Dragon Ball FighterZ

Who knew it: Mixing one of the most famous animated licenses with the best fighting game developer turns out to be a good idea. Dragon Ball FIghterZ , from Arc System Workds, adapts brilliantly and a lot of rhythm the clashes between Dragon Ball teams in 2D and 3v3 fighting games, all supported by an accessible combo system and artistic direction in cel-shading faithful to the original work.

Despite the apparent chaos of the fights, the mechanics of Dragon Ball FighterZ ultimately prove to be simple and easy to learn. The game revolves around a four button attack system: light attack, medium attack, heavy attack, and special attack, the latter usually taking the form of a projectile. Special moves aren't associated with any complicated combinations, unlike Ryu's Shoryuken. If you know how to send a fireball in Street Fighter , you will be able to perform all the attacks in Dragon Ball FighterZ , bar none. A great system, especially since you have to fight with three characters at the same time.

This notion of simplicity goes a little too far when we dwell on the painful automatic combos of each fighter, to be executed by hammering several times the light and medium attack buttons. Add to that an attack that always hits the opponent and allows you to quickly get close to the opponent to place an automatic combo, and you have a system in which even the most basic tactics are effective. A player with skill, who masters the timing of heavy attacks, will still have a better chance of winning. However, this system shows its limits in certain situations, in particular when lag comes into play. During a fight against a player who spamming certain shots, small slowdowns are enough to be a source of frustration. But above all, it makes for some little fun clashes.

But as soon as you find yourself facing a player of the same level as you, Dragon Ball FighterZ gives rise to fast, fluid and strategic games! Arc System Works has created a combat system that is easy to learn, but difficult to master. But more importantly, it really feels like you're immersed in the Dragon Ball universe. There is nothing more satisfying, for a Dragon Ball fan, than being able to send your opponent high in the air, spin them all over the place, and end on a massive wave of destructive energy.

The roster, made up of 24 characters, is pretty awesome. Even some weird choices deserve their place in the game thanks to unique combat mechanics, such as Ginyu who can summon one of his gang members to perform a combo attack, or Nappa, able to crash. in the soil of the Saibaman who eventually grow up and take part in the fight. Arc System Works has also struck the right balance between easy-to-learn characters and fighting styles that are nuanced and deep enough for each warrior to have a distinct feel to the game.

Dragon Ball FighterZ's rather long and story- driven campaign revolves around an invasion of clones and a mysterious new character, the C-21 cyborg. The story mode starts well, but after 10 to 12 hours of play, I ended up dropping out. Blame it on a plot that lacks originality and rhythm. Killing clones between larger fights is not a very fun activity. So yes, you can level up your fighter and learn new abilities along the way, but the bonuses - health, defense or damage boosts, special attacks ... - are ultimately of little use during clashes. .

The fan-service assumed in the dialogues that precede each match is the only real reason to recommend this game to DBZ aficionados. Placing Gotenks and Ginyu on your team, for example, gives rise to a contest of improbable poses. If you pair Piccolo with Ten Shin Han, Gohan's master will try to convince his partner that he is a better grandfather than Goku. Not to mention the scenes in which Yamcha intervenes and does not manage to hide his bitterness towards his status as the weakest character in the game - if one relies on the work of Akira Toriyama of course. Chasing these many cult or funny moments is undeniably one of the strengths of Story mode.

If competing against an AI is your cup of tea, the uniquely constructed Arcade Mode is for you. As you fight - at the controls of a predefined selection of fighters, the game prompts you, after each head-to-head won, to choose one of three different routes (up, middle or down). There are no real differences between each route. Only the difficulty and the opponents change. In any case, expect to bite the dust if you opt for the high road each time - a challenge that undoubtedly pushes you to surpass yourself. Among the weak points of this mode, we will mention the impossibility of restarting a match that started badly, and a sometimes too large difference in difficulty between two matches.

One of the cutest parts of Dragon Ball FighterZ is in the lobby, where your avatar, modeled in chibi style, can communicate with other players through funny emotes and stickers, inspired by most emblematic moments of the cartoon and to collect in chests. If generally, loot boxes bristle, this is not the case in Dragon Ball FighterZ . The game is indeed very generous with its virtual currency. After completing the campaign, doing a few fights in Arcade mode, and completing challenges, I had already unlocked tons of stickers, as many titles, and seven avatars in total, all without spending a single dollar.

As for multiplayer, my experience is rather mixed. There were times when the meetings were so fluid that I felt like playing locally with a friend. Then there were times when it was the festival of lag, each of my games ending with a disconnect. Hoping that Arc System Works is working on the stability of its servers.

The options for single player are certainly not lacking, with a full-bodied story mode divided into three acts, an arcade structured with crossroads that rewards our performances, and the classic versus, to be set also in the form of an elimination tournament, all in local than on the network, but also against the CPU. With the virtual currency of the game, the Zenni, you can buy capsules that contain aesthetic elements to enrich your online profile and expand the colors of the fighters: no purchase with real money, therefore, at least for the moment.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is presented as a classic team fighting game, with three fighters on each side, super moves on the fly and substitutions on the battlefield. The watchword is speed, and at first it will be difficult to keep under control the incessant action of the clashes. Before delving into the different game modes, I am particularly concerned with analyzing the combat system, whose immediacy can prove to be, in the short and medium term, a double-edged sword. Set on a two-dimensional structure, the title requires a not-indifferent promptness of reflexes, with which to read the excited action present on the screen without being overwhelmed by the countless (and inevitable) combos of the enemy.

This is exactly what is used in this 2D flogger, but the goal with Dragon Ball FighterZ is exactly the opposite: It wants to look like a real anime. Goal achieved, it looks like an anime! Better to be honest .

They are polygon figures in three-dimensional space, but the plump colors, the expressive facial expressions, even the deliberately low frame rate for certain animations: it seems as if everything has just tumbled off the drawing board of an anime artist. Even the coloring is omitted in some special moves and replaced with hatching, as we know from the template by Mangaka Akira Toriyama. An interactive cartoon . Yeah, how the hell did they do that?

Successful PC port?

We asked ourselves this question many times in the course of the test, because Dragon Ball FighterZ is outstanding in almost all respects. Even the PC port, which is often ailing with implementations from Japan, is convincing on the whole. The game already runs smoothly on moderate PCs, looks crisp and precise with the gamepad.

Of course, the keyboard also works as an optional control element - but we recommend the controller (or a fighting stick). The settings in the graphics menu remain manageable, but with less than 10 GB of hard drive hunger, most gamers shouldn't have a problem with the highest levels of detail.

But these games have not been particularly accessible until now: the great presentation attracted the curious, but they had a dauntingly steep learning curve ahead of them. Above all, the unusual but difficult to read characters contributed to this. When a giant robot competes against a dolphin girl, it looks really good, but at first you don't understand anything.

With brutal battle cries

But the figures here have similar body sizes to one another with hit boxes that are much easier to assess. And here they "only" use their limbs and their ki. This is a kind of spiritual force with which the fighters are allowed to play all kinds of jokes.

At the push of a button, you suck this energy from the environment and can convert it into special attacks. For example the ki-blast, of which there must be millions of gifs on the Internet. It is the exhilaration of the ball of energy that has been copied by numerous animes.

With their bare hands and a brutal battle cry, the characters fire a massive beam of flashing ... something at their opponent. It always looks spectacular, but thanks to the clear color coding, the introductory animations and numerous peripheral information that pops up, you always have an overview despite the madness.

Strategic claim in the team

An overview is urgently needed for the day teams that are starting up, each with three members. Compared to other fighting games, the matches in Dragon Ball FighterZ are unusually long at three to four minutes . In order to be able to hold out this period of time, you have to skillfully get team members from the reserve bank at the right moment.

You can use this briefly as support for a partner attack, or you can call another fighter into the match permanently. Only then can the others recover from the strain. The respite only regenerates slowly, so that the life indicators naturally become shorter and shorter in the course of a match. This makes it exciting in the last phase, especially in online matches . Can you still defeat the opponent with a quarter life? It is not uncommon for it to be tight towards the end.

The strategic division of the team is also vital in the campaign . You move your team in the form of an icon over a map that is reminiscent of a board game. There are only a limited number of moves available and branches mean that you have to decide on a smart way to get to the boss. You can see the conditions for a match on this board beforehand and therefore weigh up whether you have enough strength for it.

The story itself, however, is practical at best . Plenty of characters are being resurrected who were supposed to be dead. In addition to a few other allusions, this is mainly used to brush the fans' stomach. Whoever has absolutely no plan from Dragon Ball can at least smile at the charming facial animations in the conversations. But cheer? Not really.

A difficult balancing act

You can use an in-game currency to unlock new costumes, colors and other small cosmetic items , but that's just an accessory. Arcade and online modes are at the heart of every fighting game. And this is exactly where Dragon Ball FighterZ manages the balancing act: The gameplay is so scalable and dynamic that it appeals to beginners and professionals alike.

Are you just sneaking into the combat system? Then you still have access to competent punches and kicks that stir up some dust. For example, long-range projectiles, with which you can tickle your opponents a little. Used correctly, they act like a distraction from the really devastating maneuvers. You can work your way up to the latter in tutorials or the hard way in the ring.

In addition to the combos and supers (which are loaded with the longest super bar in fighting game history ), you also learn to assert yourself in vertical movement. Throwing an opponent into the air with a launcher is now considered good form. But up there you have a lot of room for maneuver. Work it with a combo and then smack it on the floor? Or thunder him to the end of the arena with a dash from another team member for a wall bounce? Doable and fun.

What good is the character selection?

The defensive is as strong as your offensive. The fighters are extremely agile and can quickly pull themselves up again after hits with the right timing. The great thing is that you can potentially either dodge, block or even counter any attack. There is a counter-tactic for everything , you are never at the mercy of your opponent.

Your opponent performs an impressive super? You can interrupt this at the right moment with a combo . Is your opponent charging up for a ki blast? You can do the same to him and let the energy beams collide. In the event of a tie, this even leads to a certain comic situation.

In addition to these options, there is the wealth of variants of the characters . The differences between them are not so great as to create an imbalance, but the free choice of the team of three makes it worth experimenting with the synergies. In general, combos, movement and special abilities can be used in a way that is hardly known from any other fighting game.

Returning to the initial question, how did Arc System Works do this? They thoughtfully designed a combat system that is instantly fun for all players and has enough depth to keep tournament players busy for a long time. The year has just started, and with Dragon Ball FighterZ one of the best knockers ever is on the mat. The competition will have a tough time.

From Dragon Ball: FighterZ , the first classic fight in years that uses the benefits of the universe created by Akira Toriyama, I expected a few things - fantastic visuals, reproduced with respect to the character's source material, high dynamics of clashes and a solid combat system. And although I have a few reservations about the last element, and the gameplay is overshadowed by the whims of regularly disconnecting us servers, I can say that I basically got what I wanted.

I did not expect, however, that in addition to all this, the game will also propose an extremely extensive fictional campaign , which, even with its length, will surpass the single player modes offered by the competition, and will serve tons of references to new and old adventures of Son Goku, Vegeta and all the rest that will change to party hair color call.

KA-hospital luminaire

I couldn't start reviewing FighterZ except by focusing on the visuals that delighted Dragon Ball fans from the very first presentation. The designers of Arc System Work studio reused the solutions used in the Guilty Gear Xrd series, thanks to which fully three-dimensional locations and characters were created in such a way that they resemble two-dimensional ones as much as possible.

The effect is amazing - in the course of a traditional punch swap, the game could easily be considered a typical 2D production, however during the most spectacular sequences the camera suddenly shifts to show the situation from a more attractive perspective, revealing that everything we see is actually composed of from 3D models. And there are many spectacular moments here - in line with the spirit of the series, the fights are extremely fast and full of teleportations, half-screen explosions or special attacks on a scale that can be seen from orbit.

All objects in the game were perfectly transferred from the animated series, retaining all their specific features. In the arena in the city, in the background, typical of this universe cars loom, and the battles on the planet Namek take place in the surroundings of well-known to all fans, green hills (which can turn into a landscape full of lava, straight from hell, if the warriors are too much of a special attacks). The warriors themselves are equally impressive, as they not only look dot to dot like in the anime, but also move in the same way, performing their characteristic attacks or even standing idly in their combat positions.

"Fake" 2D combined with a very fast pace of fights, gigantic spectacularity and great reproduction of the characters and the environment make the fights in FighterZ look insane and are a feast for the eyes of anyone who has ever spent afternoons with flushed faces watching RTL 7. I would say even that in many moments DBFZ fares better than the original, being devoid of any compromises, which the animators of the series often had to agree on. Only the cutscenes in the story mode look worse, where the less refined character models (especially Bulma looks bad) stand out from what the game delights during the clashes, and the different perspective and close-ups allow you to see a lot of simplifications in the environment, which remain effective during the actual battles. camouflaged.

Affordability over ME-todic training

Unlike Xenoverse , Battle of Z , Ultimate Tenkaichi or Raging Blast, the new FighterZ is a classic fight with health bars, action shown from the side (not counting the above-mentioned moments when the camera leaves the standard position for greater efficiency) and characters washing with each other to fallen . Although this production was created by the authors of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue and you can find some similarities to these two series, in terms of the combat system it is closest to the saga Marvel vs. Capcom - especially its newest installment, Infinity .

Following the example of the series of American superheroes and characters from Japanese computer games, Dragon Ball FighterZ focuses on team battles - two teams of three take part in duels . Each player controls only one of his chosen fighters at a time, but the others can be called at any time - either to perform a single attack and disappear again, or to replace the active player. Resting on the bench allows you to regenerate some of your lost strength, so making changes at the right moment is crucial for victory.

Dragon Ball by Arc System Works from the latest incarnation of the MvC series also takes autocombos - here, however, they have been raised to a much higher level. While in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinity at our disposal is only a single set of special attacks hidden under one button, here the choice is greater - pressing the light attack repeatedly results in a quite strong and very spectacular combination, while selecting the medium attack several times gives a shorter effect, but ends with one of the more powerful super attacks in the game. In addition, under a single button there is a blow that breaks the block and at the same time throws the opponent into the air , and another one - a lightning flight towards the opponent, allowing him to automatically avoid his projectiles (also thrown with a single button, and how) and safely shorten the distance.

Lots of c-HA-characteristic characters

We have at our disposal an average number of 24 warriors and female warriors. Compared to various Xenoverseów, it's not a big deal, but Arc System Works clearly focuses on quality over quantity, thanks to which each character stands out from the competition. Anyway, nobody should complain about the lack of their favorite, because we have almost all popular heroes here . The team includes the title Z fighters, starting with Yamcha, and ending with the Saiyan team, there is also a set of iconic opponents - incl. Frieza, Cell and two variants of Buu. There are also brawlers that made their debut in the Super series, and a completely new character - Android 21. The only major absent is Brolly, but he will probably be one of the eight already announced paid DLC characters.

As I mentioned when delighting the graphics, individual characters were created with great care and not only look, but also move just as we remember from the anime. Also, their blows as vividly resemble what the heroes presented during the fights - and I'm not talking only about the most iconic sequences, the creators reached really deep into the past of the cycle, even to the original series before "Zetka". Thanks to this, Yamcha can perform his Roga-fu-fu-ken (or - as clumsily translated in the manga - "fists as swift as wolves'), and Tien can play volleyball, just like he did during his debut tournament.

ME extended campaign

Loners, the game offers three variants of fun - training (in three characters - a classic place to sharpen skills in a fight with a mannequin, a solid tutorial one by one familiarizing yourself with the combat system and challenges, where we can learn the techniques of individual characters), the Arcade mode varied by various available paths and story mode . The impression that it is not much is lost when we fire the latter.

I would be completely satisfied if after the seven hours it had taken the Super Warrior Arc campaign, the game would be over. Meanwhile, it was only the first of the three giant sagas offered by the title. Interestingly, they are not continuous - they are rather three versions of the same story, shown from different perspectives and leading to different conclusions. This original approach works quite well, especially since the first campaign leaves a lot of understatement, which the subsequent ones explain.

The story takes place more or less at the same time as the Super series (the game refers to it several times, but in such a modest way that people unfamiliar with this series will not be particularly bothered by it) and focuses on Android 21, the heroine designed specifically for the title, and the army of clones haunting the world of the main heroes. The story gives a solid excuse for the next fights and is in the spirit of Dragon Ball , although it does not stand out too much ... well, apart from the fact that it explains elements of the gameplay mechanics, which it absolutely does not have to explain. Here we can find a justification for the fact that during duels in the arena there is only one character, why such Yamcha can fight as well as Goku and ... why the player controls the warriors. Seriously.

Network fame or HA-gosh

Unfortunately, Arc System Works engineers did not manage to prepare the network infrastructure for such great interest from players and the first days after the premiere were mainly spent on regular server disconnections - both in the lobby and in the middle of matches . It was only on Sunday that the situation improved so much that it was possible to play moderately comfortably. Until the situation stabilizes for good, it's better to avoid Dragon Ball FighterZ online modes and focus only on offline gameplay.

The aforementioned lobby serves as the main menu, implemented in the form of a small board full of places characteristic of Akira Toriyama's work, on which we move as a caricature version of the character we choose and we can interact with other players, challenge them to duels and choose game modes. There are also currently two items that do not serve anything - the house of the Turtle Hermit - and a model of the city, which suggests that in the future, in addition to the announced DLC characters, we can also expect some other expansions to the game.

Ranked fights allow you to gain new ranks, on the basis of which the game will select a theoretically equal opponent. I am writing "theoretically", because the system happens to throw an amateur who has only 2-3 matches behind him on a veteran seasoned in hundreds of matches. In addition, we can participate in friendly duels, compete with other people from the lobby and create our own rooms for up to eight players.