It’s amazing how quickly Dragon Ball can shift gears. One moment you’re tearing through gods with planet-sized punches, the next you’re a kid again, grounded in a place that doesn’t play by any of the rules you know. The Daima DLC doesn’t open loudly. It opens with unease. Goku is smaller. The world is sharper. Power feels distant. And somehow, that makes every step forward feel more meaningful.
I had the pleasure of revisiting Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot to check out the upcoming Daima DLC. The Daima DLC doesn’t try to go bigger. It goes stranger, slower, and more grounded. You begin as a smaller Goku, locked into a distorted part of the Dragon Ball universe that plays by different rules. Exploration is more constrained than in the main game, but it’s denser, and that works in the DLC’s favour. You’re not soaring through open skies. You’re moving through layered terrain, floating islands, blocked paths, and enemy patrols. There are fishing spots, chests, and side quests tucked between fragments of broken temples and cursed ruins. The setting really feels new and breathes new life into the already great game.
Combat in the Demon Realm
Combat stays familiar but feels refreshed in this context. You still chain combos, fire off energy blasts, and call in support once gauges fill, but the fights now lean into scale. Horde battles return, and they push you harder. You’re not always up against a single enemy with telegraphed patterns. You’re surrounded, forced to time crowd-clearing attacks, and think more about spacing. Some fights end in one clean special, others drag out with waves of smaller enemies testing your endurance. The systems haven’t changed, but the way they’re applied gives them more weight.
The Demon Realm itself feels vast, even though this preview is limited to just one of three planned areas. What you do get access to is anything but narrow. After several hours of side content and ambient exploration, the main objective still felt distant. The story holds back its bigger beats, cutting off right before the first major encounter. That might frustrate some, but it also shows how confident this DLC is in pacing itself. There’s no rush to blow everything up in the first hour.
Looks promising
Visually, the DLC leans into dry tones and muted landscapes, more Sand Land than Namek, but it avoids feeling empty. Environmental variety comes from structure rather than colour. The map folds in on itself, encourages backtracking, and hides enough to reward players who don’t just follow the quest marker. Even without the spectacle of huge cutscenes, the world invites curiosity.
What stands out most is how well the core Kakarot mechanics hold up when pulled in a slightly different direction. The systems are the same, but the context shifts everything. With flight removed and freedom scaled down, every bit of progress feels earned. Each combo hit, each burst of ki, and each completed side objective gains impact simply because you’re working harder for it. That’s something the main game sometimes lacked. This DLC brings it back.
Daima doesn’t feel like a bonus chapter. It feels like its own pocket-sized RPG, built with care and constraint. You’re playing with familiar tools, but under unfamiliar conditions. That alone gives the experience its tension. If the remaining two Demon Realms maintain the scope and structure of this first one, we’re looking at a DLC set that quietly outgrows its label.
