I came to review this knowing very little of the very popular anime series this game is based on, and hadn’t played this games predecessor. Would I be drawn into this world and be turned into a fan? It was certainly a big ask. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a third person fighting game but with a large part of it also being an open world RPG. You play a raw recruit to the Time Patrol, and under the guidance of Elder Kai and the Supreme Kai of time, you develop your fighting skills and become a better warrior in order to travel to different points in history to fix the time line and keep the course of history running as it should be. You aren’t really told who is changing history and why, but I guess as a new Patroller on the lowest rung of the ladder, it’s not your place to question such things, you just follow orders and get on with the job.
When you start the game there seem to be a lot of cut-scenes to sit through before you get effect anything on screen yourself. These scenes probably mean a lot to existing fans of Dragonball but far too much of it was baffling and irrelevant to me at the start of the game, I just wanted to get on with things. You choose your character from a choice of 5 different races, Earthling, Frieza, Majin, Nemekian and Saiyan, each with different abilities so you need to think about how you like to play this kind of game before deciding. Then there’s plenty of customisation you can do to create a character that’s going to be pretty unique to you. If you have played the previous game, you can use your saved game data from that to import your character into this game as an NPC, which is a nice touch.
Once you’re happy with your creation you are sent to Conton City, which is the main hub of the RPG aspect of the game, where you can interact with plenty of NPCs that just seem to stand about on their own waiting for someone to come up and chat, none of them ever seem to be going anywhere which strikes me as a bit odd. Spread around the hub are various shops offering their wares that can be useful for boosting your character’s skills, or to just look cool. Speak to right people in Conton City and you can do tutorials and training missions that get you familiar with the basics of combat, then get on with the real action by being sent on quests.
The fighting takes place in scenic locations in time that you’re transported to via portal, and despite being able to learn combinations, Super and Ultimate moves, it will still more often than not come down to some frantic button mashing while hoping for the best. If you want to win more fights you need to keep an eye on the meters for your Ki, which powers your big attacks, and your Stamina. Flying in at the start like a whirling dervish might give you a temporary advantage but more powerful opponents will soon start knocking you about like a rag doll once you tire. The fact that most of the fighting takes place in mid-air adds a different dimension to similar games of this style, and there’s plenty of variation in the look size and ability of your enemies, without there being too much of a mismatch. Sometimes you will team up with other characters to fight as a team, but there didn’t seem too much going on in the way of team tactics and it usually just descends into a frantic free for all.
The graphics stay very true to the original anime style, with its abundance of pointy haired dudes with angry faces striking heroic poses, and the animation was very slick. The sound in the game needs a lot of improvement however. Conversations with NPCs will start with hammy voice acting before switching to text only after a while for no apparent reason, and despite having to pick a voice for your character when I created him, he only ever grunts or shouts unintelligibly. The music in the game may be standard fare for Japanese games but didn’t take long to get extremely irritating, especially in Conton City which sounded like the soundtrack to a bad tv show for 3 year olds. Thankfully you can turn the music off!
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 improves somewhat when you play with others, as you can team up with other players either locally or online to complete quests, with a more satisfying outcome as you can actually employ some teamwork rather than having to rely on NPCs with their distinct lack of intelligence. Online Battles are definitely something only to be attempted by the more hardcore players though, as the standard there is extremely high and you really need to have mastered most of the moves if you don’t want to get a sound beating on every outing.
The sheer number of missions and quests available is impressive, and would provide real variety if it wasn’t for the fact that the fighting part of it gets fairly repetitive, especially when you start the game and your character doesn’t have much in the way of moves and abilities. Fans of the series will stick with it and plough through but I think newcomers will tire of it pretty quickly. The game relies on you already knowing who a lot of the characters are, and there’s very little in the way of story for new players to get to know then. Add to that the tedious nature of the conversations and poor attempts at humour, and I found myself not caring who these characters were anyway.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is likely to be a big hit with existing fans of this franchise and it has lots to engage them, but I don’t think its something that is going to win over a new audience.
Developer: Dimps
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Genre: 3rd Person Combat/RPG
Price: £49.99
Many Thanks to XCN for the review copy.