When you finish the game, ask yourself this question. How much did you really play as Goku?

One of the most beloved franchises in anime, bogged down by repetitive and rushed gameplay. The Dragon Ball franchise is one of my most favorite series, so the games are obviously very critical to me in their execution. Bandai brings elements from their previous entries and tries something new with an open world feature. Fly across the DB world and explore the regions within. The idea is an amazing image of the world, but it has many flaws that hurt the spirit of many fans. To start, what makes this game feel rushed is the fact that a good portion of the story is either told in a mediocre cut scene or just completely skipped entirely. A mediocre cutscene would be such as Goku coming back from yardrat and him explaining where he has been, only for the game to cut to a black screen and come back with the story told “behind” the scenes. This is heavy throughout the game. Yes, we all know the story and it has been told thousands of times, but that doesn’t stop the fans from buying the next title. And Bandai knows that. Many game companies push out half assed games these days and still gamers buy them, myself included. In my opinion, the last great DBZ game to bless us gamers was Budokai Tenkaichi 3. The roster and gameplay coupled with the environment were top notch.

Everyone loves free things. This is what the dragon balls are for right? Well yes, you get free things in the game. And you really don’t have to work hard at all to find them. YEP! The map shows you exactly where they are. The dragon balls are on a real world timer based off the last time you summoned Shenron. Once they reappear, you get a notification and the map shows which region and the radar shows you the exact location via an icon on the mini map. You could easily grind your way through the game via the dragon balls. But what fun is that really? The rewards all actually not all that worth it. The dragon balls should have been a little harder to find and actually require you to use the radar to find them.

This game brings you few playable characters, NPC support characters, and everything else is minor.The environment is not destructible, and the rank up system is brought to you by a means of HEAVY grinding for different color orbs scattered throughout the map that barely give enough points to gain a new skill. The repetitive nature of going back and forth between maps to gather orbs, and fight off enemies in the sky, just make it really boring and really frustrating. There is so much lost potential as with this type of game, you could have told Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, and all the movies to make 1 epic title, even if they were released as DLC.

A good thing going for the game would definitely have to be the difficulty scaling. Enemies 10 levels higher then you can and will waste your time. You will hardly do damage and will probably give up before you actually kill them. This forces you to gain more experience and skills before fighting them. But then also falls back on the repetitive grind. Surprisingly though, the game is quite stable for its size, and I did not encounter any bugs or glitches.

This game can truly become amazing if only it were polished more and more features added. As we all know, there will most likely be another DBZ game released in the future, but hopefully we get one that tells it all. That can blow the fans minds in its flesh out story and battles. Epic moves and fights, warping the ground and buildings. Tearing of the clothes and battle scars. Really does make me miss Tenkaichi 3.


All in all, this is a decent game to the franchise despite its flaws. I’m just a fan picking apart his favorite team. Pick it up for the story and nostalgia. To any true DBZ die hard fan, get this game on discount, it will disappoint you a little unfortunately.

Some things I’d like to see in the future on titles or this game:
Redo the story and actually make it fleshed out and/or tell the story from the very beginning
Fix Voice sync
Bring the PLAYABLE roster of the likes of FighterZ or Tenkaichi 3
(For the PvP oriented) Bring multiplayer
Add a seperate mode to actually fight against AI like in the older games
Bring world tournament to acquire optional things (tie in cosmetics instead of a cash shop)
Go back to the first DBZ game and start from there in pulling elements from all the previous entries