The latest fighting game in the Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball FighterZ is a surefire hit for both new and old fans.
Dragon Ball Z for many people was a staple of their childhood, introducing them not only to long form storytelling but also opening up the doors to a whole wealth of Japanese anime and manga. For me, it wasn’t as big as say “The Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” but even with my limited knowledge of the franchise, I was still extremely excited for this new 3v3 fighting game to quell my want for manic fighters whilst at the same time learning more about a worldwide cultural phenomenon.
Like I said before, FighterZ chooses the 3v3 structure where you choose you team of miscreants and then take them to battle against another team of 3 using one character at a time with the ability to switch to benched characters if you want to mix it up or your fighter is getting low on health. This in my opinion is a better way of showcasing the over the top characters of the Dragon Ball universe as the fast and frenetic nature of 3v3 fighters lends itself much better to androids with exploding arms and aliens with third eyes then your standard 1v1 ever does. The rush you feel when landing a stellar opening combo with Kid Buu, only to then switch it over to Cell to continue your mid air onslaught and then finish with Gohan’s devastating Brother Kamehameha is literally enough to lose your mind when you get it right.
And getting it right on a basic level isn’t hard at all, as FighterZ offers a whole plethora of auto combos if you prefer mashing square rather than learning intricate combos. That isn’t to say that you can rely on them entirely but it offers a very nice and approachable intro to what could otherwise be an overwhelmingly hard game. You start off by performing autos, work your way up to a point where you feel confident experimenting and trying more challenging combos, all whilst having the safety blanket of the auto combos should it get a little too much for you. It may be a touchy subject when talking to the fighting game elite but in my opinion it gives a much more accessible fighting experience that allows anyone new to this style to get their feet wet before getting destroyed by the lunar tidal wave that is online play.
Now, online play may not be the only reason to play the game but for me and multiple others online, it is the cornerstone that all other modes are built around. To start FighterZ was pretty poor (mainly due the unprecedented popularity of the game at launch) with constant dropouts and even just not connecting at all in the earlier days of the game. I wouldn’t say that issue is completely resolved currently, but I do seem to be having fewer issues with connectivity, and when you do get into a match, the Netcode that’s running it all has been pretty robust so far. Hopefully that robustness continues over time and they add in punishment for “rage quitters” because as of right now there’s a lot of people dropping matches as soon as they start to lose which, if unchecked, could lead to a pretty abysmal online experience.
Don’t worry if online play is your bag though because FighterZ also offers a wealth of offline modes for you to sink your teeth into, such as a pretty interesting Arcade mode where instead of just winning, you have to perform specific actions, a fully voice-acted story mode that’s interesting even for a non-fan and a massive amount of tutorials and tests for you to hone your fighting spirit to the point where you can destroy every opponent with relative ease.
In my honest opinion Dragon Ball FighterZ is not only one of the best and most fun fighters since the days of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 on Dreamcast but is also one of the most beautiful with the art style of Akira Toriyama being utilised to full effect giving a style that I don’t think can be competed with by other console games. Ark System has made such a good fighting game and I implore you to play it whether you love fighting games or hate them. Why not see how much better your fast-moving games can look on a fantastic TV at your nearest Richer Sounds today?
Author: Hal, Plymouth store
