InDragonBallZ:Kakarot,you’reable
togetthroughthisfirstarc,including
allthesub-stories,inaboutsixhours.
As a game, it understands what
you’re here for – larger than life,
planet-destroying battles – and doles
them out in spades, with added
RPG-style mechanics for a sense of
growth and progress.
The game’s story
covers the four main
arcs of the show –
Saiyan, Frieza, Cell, and
Buu – but cuts out even
more of the fluff than
Kai does. As a result,
you still get all the main
story beats but without
the need to watch battles that take
multiple episodes to complete.
Instead, you’ll be fighting them all
yourself in a fraction of the time.
The button-bashing battle system
requires you to start with basic ki
strikes and punches, and launch
powerful skills when the opportunity
presents itself. It feels like there’s a
lot going on as Kakarot throws you
into the deep end of its mechanics
and explains itself later, but once you
get the hang of things the fighting
becomes significantly easier. It allboilsdowntogettinginclose,landing
abasiccombo,andfollowingupwith
aspecialattack.
The way the developer decided to
combat against landing hits too easily
is to give bosses counterattacks and
occasional armour that cannot be
broken through. It doesn’t feel great
when you start to land
a combo only for an
enemy to stop being
stunned and launch a
attack back out of
nowhere, especially
when their strikes
launch you so far away
you have to spend ten
seconds sprinting your
character back into the fray.
Kakarot provides an open world to
explore, and all sorts of things to
collect, but you never feel forced to
run around and do anything other
than the main story. If you so choose,
you can waste hours fishing,
collecting materials, and flying
through the air collecting Z Orbs. If
you don’t want to deal with any of
that, though, you can just move on
and come back later. There’s no need
to grind or worry about finding
ingredients to cook the perfect meal,noneedtocompleteeverysub-story...
but,thechoiceisthere.
Whilethissucceedsinnot putting
toomuchpressureontheplayer, the
othersideofthecoinisthat the game
strugglestogiveyoumuchreason to
doitssidecontent.Mostsub-stories
reward‘SoulEmblems’,which can be
slottedintoyour‘community board’
for bonuses. But in practice, the
benefits you gain from these don’t
feel impactful enough to be worth the
effort of straying from the main story- it’s systems for systems’ sake.
BALL GAMES
And the game just keeps layering
new ones on. There are skills to level
up, but sometimes you need to train
before you can spend Orbs on your
skill tree. Meals give you both
permanent and temporary effects, but
you can also get Chi-Chi to make full
meals with even more benefits... if
you can find the recipe first. You can
train at Turtle School with Master
Roshi by completing special
challenges. And, of course, you have
to collect the Dragon Balls. There’s
cool stuff in there, but the overall
effect is to weigh you down with too
many systems and mechanics.
So Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is by no
means perfect, but as an action-RPG
that allows you to relive the entire
story of the show in a fraction of the
time, it’s a really solid effort. The
game sometimes buckles a little
under the weight of its own systems,
but it’s still a pretty fun title for fans
looking to take a trip down memory
lane, or newcomers intimidated by
the idea of catching up on hour upon
hour of 10 year old anime. Adding
RPG progression is a simple trick, but
it works, investing your journey with
more weight than previous, purely
action-focusedadaptations.NEEDTOKNOW
WHATISIT?
ADragonBallRPG
thatfollowsthemainZ
sagaarcs
EXPECTTOPAY
£49.99
DEVELOPER
CyberConnect2
PUBLISHER
Bandai Namco
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i7, Geforce
GTX 980 TI, 16 GB RAM
MULTIPLAYER
No
LINK
bandainamcoent.com/
games/dragon-ball-z-
kakarot76
A light and fun RPG that
does right by the saga,
even if it sometimes gets
bogged down with its
interweaving mechanics.VERDICTDragonBall Z:
Kakarot covers
the four main
arcs of the
storyW
hen the Dragon Ball Z anime aired, the first arc lasted
39 episodes. Assuming every episode is around 22
minutes, that’s about 14 and a half hours until Vegeta is
defeated. Dragon Ball Z: Kai cuts this down to 26
episodes, totalling nine and a half hours’ viewing time.WAY OF THE DRAGON
DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT adds RPG elements to
a breezy retelling of the anime saga. By Liz Henges
REST IN PIECES A man of many deaths
Goku’s mate Krillin has died enough times to give Sean Bean a run for this money. Here are
three ways he’s met his end:SNAPPED NECK
In the original Dragon Ball,
he was killed by one of
Piccolo’s kids, kicking off
the King Piccolo arc.PSYCHO BOMB
Frieza blows him to bits in
Dragon Ball Z, famously
triggering Goku to go Super
Saiyan. Kamehameha ha!EATEN
Pink weirdo Majin Buu turns
him into chocolate and eats
him up, along with loads of
his mates.Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
REVIEW