Gamescom has unleashed some new games upon us and we had the chance to test out one of the most anticipated games in 2018, the 2.5 D fighter set in the Dragonball Universe across all era’s. Here are our thoughts!
Dragonball Z already had some games to play but one of their most played games within the franchise was the Budokai series, an action packed fighter game with a collection of the most popular characters and transformations. It went from a typical fighter to an amazing “open arena” kind of game with destructible environments. After the Budokai series, they went a step further by bringing us another successful series within the Dragonball Z universe, namely Xenoverse where an open world story focused game offered us the chance to create our own amazing Z warrior.
To innovate the fighting series, they’ve come up with this fantastic manga 2.5 D fighter game with an amazing feature: 3 vs 3 PVP battles. The game lets you choose up to 3 characters from the Dragon Ball Z Universe, all with their own specific set of abilities but it’s a bit more difficult than you might think. Each character is specialized in a certain style: rushing, long range attacks, … etc. So you have to think what type of team you want to build in order for you to be successful.
They have only revealed some characters of the roster: Goku, Trunks, Majin Buu, Frieza, Cell, Vegeta and Gohan. If you’re familiar with the franchise, you’ll notice that these characters are very important within the saga but later this day, they revealed to us a couple of other characters that make the roster even more exciting. They’ve announced Krillin, Android 18/17, Piccolo and Android 16. Much more will be announced in the future! Each character has its own set of skills and combo attacks. Build up your characters KI and blast away your opponent with supers. Each Character can equip 2 special moves alongside its combo attacks. Kicking your opponent up in the air is also an important part of the game because it prolongs your combo.
You can compare this fighting game with Marvel VS Capcom. It’s a fast paced fighting game where you can switch between characters on the spot or get combos with the help of your teammates’ assists! These assists can have different roles: support, interrupt or even damage. Teammates can even be equipped with Senzu Beans to heal other teammates.
“POWER KNOWS NO LIMIT!”
The game can be played locally or online. The online lobby is a visualized social hub where you can walk around, meet up with friends or even challenge other players. You can check the leaderboards, communicate with other players thanks to their “stamp” system (DBZ themed emoticons), customize your avatar or battle players in the arena. The online competitive mode is all about competing teams of 3 where each character is a living player. Once your team is formed, you’ll be able to communicate with each other to form up a strategy. There will also be “a simplistic communication” during the match with the help of those stamps.
If you play the game locally, you’ll be able to choose between different modes. There’s a story mode with a brand new story set in the universe. This scenario has only been teased with a small video but the developers said that it would all start around Android 16. He’ll be making an important comeback within this game. The whole story will be animated and there will be no dull texted dialogues. Immersion is an important aspect of the game!
The game will be launched in February 2018 for PC, Xbox One and PS4. If you pre-order the game, you will gain access to two special characters from the latest Dragon Ball Z saga, mainly Goku SSGSS and Vegeta SSGSS. These two characters are different from the current announced versions of Goku and Vegeta. The SSGSS versions of Goku and Vegeta have another set of abilities and they can boost their KI to 7 KI gauges. These are the only 2 characters that can do this. You’ll also gain early access to the beta and you’ll receive a unique lobby avatar.
You can check out some off-screen footage here:
