Dragon Ball Z was the first foray into the world of Japanese anime for many of us. After being drawn to the saga's heroes and action-packed battles, who hasn't once dreamed of wanting to experience an incredible RPG adventure featuring the characters we loved and the epic story of the series? Luckily, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has arrived to make our childhood dreams come true.
Playing Kakarot feels a lot like a new take on Dragon Ball Z itself, and that's what sets it apart from older games in the franchise. There's fighting, excitement, adventure, humor and everything in between. Every character in the video game is fully modeled (with English and Japanese voice options) and none of the stories are skimmed, making this a perfect entry into the series for new fans! 💥
Throughout the game, you will find yourself playing as Goku , Vegeta , Piccolo and many more of your favorite characters, in order to defend the earth from intergalactic evil. Combat in Kakarot is similar to previous Dragon Ball games. Each character also has a plethora of super attacks and transformations at their disposal, and as the story progresses, you'll unlock many combat options through training battles. Discover without further delay our analysis of the Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot game only a few days after its release!
THE OPEN WORLD IN KAKAROT
Kakarot offers its players a (semi) open world to explore with all kinds of things to collect. This is also the unique aspect of this new Dragon Ball game. If you want, you can spend hours fishing, collecting materials, and flying through the air to collect Z orbs . We had already praised its merits in our article on Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot – Everything you need to know !
But if you don't want to deal with all that, you can just continue and come back later. The environment is relatively vast and for once, we don't feel cramped. The settings are quite faithful to the style of the anime and the impression of grandeur in relation to the characters is really successful. This freedom is one of Kakarot's strengths. 👊
You'll also complete many training tasks at the Turtle School by successfully completing moves, and they provide enough healing items to fuel some of the toughest battles in history. There's no need to hunt, no need to worry about finding materials or creating the perfect meal, no need to complete every sub-story. The choice is there to do all this only if you want to.
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A NUANCED GAMEPLAY
The main characters often gain a lot of experience as part of the story, ensuring that you won't be left without any leftovers for future battles. However, some systems seem to be a burden. The skill tree is the main draw of Kakarot , but the benefits you'll get from collecting and upgrading Soul Emblems aren't really worth the effort. Since the main draw of doing the sub-stories is for us to get extra soul emblems, it ruins the motivation to go do anything outside of the main story.
Finally, as all the information is “thrown” into the tutorials at the beginning, I even forgot for a moment that there were skill trees for leveling up. It's well hidden in the submenus, and it wasn't until I was determined to figure out the use of all the Z Orbs I was picking up that I finally looked into it. 🔘
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There are also skills for leveling up, but sometimes you'll need to practice before you can spend orbs on the tree. Meals provide both permanent and temporary effects, but you can also ask Chichi to prepare complete meals for you with even more benefits! Finally, collecting the crystal balls later will also seem cool and in the theme of the anime, but ultimately the rewards are not as worth the effort, so we are quite disappointed... 🤷♂️
THE LIFESPAN OF THE GAME
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot covers the 4 main story arcs : Saiyan, Frieza , Cell and Buu. As a result, one will still get all the major beats of the main story, but also won't need to watch battles that often last several episodes in the series to complete it.
And since we have finished the game (DLC's are planned) , we can give you some indications regarding its approximate lifespan:
- Main story : Approximately 35 hours
- Story + secondary objectives : Between 65 and 70 hours
- Complete the game 100% : Approximately 100 hours
- Upcoming DLC's : Between 20 to 60 additional hours
The story is therefore well sped up, giving you snippets of Gohan 's transformation and Goku 's training in the afterlife without forcing you to defeat x number of creatures and villains. Kakarot as a game embraces what you're here for: larger-than-life, planet-destroying battles. We are eagerly awaiting future DLC's to add new characters to the story!
This opus offers us many facets inspired by the saga and manga, while integrating RPG elements to give you a unique feeling of growth and progress. In any case, don't worry, between the numerous side missions, the secondary activities (fishing, cooking, collecting consumables, hunting, etc.) there is plenty to do to fill your boredom!
THE COMBAT SYSTEM AND BATTLES
The battles are similar to those in Dragon Ball Xenoverse , but more simplified. Besides, if you are nostalgic for the game, find our DBZ Xenoverse Duvet Cover at Goku Shop to remember the incredible battles! The system forces us to start with Ki-based strikes and punches. Only then can we afford to launch powerful skills when the opportunity presents itself.
Although the fights are epic, they are ultimately very simple. We get close, land a basic combo and follow up with a special attack. Sometimes you may need to use a healing item, but you will be able to complete most battles without problem. The fights make you feel like an incredibly strong Fighter Z fighter, but sometimes they still lack tension and pizzazz. 💪
To prevent you from winning the fight too easily, the game sometimes gives bosses armor and the ability to counterattack , which can sometimes seem destabilizing when he suddenly decides to wake up to throw a punch at you. special attack from nowhere. Knowing when to block, dodge, counter-attack and recharge your Ki is extremely important in the game, but once you get the hang of it, the combat system feels a bit repetitive and redundant, which is fine. that worries him. When you are well practiced, no opponent will come close to you. A bit easy, no? 💤
THE GRAPHIC PERFORMANCE OF THE GAME
In terms of performance, we found Kakarot to be about average. There was a lot of on-screen stuttering in cutscenes when you first started the game (probably made Toriyama jump out of his seat more than once!) , but once V-sync is activated , the problem disappears. Aside from a few FPS drops while flying around the world map, the experience feels pretty smooth. 🍃
There was no noticeable slowdown in battles, which is the most important time for a solid action game and FPS, so it played its cards pretty well overall. However, we can criticize it for slightly light graphics with an engine that is a little outdated for its time and relatively long loading times between zones (we remind you that the game is not really an Open World strictly speaking) . But the good news is that CyberConnect2 should very soon offer several free updates to correct this problem, so we can be reassured! ✔️
OUR FINAL FEELING!
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot isn't perfect, but it's a solid RPG that covers the entire Dragon Ball Z saga very effectively. The game sometimes collapses under the weight of its own systems, but Kakarot always finds a fun way to revisit (or even experience for the first time) the original series.
The game is still beautiful (despite its somewhat outdated graphics engine) and makes us relive spectacular nostalgic battles by adding iconic music and Japanese voices for even more immersion.
On the other hand, if you only have a passing interest in Dragon Ball Z , or even worse no interest at all, then I don't think this game will meet your expectations. In any case, Kakarot remains a fun game and succeeds in offering us an immersive experience in the universe that rocked our childhood. The video game is obviously available on the Xbox One, PC and PS4 platforms in normal version or in Deluxe Edition for the most passionate! 🤟
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