Reviews// Dragon Ball: Xenoverse

Special attacks can be used by holding the right trigger and the corresponding button and ultimate attacks by pressing both triggers and the corresponding button. Unlike previous games there is no basic power-up button. I had to buy this from a skills vendor and set it to be one of my special attacks.

If you’re like me and just button mash most of the time before firing a ki blast at their face, you can do okay but it won’t really serve you well for the main missions. The bosses are tough and will be ruthless if you don’t have a strategy to defeat them. So it’s good to learn a few techniques like combining blocking with throws. Or, teleporting behind your opponent and placing a nice Kamehameha up their posterior to gain the upper hand will make things easier in the long run. The better you do in a battle, the more experience points and zeni you receive afterwards. Once you level up you receive a few bonus points to increase your stats to your liking.

When you’re first let loose in battles you don’t have many skills to choose from - a few basic attacks for your specials which aren’t very flashy but they get the job done. You can unlock more by purchasing them from skill vendors, or if you roam around the city, certain NPCs (including Z Warriors) will show up now and then and you will be able to train with them, gaining signature special attacks.

I chose to train with Vegeta and he taught me the Galick Gun special attack to go and have fun with. Once you’ve mastered one skill by using it in battle a certain number of times, you can go back to your master and continue your training, there are several levels to this, each one granting you a more powerful attack than the last. Training also includes getting certain items for your master, which are usually earned from completing side quests, or Parallel Quests as they are known in this game.

Parallel Quests are little side battles that you can complete to gain experience points, zeni, armour, skills and items. They may seem like an after-thought, but get used to them because they will be the main battles that you spam to level up your warrior enough to tackle the main missions. You can complete these quests offline with two NPCs at your side, or you can choose to go online and complete them with other players. This way is more chaotic. The job gets done a lot quicker but if you’re not on the ball and get most of the hits in yourself then you can lose out on a lot of experience points.

The battles in these side quests are usually done through a series of different areas, all accessible by flying through different teleporters. Once an enemy is defeated, you can use your scouter to look around for items that can be used to craft consumables and sometimes Z Warriors will be around for you to talk to so you can replenish your health for the next battle. Be wary not to take too long doing this though – parallel missions have a time limit and you will fail the missions if all enemies are not defeated within the allotted time. This is about as much free roaming as you will get outside Toki Toki city, which was a bit of a let-down for me.

There are also a few PVP options – starting at 1v1, you can have up to 3v3 showdowns. Also, of course a Dragon Ball game would not be complete without a World Tournament and this game is no exception. You can also duke it out with a friend in local battles so there are plenty of options for PVP lovers.

The main story missions are staying true to the Dragon Ball universe but have a nice little twist – history is being altered and you are thrust in the middle of these legendary fights in order to make sure that the fight goes the way it should. It starts at the beginning of the story in Dragon Ball Z, only the timeline has been altered so that Radditz doesn’t get hit by Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon but Goku still gets hit, meaning Goku dies for nothing and the Earth is left vulnerable. You have to put this to rights so that history is as it should be.

This has to be my favourite part of Xenoverse. In past games you played as one of the Z Warriors, but in this one you play yourself. You are a Z Warrior and it’s up to you to play the hero. This gives players a more physical and emotional involvement with the story and characters, making the game an overall more enjoyable experience.

Overall this game is a nice addition to the Dragon Ball universe and a great and fresh approach to the story. The battles are fun, customisation of your character is fantastic and the online features are brilliant if you love a bit of PVP.

The main let down for me was the free roaming – Toki Toki City is just three areas of the same layout but with different buildings. I would have liked more areas to roam around such as West City. It would have gone a long way to enrich the whole experience and put more meat on the bones. A better variety of Parallel missions wouldn’t have gone amiss either – spamming these to level up is tedious at best, which doesn’t really give me a lot of incentive to keep playing.

In short this game is great but it could have been so, so much more. My feelings from pre-game hype to post game-playing summed up in this one word...

KAAMEEHAAMEEEEEEH...oh...

Pros:
+ Excellent character creation
+ Adrenalin-fuelled fun fights
+ Cell-shaded graphics perfected
+ Fresh take on familiar story

Cons:
- Spamming side missions to gain levels
- Lack of decent free-roaming areas
- Lack of difficulty setting on Offline Mode

SPOnG Score: 8/10