Alright and welcome back. I had a chance to play Dragon Ball Xenoverse for several hours recently and am here to tell you all about it.
The game starts with the final act of the Frieza Saga - Goku's battle against Frieza himself. In this opening scene you take control of Goku and get a chance to feel out the controls. Once the battle is over a purple aura appears around the defeated Frieza. The scene then cuts to Goku's fight with Cell, and then to his fight with Majin Buu. With the defeat of each opponent they each acquire the purple aura and start to get to their feet again, even if they would be getting up again anyway.
These moments show points where history is about to change and all of this is observed by Future Trunks who has been recruited by the Supreme Kai of Time to help over see the timelines of history as one of her most powerful enforcers. Its here that the opening cut scene plays and rolls into Trunks finding that he is needing some help and uses the dragon balls to summon forth a powerful ally who can stand against the forces changing the time line.
At this point the dragon summons forth a warrior to aid Trunks - which is you.
You are introduced to the character creation screen at this point and allowed to make you character by picking from 1 of several available races: Majin, Saiyan, Human, Namekian, and Frieza Race.
Each race offers some basic benefits but does not overtly seem to dictate your character's stats. I chose to go with a Saiyan.
The character customization is fairly robust but you unfortunately don't get to select a starting outfit to wear. As you acquire money (Zenny) you do get the option to buy new outfit sets to customize your looks, some of which you can change the color of and some you cannot.
[Note that the pic was gotten from Google searching.]
Once character creation is over you are given a better tutorial on controls as Trunks "tests" the skill of your character. When test time is over you move on to a chance to explore TokiToki City which is the main hub for your character to choose missions, buy items, and set up masters to train under.
As you play the game the city does open up and you get the chance to go on co-op missions, or participate in other activities with other players. Character names do not seem to be an issue as its likely that you get lumped onto different servers when you have a name that is the same as someone else...then again I was playing the PC version so don't hold me to that account.
So controls are fairly easy, but things can be a bit fast and hectic which can make the controls a bit difficult to deal with. For example, you hold the right trigger to bring up your basic special moves list. Hold down the left trigger too and you bring up your ultimate move list. This can be tricky to traverse when you are in a fast paced fight and you need to switch things on the fly.
In pointing this out lets start with some negative aspects of the game. The first is that the camera suffers from some of the common hangups with camera's in games, namely that the terrain often gets in the way of your ability to view things. This becomes especially frustrating when fighting inside Frieza's space ship.
Second of all I came across a time when fighting the Oozaru form of Vegita that my character became stuck in one place and could not move.
Lag was also an issue but that could have been due to the computer I was using and the settings the game was being played on, which could have been tweaked with.
NPC allies are often less than helpful - this is especially the case on Frieza's ship with Gohan and Krillin. One or the other is always getting KO'ed which immediately ends the mission regardless of how quick you are at over powering enemies (your in Captain Ginyu's body in this fight so its likely you don't have your stats, I was level 17 at this point in the game and shouldn't have been having a hard time).
But aside from glitches and such the game has some potential and leaves me to wonder what sort of DLC will be maid available and just how closely will the game be supported.
What's unfortunate too is that there is no demo version of the game available to try on any console or the PC.
So what are the positive aspects of this game?
Well to start this is about the best RPG for Dragon Ball that your going to find outside of any custom setting you come up with using table top gaming rules. The fights offer a decent challenge, though obviously you can sometimes become frustrated with them. You always have the option to return to TokiToki City if you having a problem.
Parallel Quests make up the current side content that you can access as a means of training your character up and gaining XP out side of the main story missions. You can use these fights as an opportunity to explore areas to find items by using a scouter. Once found you can take these items back to TokiToki City and to a merging station to craft new items instead of buying them.
You also get to select a master to train under, this being one of the many classic Dragon Ball characters which includes both heroes and villains too.
The game offers co-op gaming (and vs.) and socializing which is a nice addition. You can even hire other players to assist you as well as trade items with them too.
The graphics are fairly clean depending on what system your playing on. It is an anime game so don't expect anything to be near photo realistic.
Now I've played many of the recent Dragon Ball games and have been fairly disappointed in their mechanics and general game play, but Dragon Ball Xenoverse was fun to play, and though I was a bit frustrated with the controls at times its not enough to dissuade me from playing the game.
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So most sites give a scale of 1 to 10 on games and whether or not you should play them.
For Dragon Ball Xenoverse I'm going to give this game a: 7
Why a 7?
Well the game is decent, and fun, but there is room for improvement as the game feels like it is lacking something but its not easy to pin down what that might be. It also has a few problems going for it, but its not enough to stop a person from playing. Its possible that with DLC as a possible forth coming thing that I could change my mind on this rating. I'd like to give it an 8, but its just not quite at that point where it feels that great.
Should you buy the game?
That one is up to you. Right now it retails for $49.99. If your a big DBZ fan then you can justify spending some bank on picking up this game, but if your not - Gamefly is always a good option to pick it up and try. But the game is at least worth a try if you can get it.
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A Final Note
I've made it all the way to the first encounter with Cell in the game and at level 26 the fight is ridiculously tough. So if your at this fight yet you will need to level up a lot and try and get the Super Saiyan power (which I don't have yet) so that you can stand a chance.
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