Helpful advice for newbies to get the most out of the game. :)

[Blade]

I recently started my first playthrough of Kakarot about 5 days ago and I'm now in the Buu saga. I just fought Pui Pui with a level 97 Super Saiyan God Vegeta. lmao But I definitely struggled with the game-play for a little while, however I figured out some ways to make the combat a bit more enjoyable and less annoying.

The main goal is to break enemies and stun them before using combos. Remember, it's an action/JRPG, not a fighting game. That said, the game's mechanics are a bit of a mess when enemies spam hyper armor to ignore all knock back and flinching, break out of your combos for free, stun you with one blow, and yes, they basically cheat. It's been a trope since Xenoverse 1 to give AI hyper armor rather than program it to play competently. (I miss Budokai 3 AI with the Z3 difficulty and AI that's difficulty was based on how much trouble the characters had in the anime during said fight).

Once you get to the Buu arc, enemies will literally spam the same Beam Super for the entirety of the fight with unlimited ki and not not move from the spot they started the match in. It's like playing against little kids online with hacks installed who just spam their best move with hyper-armor and unlimited ki who don't understand the combat system. You will rarely be able to get a full melee combo off without the AI breaking it or gaining super armor to attack and interrupt you for free. To be transparent the combat is complete BS, but the game is still worth it.

The best way to stun enemies is to spam super moves that deal high stun damage like Body Blow. It will reach a point where stunning bosses becomes almost impossible, but it works until then. They give you hyper armor yourself and the game really is all about spamming. You'll notice the AI does it too.

Spam Melee Supers like scissors paper rock and body blow to break bosses like Raditz. Once you've broken their stun bar, you can perform special combos, teleport to them for a Beam Super in the face, and automatically give chase when using basic melee attacks. When they glow red after a quick cut scene they have permanent hyper-armor and Ki so they begin spamming huge cinematic attacks, when this happens, stop attacking. It's essentially "not your turn to play" so prioritize dodging only until it wears off and they're exhausted for a moment.

Use your better judgement, if you see an opening to squeeze in a quick Beam Super between attacks, take it, but play it safe. When they're exhausted it's the best time to surge if you have a full surge bar by holding the ki charge button until it activates, then spam Beam Supers. It's a lot like Dark Souls and similar games where you need to study the enemy and memorize their patterns to find out what you can punish and what you can't. Although keep in mind that unlike Dark Souls it is unfair, the AI will often punish you in ways you can't punish it and be able to do things you just can't.

It really is sort of the dark souls of Dragon Ball in a way. Not in terms of difficulty but the way you play. Hang back, observe your opponent, learn their patterns, watch for openings, and when you have a good grasp of it all, fight back.

Take advantage of your enemies' super attacks as well, if they fire a beam super, they'll be stuck until their animation finishes and if you dodge it you can punish them with your own beam super. Or better yet, if you're within range, you can punish it with a melee super like body blow and chain it into a Beam Super for more damage.

Whenever you can use surge against non-boss enemies, use it. With Bosses you only want to use it when they're exhausted after their cinematic attacks. It allows you to chain together attacks you otherwise can't. If you use moves like Kamehameha, you will teleport to the enemy and fire it off in their face, you can spam this rapidly by mashing until you run out of ki, it's a good way to chunk a few health bars. Be sure to be efficient about it, don't spam too quickly because you want to maximize the damage output by letting the Beams do their damage over time before firing the next one.

Alternatively, you can go into the add-ons and play the first DLC. You can train against Whis to earn sacred water. You can power level any character to level 100 in 20-30 minutes by doing the highest-level training you can with either goku or vegeta over and over, then returning to the main game and using the sacred waters on other main characters. You can do this as early as level 5 and I'm pretty sure you can do it before beating Raditz. but don't quote me on that one.

This isn't Xenoverse or Sparking. It is an RPG and the combat really isn't polished, but it's Dragon Ball so it doesn't need to be. It's a bit of a mess because of enemy hyper armor and whenever there's more than one enemy it just becomes a cluster**** of aggression where you can't get any attacks off because the other enemies keep interrupting you. That or they take away your right to play while playing volleyball with you for 10-20 seconds. Keep an eye on the arrows indicating off-screen enemies. If one of them is dark orange or red, stop attacking and block because they will knock you out of any animations. There also aren't any animation cancels unless you're in Surge mode so don't put yourself in a position the AI can punish you.

The AI isn't competent at all though, it relies heavily on the mechanics that balance the game in its favor like infinite ki, hyper armor, greater numbers, those giant cinematic attacks the bosses get that prevent you from playing for 30 seconds, and so on to level the playing field. Because of that, the AI can be easily over-come with a small level advantage and spamming, the AI does it and it's honestly the way the game was intended to be played. It isn't a fun way to play, but it is the only real way to over-come the hyper armor spam and some of those annoying boss fights.

A little other piece advice, don't worry too much about collecting Z orbs scattered around the areas. Once you reach level 30-40 you can start flying into enemies on the map and instantly beat them rather than fight them. This will consistently award you as if you completed the fight with 600-1000 of each Z orb depending how far along in the story you are. You can farm more than 50,000 of each in probably fifteen minutes or less by end game just flying into enemy after enemy. So don't waste any of your dragon ball wishes one Z orbs either.