Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 – Review

Platform – PlayStation 4 (Pro), Xbox One, PC
Developer – Dimps
Publisher – Bandai Namco Entertainment
MSRP – $59.99

(Editor’s Note: This game was reviewed on the Xbox One platform with the review copy being provided by Gaming Instincts.)

Introduction

Dragon Ball has a legacy of video game adaptations since its creation by Akira Toriyama. There have been Dragon Ball games since 1986 and on several platforms since the Super Famicon in Japan. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is the latest entry to improve upon a fighting game that blends story and multiplayer with RPG elements. Bringing back fan favorite features such as character creation and offering a unique story. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 makes several improvements while adding a brand new city HUB, quests lines, and endgame content.

Story and Narrative

The story of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 follows the events of the first game. The Time Patroller of the first game has defeated the Demon God Demigra and saved the timeline. Now there is a need for new heroes from across time to defend the Dragon Ball Z universe, this is where you come in. As a new Time Patroller, you start to defend and protect the Dragon Ball Z timeline alongside charterers like Trunks, Elder Kai, and The Supreme Kai of Time. The story structure in Xenoverse 2 is a great improvement from the first game because you are eased into the tutorials. In between story missions you can tackle various quests that are presented around the new Conton City. This helps with the pacing that the first game suffered from because certain story missions were impossible at certain levels. Xenoverse 1 would require the player to grind previous story missions or parallel quests to continue. Xenoverse 2 offers new quests that are fun and help level your Time Patroller in order to tackle the main missions. The story missions are straight forward and don’t offer a lot of variety when it comes to mission structure. Most of the time you are required to beat the opponent in front of you on various stages. The story creates unique scenarios by mixing several characters from Dragon Ball Z into fun ‘what if’ stories that are not canon. Did you ever want to help Goku fight Frieza and his older brother Cooler? This game presents many variations of the story and fun segments that many fans of the show will love. Xenoverse 2 does have an overarching story that is created by the original creator Akira Toriyama.

He introduced two new villains in the first game named Mira and Towa. Mira and Towa summoned the Demon God Demigra who was defeated. Towa and Mira have come back to corrupt the timeline with the help of villains from the show such as Turtles and Lord Slug. If you have a previous save from the first game, then your original character swill be known as The Hero. He will be off trying to find Towa and Mira’s location while your Time Patroller and Trunks help set history back to normal. Mira and Towa will appear several times through out the game in order to corrupt and change history for their nefarious purposes. You will battle corrupted enemies across the Saiyan Sage, Frieza Saga, Cell Saga, and Majin Buu Saga. What is new in Xenoverse 2 is the addition of many movie characters and expanding the story to include the events of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F. The final story though predictable is still in line with the story telling that is known in Dragon ball Z. Being a fan of the show, having a unique story in Xenoverse 2 that is supplemented by great moments of the original show is great. The new additions to the story are great by expanding and including the beginnings of Dragon Ball Super. However, there is still a lot of retreaded ground that many players of the first game will recognize. One problem that happens several times in the cutscenes is the fact that character mouth animations do not sync properly to the English audio; a problem that happens in many games from Japan and localized in the West.

Once the game is beaten, you can unlock extra story content that shows the player what happened while certain events took place in the main story line. There is also side quests in Conton City and also Parallel Quests for Time Patrollers to tackle. There are 100+ unique Parallel Quests that are contained encounters that are separate from the main story and offer rewards such as money, experience points, skills, and item drops. They can range from collecting dragon balls to fighting a gauntlet of enemies. One particular Parallel Quest has you fighting an evil and super-powered version of Yamcha; which is a hilarious notion to fans of the show. Conton City has more quests for you to enjoy through 5 Mini-HUBs: Frieza’s Spaceship, Elder Guru’s House, Majin Buu’s House, Hercule’s House, and Capsule Corporation. Each place has their own small quest line that will reward players with various items, skills, or unlock new features like Awoken Skills or QQ Bang crafting.

Gameplay, Combat and RPG Elements

The gameplay for Xenoverse 2 is similar to its predecessor but with some brand new additions and balance changes. For new players, Xenoverse 2 is a 3D arena brawler similar to the Tenkaichi line in which you can fly up and around the stage, but stage sizes are limited by invisible walls. Xenoverse 2 transitions various locations through a portal system in which players will lock on and travel to the next stage. You can start at Radditz pod stage, portal to the canyon stage that Goku and Vegeta fought, and then portal to another similar location on earth. Story missions are started by Trunks or by one the Kai’s and can be replayed at the vault of time for a higher score.

The combat and fighting is simple and requires a combination of light and heavy attacks using X or Y. Ki Blasts are assigned to B, Jump or Ascend to A, Block to LB, Boost to LT and you can pull up your Skills by holding RT. When getting attacked in a combo by the opponent, you can press X to Z Vanish behind them at the cost of 2 stamina bars. You can assign Skills that you have gained to the X, Y, B, and A and use them when holding RT. By holding RT+LT you can bring up your assigned Awoken Skill, Ultimate Skill, and Evasion Skill. The d-pad is used to activate items or send chat messages and emotes to other players in Multiplayer or Co-Op. The controls haven’t changed much from the previous game but the flow of battle is more precise and many abilities are able to combo into each other than before. One welcomed change is being able to chain beam attacks after a combo.

Skills can be earned in various ways and be assigned to your Time Patroller. Skills are separated into two categories: Strike Supers and Ki Blast Supers. Strike Supers are physical attacks and Ki Blast Supers are based on projectiles. You can also equip two Ultimate Skills like Cell’s Perfect Kamehameha or Frieza’s Death Ball. Every race in the game has a special Awoken Skill in which your Time Patroller will transform and gain new abilities. Saiyans become Super Saiyan and all the way to Super Saiyan 3 based on the amount of Ki bars your Patroller has. Namekians become giants known as Super Namekian, The Frieza Race can turn into Golden Form, Majin’s will transform into Kid Buu, and Humans will gain access to Nimbus and Pole Stance. Some Skills can be only performed by certain races and vice versa. All Super Skills and Ultimate Skills have different costs of either Ki or Stamina Bars, and sometimes a bit of health. Old Trainers have returned from the first game with new additions. A Time Patroller can unlock his or her Trainer’s skills by completing missions or quests while training under them. Some Trainers can only be unlocked once reaching certain points in the main story or at a certain level. Trainers are greatly improved because they teach and train the player why and how to use their unique skills. The amount of skills in the game is vast but there is still a lack of Strike Ultimate Skills that are useful. Ki Blast Ultimate Skills are the most plentiful and easily acquired as you progress through the game.

Your Time Patroller can level up and gain stat points that can be placed in Health, Stamina, Ki, Ki Blast Supers, Strike Supers, and Basic Attacks. Health increases your total Life Bar before you are knocked out and Stamina increases your Stamina Bar which you use for certain attacks, Z Vanish, or to maintain your Boost. Ki increases the amount of Ki Bars on your Patroller, Ki in battle is gained by fighting or charging up. Ki Blast Supers and Strike Supers will increase the amount of damage you will deal with your Skills and Basic Attacks will increase your combo attack damage further. Certain races are suited for certain stats; Saiyans are strong in Basic Attacks but have low Health while the Namekians have high Health and Defense.

Clothes in the game will also boost your attributes further but at the exchange of another stat. One set of clothes may extend your Ki and Ki Blast Supers to higher levels but at the exchange of lower Stamina and other various combinations. QQ Bangs is a new feature that allows the player to mix and match item stats in order to equip and change the look of your Time Patroller. You no longer have to wear certain gear in order to gain the desired stats you want. This allows players to mix and match any clothing style while the QQ Bang will retain the stat boost desired regardless what gear they have equipped.

A new addition to this game is the endgame content known as Expert Missions. This is Xenoverse 2’s version of a raid quest for players at high or max level. 6 Online players will gather together to fight an end game boss that has his own unique mechanics. There is an extensive tutorial that teaches the player how to deal with certain boss mechanics once they have unlocked Expert Missions. You can tackle Expert Missions offline but the game gives you 5 AI companions that are terrible. Expert Missions seem like a good idea, but often times you are out damaged by one party member and ending the encounter abruptly when playing online. These missions are made for the endgame players who can optimize their builds and some Elite Missions are only available on certain days. There is a leaderboard that tracks which top players have done the most damage or completed the raid several times.

Visual And Sound

The graphics are nothing to write home about but there are a few subtle changes that help the aesthetic of the world. Xenoverse 2 is now hitting 60 FPS and runs on Unreal Engine 4 which allows the battles to be precise and look great. Many stages are visually enhanced from the first Xenoverse with new textures but it’s hardly noticeable unless you stare at them long enough. The character models in the current game are more detailed and lend itself really well to cell shading. Particle effects and beam attacks have received a visual upgrade that makes the attacks look beautiful. There is a developer mistake in which brightness setting can also tone down the colors of the game; a weird choice. When you max out your brightness, the game’s colors suddenly pop and show a great amount of detail. I assume this will be fixed in a patch down the line because many people have pointed out this flaw. Conton City being the newest addition to Xenoverse 2 is amazing and looks great. The developer put considerable care in making a HUB city that is visually impressive. Many areas such as Frieza’s ship or Buu’s House look exactly like the show. The music in Xenoverse 2 reuses several tracks from the previous game and from the show. The sounds of attacks and skills haven’t changed much either. However, the voice acting is still superb as the cast of Dragon Ball Z has returned again to reprise their roles. Again, many improvements and upgrades that make the player feel that they are in the Dragon Ball Z universe.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer and Co-op have returned once again in Xenoverse 2. Multiplayer matches can be played offline or online in straight forward brawls. Offline only offers 1v1 between Player 1 and 2. The online multiplayer game modes are Player Battle, Ranked Battle, or Endless Battle. Player Battle does not affect your rank but Ranked Battle does. Endless Battle has players joining a lobby in which the winner keeps fighting until he loses. All these games modes can be played in two versions, With Limits or Without Limits. With Limits keeps everyone’s levels neutral and you are not allowed to use items; Without Limits allows everything.

You can fight in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 matches in each game mode. Since Xenoverse is a brawling RPG hybrid game, there is a meta to the online multiplayer in which people will specialize in PvP builds. Just like in traditional fighting games, there will be certain characters that are overall better and skills that are highly desirable to stay competitive. Co-Op is available for Parallel Quests and Expert Missions. You can bring a max party of 3 on Parallel Quests and a max party of 6 for Expert Missions. There is matchmaking option for Co-Op if you want to tackle Parallel Quests and Expert Missions with other players online.

Final Verdict

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a great starting point for new players and fans of the show. Various improvements across all aspects of the game have made Xenoverse 2 much more enjoyable than the first. However, many assets are simply reused and may not appeal to players that are looking for something entirely new. This game is great because of the new additions such as Conton City, Race Transformations, and new questlines. The pacing of the game is a great improvement when compared to the grind fest of the first Xenoverse. Not every new feature has worked out as we would have hoped for, but there is enough variety and replayability that will keep fans engaged for a long time.