For most fans of the anime, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot will bring back some hard nostalgia. Developers CyberConnect2 with Bandai Namco Entertainment challenged themselves with this semi open-world game. CyberConnect2 is widely known for their Naruto: Ultimate Ninja game with the use of Unreal Engine 4. This means the game has some pretty fantastic artwork and style.
Even though the story has been molded already through time, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot will give insight from a new perspective, Goku’s perspective. From there, a lot of other characters will make an appearance and you just might find out some new things you didn’t already know.
Of course, what would Dragon Ball Z be without the action? There will be plenty of fighting and arcing storylines. This basically means you will be doing many quests and ping-ponging back and forth to different people in order to progress the story. This Dragon Ball Z is technically an RPG without all of the fancy customizable things we’ve all grown accustomed to (which I’m sad about). So for some people this can be a bit of a turn off, because no one really wants a fully guided game.
One of the things you can do on your own however, is collect orbs. For some players this is pretty much an addiction. Using Nimbus to fly around and collect all of the different orbs and their powers is actually pretty fun. Learning to fly and keep at it, well, you get the hang of it eventually and the annoyance goes away. After that fun you can visit new places like Orange City. The hand holding doesn’t really go away though. Each segment of story is broken up by intermissions so again, this can be frustrating. Along the way through this story you get the chance to level up your stats if that helps? No? Ok.
Somehow we all have a predisposition to believe that we know how combat mechanics should work. And here’s another thing to throw at you, the combat is more like a fighting game. Strategy is a must and you’ll have to deal with the wandering camera and the constant lookout for enemies that just seem to be right out of frame. Oh, and when you do the fight a few times and get the hang of it, everything will change and you’ll need to hone your strategy skills again for the next big fight. Some people like this challenge, not me per se, but it does add some variance to the game play. Just build your skill-tree and don’t stop. This will help you in the long run because the game doesn’t exactly help guide you with what skills need to be worked on. You just kind of find it.
Overall, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a fun story because it’s from the sole perspective of Goku and the art is great just like CyberConnect2’s other games. Some of the downsides are frustrating, like the wonky controls and combat style, but what else could have possibly been added? This is Goku’s world, and we’re just allowed to play in it until the story ends. So for the ups and downs of the game, I can only realistically rate the game a little over halfway. Seriously though, give the game a try.
8/10
Available on: PS4, Xbox One and PC