Honest Review of DB: Xenoverse, and the Future of Dragonball Games: Rough Draft

[Alamaut]

Honest Review of DB: Xenoverse, and the Future of Dragonball Games
Introduction
After playing this game for 20-straight hours, beating the campaign and making more than one custom character, I'm going to go ahead and share my thoughts on this game with the community, as a gamer and Dragonball Z fan. Despite being an incredibly fun game, Xenoverse has its fair share of problems that prevent it from being the masterpiece it should have been. However, developers and the community alike can learn from these mistakes, and hopefully, in the future a Dragonball game will be created with these lessons that truly honors the franchise.
Let us be honest with ourselves, who in the world doesn’t want that perfect Dragonball game we all dream of? Hopefully this message will be received by future developers as well (translator please?) so they know what gamers around the world wish for when they think of the perfect Dragonball game. Without further a due, I’m going to share my review of Xenoverse, followed by a number of ideas that came to me while thinking on the subject of what should have been.
Graphics
To start, let’s discuss the least important aspect of the game, the visuals. The art-style is fantastic, the cut-scenes look just like you’re watching an episode of Dragonball and the 3-d in-game graphics truly make the characters shine. When it comes to the custom characters though, despite looking the same as the main characters in terms of graphics, the game lacks variety of cool customization options for the created characters. I only counted three cool humanoid hair styles and two different masks for Frieza’s race. The character customization is missing facial hair for the humanoids and different body structures for the otherwise unappealing Majins.
The Earthlings and Saiyans literally have the exact same customization options, the Saiyan’s hair doesn’t even spike up during their transformations either, this was incredibly lazy on the developers part seeing as Ultimate Tenkaichi’s custom characters had different model of blonde and spiky hair for every Saiyan’s custom hairstyle, and this was a game released back in 2011. Speaking of Ultimate Tenkaichi, with the hardware we have now, I feel like it’s about time for us to get games with fully functioning destructive environments. I should be able to break Kami’s house or lookout from powerful Kii attacks or strikes.
Sounds
I really can’t complain much about the sounds. I understand there are monetary issues regarding the musical rights from the original series. People have suggested including Bruce Falconer’s music from the American anime as a mod, but I really think including songs from the original Japanese anime, as Ultimate Tenkaichi did, would have been the best option. In truth, I don’t feel like the music is that big of an issue though.
The main theme of the game eerily reminds me of the song “All by myself”, which reflects how I feel after playing a game with broken multi-player servers. After 10 hours, I finally decided to mute the in-game music and play my own songs. Aside from that, the sound effects produced by the fighting are fantastic and true to the source material. It really makes you feel excited listening to those effects as you pummel your enemy into oblivion.

[Alamaut]

Gameplay
This game’s core gameplay is as solid as a rock, a rock that needs to be polished to truly shine. The foundation is incredible, but many tweaks and minor fixes need to be implement to truly perfect it. Fighting, fist on fist is spot on. The way combos are executed, how they flow makes landing an effective combo intensely satisfying. Still I feel like the lack of destructible environments gets in the way of the fighting. My Namekian’s bread and butter combo cannot be executed in closed spaces because his kick combo is programmed to strike in a certain direction, instead of towards the enemy, which results in him kicking away from the enemy when their backs are against the wall. Fighting at the edges of a map is a disadvantage to my character.
I have to applaud Dimps for the way that combos develop in different environments though. Sometimes they work perfectly, sometimes they don’t. Instead of having my character teleport behind Jeice to strike him and make him fly off, my character teleporting in front of Jeice, striking him powerfully enough to create craters on the side of a building. Dimps showed good forethought and adaptability when it comes to the development of combos, even though they don’t always work. It would have been a disaster if you couldn’t combo enemies because some aspect of the environment got in your way… in a Dragonball game.
Blocking is practically useless in this game, seeing as blocking too much will either result in a guard break, stun-lock, or in instantaneous attacks on your back. I found myself completely avoiding the L1 block button, seeing as blocking means sacrificing access to other buttons (L2), which means sacrificing your ability to use an effective escape and your ultimate attacks, just so you can stand still and hope your enemy doesn’t nullify your guard in one of many different ways. I’d suggest Dimps change the controls a little bit so that R1 or one of the face buttons becomes the block button, or maybe the game should allow us to block attacks as we float around…
The same thing goes with throwing. Throwing is incredibly difficult to execute because of the inputs, not to mention sluggish, as a result, I only caught myself launching throws at Great Ape Vegeta tail, twice during my entire playthrough.
The lock on system offers a decent camera angle in fights, which suffers during close-quarters combat as the camera starts to clip. Without lock-on, the camera is bad, you can rarely ever tell where your fallen allies are, or where the portal to the next area is. These issues are all heightened by the badly implemented scouter system, but I’ll explain that later.
The camera is atrociously traitorous when it comes to selecting the right targets during teamfights, an issue that is incredibly significant, seeing as your ability to dodge and revive your teammates is completely dependent on whether you have them targeted or not, imagine the chaos that ensues when you’re trying to resurrect a friend and the camera decides to target an enemy instead. Or when the camera targets an enemy hundreds of meters away from you, preventing you from dodging blows from a dude that is literally stomping a boot in your face. This is unacceptable in a game that features 3v3 battles. To fix this issue, the developers could just make it so flicking your stick upwards targets the person furthest from you, or they could make individual targets require a different combination of inputs to select like Madden, or something.
You’ll be relying on an awkward scouter system in between matches that switches your camera to a first person view, which makes it even harder to find in-game objects and portals to the next area. The scouter system would be perfectly fine if it didn’t switch you to a useless first person camera that makes your character move slower than a cow.
You’ll only use your ‘scouter’ because you’re forced to by bad level design to find the next portal, or if you’re one of those people that enjoys looking for material items, instead of you know, just getting them as a result of level completion. Picking items up is just not fun, especially when you’ll end up firing ki blasts as you struggle to grab a stupid random item.
Notoriously missing from this game are the trademark DBZ beam-clashes, something the game doesn’t serve to diminish in importance as it features cutscenes where Cell and Demigra are both defeated through epic beam-clashes. The developers argued that it was impossible to implement beam-clashes in a 3v3 game, but that just seems like a comment meant to justify their mistake. There are many different ways beam-clashes could have been implemented, but allowing a player to phase through another’s ultimate due to invincibility frames just doesn’t seem like the right game mechanic for a DBZ game.
This game is a 3-d fighter, not Street Fighter, there shouldn’t be any invincibility frames when it comes to ultimates, there should be beam-struggles, period. If the developer’s concern was that beam-clashes would render the two participants invincible in 3v3 battles, then they should have either made characters vulnerable to attacks from other enemies during beam-struggles or allow other players to support their teammates by firing their own energy waves into the beam struggle, tilting the balance. A Dragonball game should not be afraid to feature button-mashing during beam-struggles…

[Alamaut]

The developer’s failure to implement anything in regards to beam-struggles was an incredible loss of opportunity. We lost the chance to witness six people mashing the crap out of their buttons in agony in order to get a finishing, world destroying Kamehameha. We are not going to be able to witness the sheer epicness of a beam struggle between two teams of three people play out in action. Like the fisticuffs, if Dimps was worried about creating another Dragonball game where we would have to button-mash to gain an advantage (I still catch myself repeatedly mashing buttons during combos), they should have made it either so the character with more powerful Kii attacks wins, or that the Super Attacks simply cancel each other out, just like what happens when two players strike each other at the same time.
World
Toki-Toki City looks more like a village than a city. Mentors appearance being based on RNG doesn’t make the game more fun. Aside from being a hub world (that doesn’t work properly as of now) where DBZ players can socialize, there isn’t much else about the world that actually serves a purpose. It’s more of an interactive menu than anything, which is pretty stupid when you’re forced to waste time walking around from place to place to launch Versus modes with the main Dragonball cast. A map with fast-travel is one of my wishes for this game.
Making players slave through a parallel quest to obtain Kaioken x20 is just not satisfying in terms of character development, although it does make for a challenging quest. Using the balance argument to disregard different transformation just seems like a cop-out drawing away attention from laziness.

Speaking of which, I feel like including Random Number Generators as motivators of replayability are a really bad idea for Dragonball games. Gamers don’t want to feel like they are playing World of Warcraft when they are playing Dragonball, they want to feel like they are playing a game from the Warriors series or the Legend of Zelda. I mean sure, it is fun to beat up an enemy and acquire a piece of their armor, but farming RNG Time Patrollers, to quit and retry your mission if you aren’t handed an RNG Dragonball, sacrifices a lot of fun in favor of ‘artificial replayability’.
If they wanted us to beat up Time Patrollers for Dragonballs, then it seems like the source of these drops should have been Player matches or individual quests, instead of randomized events during long quests themselves. Couldn’t they have been more creative with Shenron? It seems like that Parallel Quest mission where you gather the Dragonballs while fighting Frieza’s henchmen should have been the basis for hunting the Dragonballs, and not beating up randomly appearing NPCs.

Online
It might be my region, but the game suffers from lag issues too much in order to be playable in a competitive matter. Characters will lag too and from semi-random places, making landing combos and blows nearly impossible if it weren’t for the button-mashing nature behind comboing in this game. Ideally, the Dragonball game we all want to see has us flying around different worlds and eras, searching for the Dragonballs, patrolling with groups, encountering random NPCs, creatures and people alike. Like an Elder Scrolls or GTA Online style game with explorable environments and lobbies of dozens of warriors. Imagine that and wandering teams of warriors to battle in the search for Dragonballs.
Story
I can’t help but feel like the fantastic animation is just a foil to distract us from the lack of quality writing and English voice acting. The story in Xenoverse deserved to be fleshed out, the interaction between the characters, the Supreme Kai of Time, Goku, Trunks and the Time Patroller is practically non-existent. Typically in Dragonball Z, we have a mixture of tragic and comedic moments, however all of these elements are notoriously absent from the story as characters even fail to react emotionally to the destruction of the entire universe during the final events.
Usually Goku is involved in many comedic moments, so when his interaction with the Supreme Kai of Time during the end boils down to a simple hello and goodbye, I felt really disappointed with the writing in this game. With all the people working on Xenoverse (8 minute credit scene, holy mother of God) they didn’t think to hire one solid writer to do some justice to the IP?
As a result, the characters feel-like soulless mouth-pieces that tell you to go beat-up some other possessed guy in the past, repeating themselves like broken records. At times I felt like there really was no need for any story at all, like the game would have functioned exactly the same if the Time Patroller just fixed the weird looking demonically possessed time scrolls.
The silent protagonist motif works well with games that do not have voice acting or a lot of dialogue, games like SMT: Nocturne, Chrono Trigger or Shadow of the Colossus. However, despite having custom characters, I feel like Xenoverse’ story (or lack thereof) suffers immensely when your created character interacts with the main heroes. The only exception to this event is when you go help Gohan and Krillin in Ginyu’s body gather the Dragonballs from Frieza’s ship, this is literally the only moment where the whole silent protagonist motif seemed to serve a purpose, albeit comedic.

[Alamaut]

Besides this, the only thing a supporting character ever does to help you is when the Supreme Kai removes Demigra’s curse from you at the end, although fighting Goku under those circumstances would have been intriguing. I feel like the writers and developers lost an opportunity for a fantastic sequence, where your Time Patroller is actually supported by one of the supporting characters for once. Seeing as how this game lacks transformations for the custom characters, I feel like at some point during the game the Supreme Kai should have awakened power within your characters in the form of a Mystic Aura, an Unlock of Potential, or any kind of transformation. There never seems to be any significant moments of growth in the game’s story, you just fight one bad guy after another and somehow beat them without any training (aside from the optional Parallel Quests and Shenron wish).
Inspiration
To me, it seems like the developers of the next Dragonball game should really feel free to be inspired by the mechanics of other video games, otherwise we are never going to get the Dragonball game that the series deserves.
Motivations from other video games need to be implemented. I would really like to see a Dragonball game where I could use the environments to my advantage, where I can defeat an enemy by throwing them into a building, or maybe a game where I could destroy Kami’s Lookout and make it fall to the Earth. As a suggestion, I think the Earthling race should have been adapted into a Humanoid alien race, where players would be provided with more options in terms of skin color, pointy ears, third eyes, ect. to be able to create aliens or humans a like.
The scouter should’ve just added a filter to your screen like in Assassin’s Creed, Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia ect.
Think of how much better the system would be if we could use our scouters while fighting and flying around. Think of how cool it would be to fight someone and watch as the scouter calculates their power level during the progress of the fight. Think of gameplay, in terms of having the scouter show you what abilities an enemy character has equipped. Now think of your reaction during a fight when an enemy attacks you with an ultimate and breaks your scouter. This game is missing a lot of those small-details.
Friendly fire.
How awesome would it be to combo somebody into a building and make the building collapse on them. The same idea goes for mountains, canyons and cliff-sides.
There was only one Great Ape Vegeta fight, Demigra and that’s it. No Bio-Broly, or Giant Lord-Slug.
In summary, here are the things they should keep:
- 3-d visuals and art-style
- Fighting system.
I feel like this is a wake-up call.
Here are the things they should get rid of.
Hub-world.
The Ultimate Dragon Ball Z Video Game
Following Xenoverse’s tradition with time-travel, this Dragonball game allows the player character to participate in a timeline where their choices alter the story to tip the balance towards good or evil. The player character chooses their own origins, and story, for example: a soldier in Frieza’s army, an escaped Saiyan, a Namekian conqueror, an Arcosian space pirate, a ascended monk, a kami, an escaped demon.
Theoretically, in this game the player character will have numerous choices to act on, mostly dependent on the character’s alliances, scheming and power level. Think of double crossing Frieza during the Namek episode, think of stealing wishes from a Lord that has summoned a dragon, think of becoming mechanized or possessed by the Majin willingly, think of preserving the Tree of Might.
Maybe even helping Frieza against Goku in Namek, and after Goku’s death, teaming up with Frieza to battle against Earth’s Androids. The possibilities are left to the imagination. A world where Goku isn’t alive, so you have to battle Majin Buu yourself no matter your morality, because Buu only wants to consume. In other words a game with Xenoverse’ same story mechanics but with morality and hundreds of choices with different consequences.
The fights would feature blood and realistic wounds according to the attacks, wounds like Goku’s after he dies fighting Raditz. To have tails cut off or not cut off while traveling in time, sabotaging Goku as a child. Maybe altering the very beginning by trying to save planet Vegeta from Frieza. Imagine how the story would change if Vegeta died fighting Gohan at the beginning, or at your own hands. The opposite is true, fighting to defeat Goku, creating a world where Vegeta would reign supreme over Earth while searching for Gohan.
To keep these stories fresh and exciting, movie characters could also arrive to shake the order of these alternate timelines. For example, in a timeline where the story has changed drastically, no real strong fighters or protagonists still persist, characters from the movies could arrive to spice things up, becoming the new antagonists and supporting characters.
A game where every game over is an ending. Where it isn’t over until your objective of obliterating the greatest good or greatest evil is accomplished.
More extreme but interesting ideas would be to travel in between planets to conquer or save different civilizations, with their own fighters, beasts and dragon wishes.

[Rolando Zolo]

TLDR but its a good fighting game and after skipping all since bodukai 1 i feel its what i want off a silly anime fighter.

plus the art is perfect for me even if servers need work :P

[Alamaut]

No, are you someone hired by the developers or something to spread propaganda? Don't post in my thread unless you're serious about discussing what I wrote about.

[Sabin Stargem]

Budokai Tenkachi 3 is the current pinnacle of the Dragonball Z simulators, but Xenoverse does present a potentially great foundation for surpassing that.

I agree with Opium that the developers ought to take advantage of the time-travelling aspect, as that really spices up the storymode. We already seen the canon timeline so many times in other Dragonball games, that it has become a bit stale.

[Reu]

Publicado originalmente por OPIUM:

No, are you someone hired by the developers or something to spread propaganda? Don't post in my thread unless you're serious about discussing what I wrote about.

Your second idea seems very silly,
The whole choices thing wouldn't work since you're the warrior to save time hence the wish, that's what your character's goal is.

Also, if they do give you choices you would only have a choice of two factions,
the Time Breakers and the Time Patrol.
Due to this and possibly the next game being a prequel to DBO.

[Sabin Stargem]

Ah, got an idea of how the Time Breakers can mess up time: They save Grandpa Gohan from being squashed by Goku. So the player has the job of making sure Goku polishes off the old man.

[Reu]

Publicado originalmente por Sabin Stargem:

Ah, got an idea of how the Time Breakers can mess up time: They save Grandpa Gohan from being squashed by Goku. So the player has the job of making sure Goku polishes off the old man.

Didn't something like this happen in DBO already?

[Sabin Stargem]

No idea. Isn't DBO an Korean-only MMO?

[Reu]

Publicado originalmente por Sabin Stargem:

No idea. Isn't DBO an Korean-only MMO?

Well yes,
It's a MMO who's story is written by AT and Xenoverse is considered a prequel to it.

[Sabin Stargem]

I guess that gives them some story material to transplant into the Xenoverse series. Looking forward to that, as escaping from the canon storyline of Dragonball is very refreshing.

[Alamaut]

I heard it was pretty bad. Anyways, I hope that someday the Dragonball game I proposed actually gets made. Xenoverse' system needs to be revamped.

[Moon Rabbit]

Publicado originalmente por OPIUM:

No, are you someone hired by the developers or something to spread propaganda? Don't post in my thread unless you're serious about discussing what I wrote about.

Doubt it, that person doesn't write well enough to have been hired by anyone.

As for the topic, love it. Very well written, and a lot of great criticisms.

I wholeheartedly agree on all points save RNG. RNG in and of itself is great for a fighter/rpg hybrid. The problem is this game went absolutely overboard with it, and made the process painful. Hell one can argue that the developers made logging in an rng process. Mentors showing up at random is also utterly pointless and serves no purpose aside needless frustration.

It would be nice if each mission gave you tokens that you could save up and buy what you wanted if you didn't get the item after a long time of grinding. Most mmorpgs have adopted that concept and it eliminates the feeling of getting nothing.

[Moon Rabbit]

Publicado originalmente por Sabin Stargem:

No idea. Isn't DBO an Korean-only MMO?

WAS, anyway. Only a fan made private server in the works is keeping it online.