, and the one tagging in uses their super to go in. Between your character's specific moves, universal options, and all this, there is a lot of things you can do to kick ass, and it's extremely satisfying to chain all these together to wreck the opponent. Other mechanics include the Sparking Blast (a comeback mechanic that heals HP, among other things), the Dragon Balls themselves (which I never quite figured out, but the idea is to collect them all by fulfilling special conditions for a bonus), and more nuanced tech like reflects and push-blocking. This game has all your expected modes, from Arcade (which is just aim for a high rank with your chosen team), Story (go through a series of fights with a limited roster), Local and Online Multiplayer (of course), Practice Mode (which includes tutorials and combo challenges), and miscellaneous stuff like a shop for lobby avatars and a place to view match replays. It's standard stuff, but I will note that unless you go for the optional fights in Story Mode (which unlocks bonus story cutscenes), there's not much else going on for single player action. As one may expect, you can check out a variety of DLC characters if you're willing to break out the wallet. I think the base roster is a solid selection, but it does have heavy DBZ bias (and only really includes prominent characters plus a few extras). If you want to play Super Saiyan 4 Goku or you're big on Dragon Ball Super, you may not be satisfied unless you pay extra. VERDICT: Although I only really messed around with single player modes, I still had a blast with Dragon Ball FighterZ. The frenetic 3v3 combat took a bit of time to figure out, but I was eventually able to cobble together cool-looking combos that look amazing thanks to the art style. That said, I'm content with my time here, as I don't see myself grinding out multiplayer for this one. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to run into anyone who's spent the past five years mastering this game. I've seen way too many touch-of-death combos on YouTube, and I'd prefer to not be on the receiving end of one. Whether you're a fan of Dragon Ball or you fancy a fast-paced tag fighter, I don't think you can go wrong with picking this up. As with most fighting games, I'd recommend this more if you lean towards more competitive online multiplayer, as I don't think there's much single player content to keep you occupied for longer than maybe a dozen or so hours. The game's available on Steam, if that's your preferred platform. DRAGON BALL FighterZ on Steam (steampowered.com) - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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