Dragon Ball Xenoverse was created by Bandai Namco Games, and carries the Dragon Ball franchise onto the PC! Battling alongside your favorite heroes such as Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Yam… Okay, let’s be honest, if I finished that sentence I’d be killing people with laughter.
One interesting feature is that you can create your own Dragon Ball-themed character with Bandai’s in-depth character creator. However, this can create some problems, such as me running into Taylor
Swift…or Adolph Hitler!
Another issue I have noticed in the game is the lack of a community. Bandai decided to treat the game as a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) experience, but only implemented chat options that are “family-friendly”. Speaking options are limited to “Hello”, “I’m Hungry.”, “I’m Thirsty.”, “Searching for a party,” and other simple statements.
But there is a reprieve. The game includes a microphone option so you can say to other players: “Dammit Kakarot, I am the strongest alive because I am Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans!” Despite their best efforts in keeping the game family-friendly, Bandai has given players access to a microphone. As such, I kept getting cursed out when I tried to join parties because the people playing didn’t know how to create a private room for themselves and their friends.
However, there are some bright sides to the game’s overall design. My favorite is that you can create a character from Earthling, Saiyan, Majin, Namakian, and Frieza races. This helps determine how you build your character, as well as your overall strengths and weakness.
Let’s face it, you will all probably pick Saiyan like I did, just so you can yell at the screen and go KAAA MEEEE HAAAA MEEE HAAA. If you’re expecting to go all Super Saiyan 3, good luck. The only time you get to do that is during the opening sequence (where you fight Buu as Goku).
Players may advance only to Super Saiyan 2 or Super Vegeta 2. Ultimately the Dragon Ball Xenoverse story conflicts with the canon, especially with respect to the recent Battle of the Gods movie. But don’t fret fans. The canon doesn’t get entirely wrecked by this game; just a tiny bit. I am apprehensive, though about what may happen when the new Resurrection F movie comes out; how they will mess with the canon even more.
Another thing about the story is that it felt dry and a bit forced at times. As I am a person who enjoyed the series as a child, I am a bit disappointed about how they handled a few things. After all, you are defending time itself. Additionally, I’d like to experience Goku’s true transformation all over again, and not have him babel on saying:
“I’m a Saiyan from Earth. I’m your worst nightmare, Frieza!”
Ultimately, the game is good, minus the forced dialog and lack of speaking options.
You aren’t allowed to use Microsoft in the lobby either, so you generally spend about five minutes per group talking with other players before you leave. Also, there is no “friending” option; only a “favorite”, which simply keeps players’ character data handy in case you want to play offline with NPC versions of their character.
Lastly, there is a horrendous bug where the Steam cloud can actually corrupt your data, and in so doing replace your current and future game saves with broken saves. I’ve lost sixty hours’ worth of gameplay as of this review, and I hope Bandai fixes this soon.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!