When Akira Toriyama created Dragon Ball in 1984, I don’t think he ever imagined the impact his series would have. Credited as one of the artists that changed the history of manga, Dragon Ball is often quoted as inspiration to many manga artists to date. The Dragon Ball series and its second part Dragon Ball Z have received critical acclaim, and thanks to its success, we have been blessed with a good share of games telling the story as we know it on the manga and anime.
Fast forward several years and we have an original form of retelling the story that we have come to know and love, with Dragon Ball Xenoverse. The first installment included an original story in which you are a time patroller, and your job is to correct changes made to the original history by mysterious beings. One of the novelties of DB Xenoverse was what we had always dreamed of: being a Saiyan and being a part of the story ( for those of you who wanted to be namekians, or from the frieza race, or majin or plain earthlings). It had a novel way to tell the story, and its MMORP-style was one that many of us got to praise. However, it’s mostly a fighting game at its heart. Now the first Xenoverse was great, but it had its flaws, such as the combo system that it was repetitive. It did set up before and after in the Dragon Ball Universe, however. Now with Xenoverse 2, they fixed this issues making a battle system more dynamic in comparison with the first one, and more changes that made the overall experience better than the first one(as it should be).
Now in Xenoverse 2 you are no longer in Toki Toki City, but on your base of operations, Conton City. You are a student of the Time Patrol, and you are chosen among your piers by the Elder Kai to investigate the chances being made to the Original Dragon Ball History. In this game, your goal is to stop Miira and Towa in their plan to change history, but now they are not alone; they have powerful allies in the form of the Evil Namekian, Lord Slug, and the powerful destroyer of worlds, Turles (the original evil Goku).
For starters, you now have to fight against Turles and Slug. In some of the missions, fighting the original villains are now overpower with Towa’s Evil Ki. Luckily, you are not alone in your quest, as you progress through the game you unlock teachers. This is one of the best features of the game, besides being able to be a saiyan, namekian, etc. These teachers help you get TP meals (more on that later), and you can learn their techniques. You are not limited to just one master; you can choose among 20+ instructors, like Broly and Whis, for example. A good tip for those just starting the game is that I recommend that you train under Yamcha and learn two techniques: Playing dead and Ultimate Attack Spirit Ball. You may ask, “Why? Yamcha sucks” (it’s Lord Yamcha, filthy casual!). The Play Dead special attack is helpful because the animation is quick to start. You can avoid attacks, and it has a wake up attack that leaves your opponent in a quick stun state, leaving it open to devastating combos. The Spirit Ball will help you through the hardest missions of the game. When you start the attack and it hits, you can keep pressing the button and leave the opponent in an air spin state that nullifies evasion techniques like super jump or ki barrier. This deals a good amount of damage if you are able the keep the combo going to 19 or so hits when the last hit ends in a small explosion that sends the opponent flying.
You can choose whoever you want if your mastery level is high enough. Don’t think that you will get to be trained by Broly or Goku in the beginning. You start from the bottom and work your way to the top. Whenever you train and finish the teacher’s missions, you get a mastery experience and when you get to a certain level in the gauge, you can do an advancement test. Advancement tests will unlock new missions from your instructors. For instance Piccolo will have one mission to start with until you get to Intermediate. The more training missions you do from various instructors, the higher your training bar will go up. When you get a new advancement mission, go do it so you don’t waste any training points. The training levels are EASY-INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED-KAI-GOD-SUPER.
Now regarding customization, there is a lot of options in Xenoverse 2: you can dress and combine outfits from most if not all characters known in the series, you can dress as Captain Ginyu, or you can combine the top part of the Gi used by Goku with the pants used by Vegeta, or however you like creating the ultimate look. Now here clothing affects your stats some in positive ways giving you a boost to some stats like health and ki, and some give you negative stats like decreased stamina and attack power. This is where QQBANG enters into play.
The QQ Bang feature in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 allows players to override the stats of their current gear and replace it with stats from the QQ Bang item. You can access the Clothing Mixing Shop machine (which allows you to use the QQ Bang formulas) once you have reached the point in the story and unlock the Time Rifts around Conton City. Head over to the Capsule Corporation Time Rift and find Bulma to the right. Next to Bulma is the Clothing Mixing Shop machine. Speak to her and she will explain how the process works. The items you can use are rated on a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being the highest. Mixing items of higher star values will give you better results. But to get a perfect QQ Bang there is a lot of grinding and the results might not be the same, you can used the same pieces of equipment twice and not get the same result. But even so with basic clothing you can get all the way up to the end of the game, but better gear and equipment is easier.
Regarding the Character roster without including DLC, we are looking around 90 characters, each with different “stages.” What I mean by stages is that for example Goku, you can choose the base Goku that fought against Raditz and pit it against lets say, SSBlue Vegeta, so there are a lot of options to choose from. While Xenoverse 2 gives a MMORPG kind of vibe, it is at its core a fighting game, and a really good one if I might add. While some may think that its not for the competitive scene, and I don’t think that this was the approach in development, it has a lot of mechanics that if the player learns the game it can be just and even more fun than most competitive fighting games.
I love the Local Joycon mode that you can just play against someone using the Joycons and they work just like a traditional controller. This is the mode in which I have enjoyed the game the most, being able to play against my friends, and my son right out of the box without having to purchase another controller is a BIG Plus for me. I see no difference between normal and joycon mode. Speaking of joycon, there is also motion control mode for those who like to feel more immersed in the game, doing the Kamehameha motion or the Spirit Bomb is fun. I personally don’t like motion controls, but its good that there is the option for those who like them. Remember the TP Badges? They are this game currency, like Zeni. They are used to purchase items, and techniques, but with a huge difference. For example , if you want to purchase BigBangKamehamehaX100, but its price is around 300,000 Zeni (or so), you need to grind a lot to get that amount of money. But if you decide to use TP, the price is only 50 so to say. In this way, they are a good way to get items while managing your Zeni.
Bottom Line: Shenron granted my wish with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. My wish to see a major Dragon Ball game back on Nintendo hardware was granted. Bandai Namco did a terrific job to bring the game to Nintendo’s hybrid console. While some compromises had to be done in order to do so, they do not hinder the experience at all. The fact that all DLC and updates and the story of the first one was included as well, is a testament of great things to come to Nintendo Switch. Dragon Ball Xenoverse is the definitive experience for Nintendo users, and I cannot recommend it enough, with a great combat system, motion controls and tons of customizing options Xenoverse 2 is a trip for Dragon Ball History worth taking.