Dragon Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z!
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a celebration of the Dragon Ball Z Saga or at least a solid chunk of it. Where the Xenoverse series had you create a customized warrior to build up through its story, time-traveling to major events from the anime, Kakarot has you play out much of the entire DBZ anime series in a somewhat consistent narrative, sadly leaving some arcs, such as the Garlic Jr saga, in favor of more Goku-focused storylines. While the game is certainly better than what’s come before, playing like a more fleshed-out version of Battle of Z, it’s somewhat of a backhanded compliment as it is certainly loaded with its own problems and aged gameplay systems.
When Bandai Namco rolled out its marketing campaign for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, I had to chuckle at their tagline; “Relive the Saga” as frankly, more than a few dozen games across the history of this franchise have had us do this in video game form in some way or another. Pushing through the same story may feel like this series is pulling from the well too often and considering Dragon Ball Z is one of the most popular anime series’ ever, I can’t really blame them for capitalizing on it again. My main issue with Kakarot is that the game built around can often feel as old and tired as the story it’s pulling from.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot retells the four core saga’s from Dragon Ball Z; Saiyan, Frieza, Cell, and Buu, which is a bit less than what was explored in Xenoverse, but Kakarot goes far more in-depth than just picking certain battles and framing a loose narrative around them. Here, you get far more involved in those events and it actually offers up far more of the story from the show than I was expecting, making this the most detailed retelling of the anime in videogame form to date. While each of these sagas is pretty lengthy in the content available to them, going from an extremely intense saga ending battle to a slow build-up to the next one really drags the game down a bit with its pacing. To assist in keeping the action going, you have a ton of battles and sub-quests and side-stories to tackle, such as Goku and PIccolo attempting to get their license, seeing Puar try to keep up Yamcha’s reputation, tracking down a girly mag for Master Roshi, or assisting a pair of tourists as they visit planets on the eve of their destruction. There are a ton of these quests that pop up during certain points in the story and require specific characters to initiate them, but more on those later.
The storytelling is certainly better than what we’ve had before, but most of the poor writing that has plagued this series and anime is here in full swing as well, with clumsy dialogue, odd pacing during conversations, and character’s blurting out information to their enemies that comes back to bite them in the ass more than once. There are also countless times when the subtitles don’t match the dialogue and several embarrassing moments where there are actual spelling mistakes, incorrect uses of ‘had’ and ‘have’ and more than a dozen instances of incorrect grammar, which is odd for a major publisher like Bandai Namco to let slip.
I’ll preface the rest of this review by stating that while I enjoy many aspects of the Dragon Ball Z franchise, I wouldn’t consider myself a massive fan, but somewhere in between that and a casual one. I’ve played the majority of the games released in the past decade, but only really sunk a lot of time into the Xenoverse and FighterZ titles. Major fans are going to purchase Kakarot without a second thought, bypassing probably every review, but others may be hesitant to take the bait, given how Xenoverse and its sequel were received; games that were good, but not great. It’s also good to know if Kakarot is a good jumping on point for newcomers or if you need to have watched the anime to get what’s going on or how certain scenes will impact you, given it does leave a few things out.
For those new to Dragon Ball Z, you’ll understand a certain degree of what’s going on as Kakarot does an ok job at detailing the events of the original Dragon Ball. There are countless collectibles that will tell you bits and pieces of the backstory, as well as a ton of characters that reminisce about the old days. I will say that having at least a basic understanding of who certain characters are can often feel like a prerequisite to get the most out of their arcs and who they are to the story. While I’ve watched a great deal of the anime, most of my history with the franchise is through its games, and I was able to follow everything pretty well, even noticing that they cut out a few big moments from the whole DBZ arc, such as when Vegeta discovers who Trunks actually is, a moment in the game that is completely left out.
As I mentioned before, Kakarot is largely built around Goku, so the arcs that it covers are mostly designed around his involvement, meaning we do miss out out on some story arcs that are based on other supporting characters. While this massive focus on Goku is the reason the game is called what it is, we also get a lot of Gohan here as well, which makes the absence of Garlic Jr rather odd when you think about it. There are also moments the game skips entirely as Snake Way is glossed over, and there is no training moment with King Kai either. For as detailed as the game wants to be with other parts of its story, it’s a shame that moments like these are regulated to a quick cutscene or just ignored entirely. There is also a moment where Trunks and Krillin go to explore a laboratory, which could have been a fun interior level, but it is skipped in favor of telling us they explored it with a single line of dialogue instead.
Much of Kakarot has you exploring large open spaces that are connected through a hub world map. Those who were hoping for one massive open-world environment might be disappointed, but many of these locations, and planets, are rather large with sub-areas connected to them as well. Locations are filled with numerous ways to gather resources that can be used to sell for Zeni, make food to increase certain stats, or gathering resources to build and modify special vehicles to drive around. While you could use those vehicles to get around to most places, flying is essentially the way you’ll traverse each location and it’s unfortunate that the flying feels so poorly implemented here, considering how much of it you’ll be doing. Despite what the game ended up being, Anthem showed us how engaging and intuitive flying can and should be in a game, so going back to using a seperate button system for up and down feels incredibly ancient and cumbersome. Flying is done by floating in the air by pressing A to jump and then A again to hover. RB is used to ascend, and RT is then used to descend. You can push in the left analog stick to boost as well, but things, like rolling with Y or searching for KI, is prevented from being used while boosting. Flying around just feels clunky and never enjoyable, especially as you’re flying around collecting orbs to use as skill point currency. There is also a huge gap between flying and running speeds as either one option is two slow, or the other is just a bit too fast for trying to be precise in your movements.
Once you complete the game, you’ll have access to several more locations, as well as a ton more sub-quests that you’ll be able to complete. Now, I’ve already mentioned sub-quests and what they are, but these are small bite-size missions that offer up rewards and experience. Completing many of them are actually quite enjoyable, but there are a few where you need to be a certain character and the game will block you from starting them if certain members of the roster are in your party. There was a particular subquest where Trunks needs to talk to Bulma and I had to keep changing the members of my party as it kept saying I had characters included that were blocked from being part of this sub-quest. I eventually found a trio that was allowed, but the sub-quest itself was merely a cutscene that didn’t even feature the other two characters at all. This aspect of not allowing certain characters to be in your party happens pretty frequently and became quite the annoyance. But, the biggest problem with how subquests work, and to a lesser extent, the main quests, is the abundance of loading into another area for a quick cutscene. In fact, you’ll see the loading screen so often, that it can really get on your nerves to see the game load again for a 15-second scene, just to reload back to where you were thereafter. For as bad as Anthem was with how many loading screens were present, Kakarot may just have it beat.
Working your way through Kakarot will see you taking on the roles of a few characters; Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, Trunks, and a few more in limited roles. You can have supporting characters be part of your party between big moments, and these include Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Android 18, each of which cannot be in the main character slot. Each character, regardless of being in a central or supporting role, can be upgraded through a pretty standard skill tree that can allow them to train for new abilities as well as upgrade their potency. You’ll use different color orbs for certain characters, and you’ll need D-Medals in order to train for newer abilities. As you use the training systems to add to your ever-growing roster, Master Roshi will reward you with items for your troubles. This is a way to earn many D-Medals at once, but you’ll have to seek out more in the environment, meaning parts of your character’s progress is blocked behind collectible hunting. Thankfully, much like Dragon Ball Radar, finding items is very easy as you can scout locations on the map or use your Ki-searching abilities to pin-point exactly where certain items are in something akin to detective vision from the Batman: Arkham games.
With Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot being an RPG based fighter, you’ll have a ton of menu’s and subsystems in place to handle a lot of the stat tracking, increases, and skills to equip to your fighter. The biggest failing that Kakarot gives in this regard is it doesn’t really explain a great deal of how certain systems work, hell, even after spending some 55+ hours beating the game and pushing through its endgame content, I didn’t even notice that many of the passive increases I was purchasing on the skill tree were not even equipped. The skill tree is split into moves and passive skills called “Know-how’s” and these need to be manually equipped. These range from dealing more damage to a stunned enemy to receiving more benefits from items. While I never found the game to be drastically hard, knowing I had to equip these passive skills myself would have lessened my reliance on having hundreds of healing items at the ready.
Another aspect of its RPG systems is how you’ll earn experience and level up. Standard battles will give you a modest amount of experience, but you rarely ever need to do many of these random battles as story moments in the game, and the side quests offered will automatically dump a ton of experience on you, especially when you are put back in the battle shoes of a character you haven’t used in some time. The game will often ensure you have leveled appropriately for certain fights ahead of you, dumping millions of experience points after a major story arc, so there really isn’t a need for endless grinding as you also have access to cooking meals that grant some significant bonuses as well. The Z-orbs that you use to apply to skills can be collected as you fly around, but you can earn a ton of them from completing training, completing certain tasks, or summoning Shenron and wishing for more with the Dragon Balls, which is another way to earn money fairly quickly, that or selling items you get from destroying enemy bases or the Frieza-force ships.
Other aspects of increasing certain stats are handled through a community system. As you earn the friendship of most characters in the game, you’ll earn their Soul Emblem. Certain characters who are experts in their field will lead their own Community Board, such as Goku being in charge of combat, Chi-Chi being in charge of food items, or Bulma being the leader in the technology development community. Each board has a unique pathing to it and connecting certain characters to each other will increase the overall score to that community. You can also increase each character’s score on the board by giving them gifts that contribute to their knowledge of each Community Board. Certain connected characters will introduce bonuses such as keeping all the androids or Saiyans together or each family group. The rewards within each community vary such as earning more experience in battle, having food items offer up more effects or duration, or boosting several combat stats like melee or defense. While many of the stats can initially seem pointless, such as increasing Ki Defense by 1%, you can eventually boost it to 7%, so this system requires you to go all-in on certain boards to really get the most out of this system.
Combat is truly the most important aspect of Dragon Ball to get right and thankfully, this is where Kakarot shines, for the most part. Taking a page out of the Xenoverse games, you’ll equip four abilities to each of your main fighters, as well as different transformations, like Super Sayan 1 or 2, as you unlock them. You can also equip four healing items to the D-pad, but given the fast-paced nature of the game and easily being hit by an opponent you can’t see, it can be an annoyance having to lift your thumb off the left analog stick to select it, even if it does slow down time a bit to access the menu. Using an ability is pressing LB and then the corresponding face button to use it. You’ll also unlock team attacks that are pulled off when charged by pressing both LB+RB. Standard punches are mapped to the B button, dodging with A, and Ki-blasts with X. You’ll also need to manage your Ki reserves and you can charge this by holding down Y, which keeps you motionless and very vulnerable during its build-up, a bit too long if you ask me, especially with how hectic some battles can get. I usually found the best time to charge it up to be after using block with LT to then press X during it to break the block with a blast, sending them flying and giving me just enough time to at least charge up most of my meter.
While the intensity of the battles of Dragon Ball Z are here in full swing, the combat system does bring with it some problems. While it’s certainly fun to exhaust an enemy to have them stunned after a big attack or when they have unleashed some of their own, being stunned yourself is a pretty lengthy affair and given you are often fighting up to three or four enemies at once, this can lead to taking some massive hits. I also found that the block isn’t fast enough in some cases, or that reliable, and getting a bead on what’s happening during battle with so many effects going off can result in seeing your health bar sink to extremely low levels without even knowing what’s going on, something that is made a bigger issue when you’re very low to the ground and the camera is inside the ground, blocking your entire view. Flying around during battle can feel somewhat lethargic, and simply trying to fly up and out of the water or away from the ground takes far too long when you’re locked in battle. There are also certain fights that have mini-game type attacks such as when the camera will be overhead as you try to escape a certain blast radius or dodging a flurry of Ki-blasts that are really not that fun at all.
As you fly around, you’ll have villainous battles and random-ish encounters to take part in. The villainous battles are special fights that are a lot harder and have you facing the likes of Cell or Frieza again, with sometimes all their forms at once. These battles are fun and kept changing up the roster of them with each victory. As you fly around, you’ll see groups of random enemies such as Frieza’s forces, saibamen, or a variety of different color robots. These battles are largely fun, but these enemies track you for far too long as you fly past them as I can’t tell you how many times I’m just about to land and trigger a subquest or buy some items that they would fly down to me and start the battle just as my finger was pressing the button. I understand they are there to build up your experience, but there should be safe zones placed around interactive elements in the environment that prevent these battles from getting in the way. There are also slipstreams in the environment that have you flying a set path to collect orbs that you can accidentally get caught in and be forced to fly this path. I lost track of how many times I’d be trying to fly up to a Dragon Ball or a D-Medal to get caught in these and then have to get my bearings and figure out yet again where I was going.
From a visual standpoint, Kakarot is both impressive and awful at the same time. Character models have a nice cell-shaded look but don’t look near as good as what we got in Dragon Ball FighterZ, but this is mainly due to the game being developed by two very different studios and both being very different games. That said, these character models still do look good and combined with the raw intensity you get during some very flashy moves, this game can often look gorgeous when it is at it’s best, especially some of the massive explosions that are constantly happening during some big battles. Environments, on the other hand, are incredibly disappointing and look like they were pulled from last-gen with wrapped textures around the ground and cliffs, or just stretched textures on the surface of rocks as you start to destroy parts of the environment, which just reverts back to normal once the battle ends. While there is a nice clarity to some aspects of the world, it’s just sad to see such a bland and uninspiring take on its world, complete with a ton of pop-up and performance dips when the actions get too intense, or even when the camera pans down during a cutscene for some reason. It’s certainly a step up over what developer Dimps gave us in Xenoverse, but only just barely.
Audio is what you expect from the anime with familiar voices in Sean Schemmel, Christopher Sabat, and more all returning to voice the extremely large cast. The acting is exactly what you’ve come to expect with the show, but there is a delay between most lines that feels weird and gives most conversations a very odd pacing that is incredibly unnatural. My biggest issue I have with the audio is the rampant reuse of a few lines of dialogue like hearing Goku telling me I should deal with the random threats floating around every 4 to 5 seconds or the “you’ve got to be kidding me” lines when you get stunned a hundred times during a high-level battle. It’s a shame the actors were not able to provide several different takes on a line to add variety where it was desperately needed.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is certainly held back with a lot of technical and mechanical issues that can often get in the way of its fun. The story is also something many fans have been very verbal about being tired to relive yet again, myself included, but I just feel that Bandai Namco has finally nailed how to showcase the DBZ legacy in videogame form, giving us one of the better games the series has seen from a non-traditional fighting game format. CyberConnect2 did a fantastic job with the Naruto games in the past few years to show they can certainly replicate the show it’s based on and they have done that with Dragon Ball Z in ways that other teams could not, it’s just a shame the game built around it isn’t as impressive as it could have been. All my criticism aside, Kakarot is certainly an enjoyable experience despite its numerous flaws, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but I wonder if the series will modernize itself with better flying mechanics, visuals, or a whole new original story to really give us a thrilling Dragon Ball experience in the future. But will that happen? Will the series find a way to give us what we truly want? While Vegeta finally defeat Goku? Tune in next Dragon Ball.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot was purchased by the reviewer and played on an Xbox One X.
All screenshots were taken on an Xbox One X.