Dragon Ball Fighter Z was released back in January 2018.The game was developed by Arc systems Works,the studio behind many fighting games such as Guilty gear,
Blazblue etc and it was published by Bandai Namco for all platforms. The game was very well received and it manage to not only put a dragon ball game in the competitive scene of gaming
but also get titled best fighting Game in the game awards of 2018.
Dragonball 's last actual fighting game was mainly in the form of Dragonball supersonic warrios 1 and 2 for the Game boy advance and ds. The consoles were mainly receiving
3D arena games such as the Xenoverse franchise (2015 & 2016), Battle of Z(2014) and the raging Blast series. Back then, It was a huge risk, however it payed off.
The game is mainly a fighting game first and a dragonball game second. The priority of the studio was to develop a deep fighting system for the game while stuff like story-mode came second.
Fighterz was released mid of January 2018, however for the nintendo switch it came out near the end of 2018.The release of the game had plenty of different versions , these were:
Standard
Included the game alone
Fighter Z
Included the game and the season pass 1
Ultimate
Included the game, season pass 1, a music pack with soundtracks taken from the anime alongside commendators packs. (These play in the background while in combat.)
Collector's edition
Included the game,a manga painted DragonBall Statue ,a Steelbook case and three artboards
Since its released the development team kept the game alive with constant updates. Some of them were to balance heroes, some to introduce new game modes and others to introduce new Heroes.
Since then,the game received more that 18 heroes, each of these heroes came with his own set of cosmeticks such as Lobby avatars, colour palettes and Z stamps. In 2020 ( 2 years later) the game
has 3 season passes (DLC packages) with the last hero of the pass to be announced.
The Game Itself
When booting the game , the players will be asked to select whether or not they wish to play Online or Offline Mode. The main difference between the two game-modes is that
while in online mode, all of the offline modes are still available and cant be accessed at any point.On the other hand while in Offline(local) mode all the online modes are off.
The available online features consist of :
Arena Battle
Ring Matches
Party Matches
Online Matches (both Casuals and Ranked)
Bonus Plaza(holds different Online modes)
The features shared in both modes are:
Trainning
Story Mode
Local Mode
Arcade Mode
Depending on the selection made the game will proceed. If the selection was offline mode then the game will load your character in the lobby.However, if the selection made was Online
the game will request the player to choose a region of preference and then a lobby based on the presented list. Any player can join any region, however if the Internet connection
on the device is slow, it will most likely create frame delay also known as Lag. The region servers are North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Oceania and last but not least Asia.
Similary to offline mode, once the region and lobby is selected, the player's avatar will load in,however this time around the map will also have the avatar's of the other player's currently in lobby
Game Modes
Arena Mode
The first thing that appears once the player spawn in, is the giant arena in the middle. This place is known as the Arena Mode. While In online mode,the players can see the Chibi
avatars of other players. These avatars will either be seen fighting in the middle of the arena, which means that those two players are currently fighting each other or watch them stretch on the sides,
which translates to the players waiting to find someone to play with. On the other hand there are players who are placed in the staircase surrounding the arena. These players are there in order to
On thespectate the fighters who re corrently brawling . In order To join the arena fights,the player should contact the person/NPC infront of it and then
select eiher fight or spectate.
Trainning
On the left of the map, there's king kais planet who represents Trainning. In trainning the players can either train on their own or select any of the tutorials that are available to access.
The game offers a great trainning menu. The player can choose to play againts Ai and set the difficulty to his liking. Furthermore in case the player wants to train for something specific, he can set
the Ai to take the correponding action. For example, the player can set the Ai to block most of the attacks in order to train on breaking the enemy guard. They can set the ai to attack the player
in order to practise guarding and many many more. Trainning also offers tutorials, that show the buttons on screen,and its up to the player to get the timing and the inputs together. There's also
a demo version that showcases the combo and the timing, so if a player fails to do something they can observe it and then try on their own.There's another option called Combo chalenge, where every hero
is available and all of them have specific combos for the players to use. These combos are unique to those heros and their skill set.
Story Mode
The next place above trainning, is the Capsule corp Spaceship that represents the story mode. The game has its own original story . The game has a salection between 3 main arcs. These arcs are
the hero arc, the villain arc and the android arc. These three arcs are similar to eachother in terms of gameplay but they come with different story and available heroes. The main concept remains the same.
In all three arcs the main villain is Android 21, a new character designed by Akria Toriyama himself, the creator of dragonball. Android 21 released a weird gas that prevents the heroes for using their
full strength. Meanwhile, a wish was made, to ressurect all the past villains but also create a different version of all characters, who re dressed in black with red eyes, these are known as the clones.
There is an entity you(the player), who doesnt have a body but has the ability to transfer into a heros body and access their full strength. It's now up to the player and the warriors to join forces
againts the enemy(android 21 and her army of clones). As mentioned all, the arcs act similary but come with different endings. The player embarks on the journey controlling one hero and moves along a map ,
with different encounters, that represent fights. They give the player a fair ammount of available moves allowed, and its up to the player to choose which path to choose and how many fights he should encounter.
Each map has an encounter surrounded in purple. This option represents the final task of that map. There are optional encounters, surrounded in green called rescue mission. Dealing with a rescue mission will
result in unlocking a new hero who will joins the players party. In story mode the player can equiped skills that are helpful during fights. These skills can regen heroes life during or after a fight,
boost power,defense ki and etc. These are important as in story mode you start the next fight with the health bar slightly increased from the previous encounters.
Party Matches
At the top and slightly to the left there's an area called Party Match and it's represented by Master Roshi's house. Party match is a unique game mode where 3 players join forces againts a different
3 man stack. However you get to control only one hero, and the selected hero cannot be chosen by the rest of the party members. During combat one of the party members will start the fight. If the player's
hero is not first, there's custom dialog buttons to ask the party member to tag the player in and others.
Online Match
At the top center there's the Tenkaichi tournament that represents Online Match. There are two types of online matches, Ranked and Casuals. Ranked Matches are matches that the outcome matters.
Victory rewards the player with points,but on the other hand, defeats results in the loss of points. Rank games represent the competitive side of the game. The matchmaking system is fair enough and it offers the
player the choice to go againts people close to his rank or even slighlty above when selecting the option I want a Challenge . The rank titles represent titles from the series. It starts with Saibaiman all
the way to Zen-oh. On the other hand, casual game is just online matches where the result doesnt matter.
Local Mode
Next to the Tenkaichi Arena, there's another arena known as the Cell Games arena and it represents Local Match . Local Match is mostly known for couch multiplayer mode. This is the game mode where the players
and their friends can grap one controller each and start fighting each other after they select their hero team and map. Local also host the tournament mode. Tournament is a game mode where the player has the ability
to set the ammount of participants and how many of them will be AI or actual players and how difficult the Ai will be. Once the selection is complete the tournament begins. The participants will be split in groups of 2
and only the ones who will proceed to the next level. In case any of the players is not in combat, the match can be skipped so they wont have to spectate AI fight.
Both tournament and local matches can be played in single player mode as well.
Arcade Mode
Arcade mode is represented by the iconic red ribbon army tower. In Arcade mode, you choose your hero team and then a path. Each path has its own difficulty and it's own ammount of fights. The players progress
base on their perfomance.The better they perform the more challenging the fights will get. Keep in mind during these battles the enemies will be boosted and use skill items ( items that boost attack,defence ki etc) so
a simple combo might be devastating. the rewards from completing the paths are Zenie.
Event
The last mode ,doesnt have an official name but its usually the area where online events take place. The most common events are:
Raid Events
Raids act very similar to party matces. Arc systems choose a random hero to act as the raid boss Unless a new hero is released and you compete againts them with 2 other players. Once again you control
only one hero and choose the ammount of waves you want to have. These are 3,5 and 7 with rewards being 10 000,50 000 100 000 Zenie as rewards. In these raids, the game starts very easy but it progressively
getting harder and harder, to the point where one Lvl3(Ultimate) might be the enough to kill. Similar to Story mode the team is allowed to equip themselves with skills to keep their health and status up.This
also means that the life you had by the end of one l level will move to the next one with a slight increase(unless it's max).
Community Tournaments
There's an option in the game to join the community of the hero you like. These communities are not just there to showcase your admiration to the character but also to allow you to represent it in tournaments.
While a tournament take place every victory and defeat you get, will boost that hero's rank in the tournament,and it will reward you with Zenie and others.
The NPC,Raft Houses and Ring Matches
The Npc are there for the player to interact with and head over to the loaction they ll want you to. The first NPC who appears first, is at the end of the staircase. Upon interactin with him ,he will offer the chance to the player to
swar lobbies and region. The next two NPCs are near the arena . As mention above, one of the is responsible on explaining what the arena is and also give you the option to be placed in it. The second one is just there to let any player that
talks to him get a bried sum up of the patch notes.The person between the stairs and king kais planet will take you to the Fighter Dojo. Fighter Dojo is similar to trainning however it leans more towards the people who wish to learn
more of the deep mechanicks of the game. It also adds tutorials and trainning sessions of mechanicks that were introduced later on. The next stop is another Npc who will take the player to their Z Room. These Rooms are there so that
the players can post their trophies for display,these trophies come form the story mode and tournament participation. The last npc is close to the arcade and he is there so that the player can join or create a custom tournamet.
The four raft houses are:
Store
This is the place where you can spent your currency earned in the game. It holds a random system that rewards you with cosmeticks these cosmeticks come in the form of:
Sprays
Emotes
Lobby Avatars and different colours
Colour Palletes for the heroes
Z titles
Replay
This is the place with the giant TV. Its the area where you can see fights of professionals and who ever posted their record. It also records the players fights, so at any point you can access them and watch the replay of the fight
to see what went wrong, what didnt and what did work.
Ranking
Similary to every competitive/ online game,this is the leaderboard, where the player has the ability to see his ranking worldwide, compare himself with his friends and with the top player.
Z Union
This is the place where the player can join the community of their favorite hero. While being in a union the player can get rewarss for their character of choice susch us titles, colours,lobby avatars zenie and other. The option to change
union is always available.
Ring Matches is the best option for a player to fight againts their friend online if the the couch co-op is not an option. Trying to get a casual game and hope to play with your friends is random and something that was heavily critisize back
with the official release of the game. To counter this arc system introduced ring matches. Any player can create their own ring match at any given point. when making a ring match you can invite as many players as you wish . You can leave it free for anyone
to join or even set a code for a private game.
Heroes
The game has a fair amount of heroes however some of them came in the form of DLC. In the pictre above 18 of them consist of DLC and there are two more(Baby,SSJ4 Gogeta)
All of the heroes are unique and feel different from one another. What makes the game unique and really delivers a love letter to the series is the amount of detail Arc system gives when
creating a new hero. Every pose a hero takes is directly taken from the Manga, Anime, or past Games . Further details can be seen when selecting specific heroes in specific maps. For example picking
Goku SSJ as your starter, and have frieza as te enemy starter fighting on planet Namek without having Krillin on your team will trigger an animation side by side of how goku first transform and trigger special dialog option.
In general selecting heroes who fought each other on the map they fought will most likely have unique intro and dialog. The same logic is applied when a specific hero kills the last hero in the form of Dramatic finish
Dramatic finishers occurs when the final kill comes from a character who fought the other character (in the series/anime) on the specific map with a heavy attackk.
Gameplay
The gameplay is easy to pick for newcomers and also offers deep mechanicks for hard core Fighting fans. Dragon ball Fighterz offers its auto combos( simple combos made by just pressing either Square or Triangle)
that offer a great amount of damage. However in order to advance past the average player, you 'll have to know when to block, when to dash, when to break guards, save heroes healthbars, extend combos beyond autocombo
and when to punish enemie mistakes or take advantage of their open window. Keep in mind that the game is played at a very fast pace so it can difficult to keep up , but the more you play the better you get.
The buttons are simple. X is normay a ki blast or a bean ,Square is light damage, triangle medium and circle is the heavy damage. Expirimenting with combination is part of the game in order to find a more suitablle combo than the auto ones.
Quarter circle X, O, Δ,R1 and R2 is for special attacks. In order for the ones made using O,R1 and R2 the player must have atleast 1 bar of ki to use, otherwise nothing will happen.The Ki bar charges when giving or receiving damage.
But since it's a Dragon ball Game the Ki can charge by pressing both X and Square at the same time. Δ + O allows the character to teleport behind the enemy by consuing 1 bar. It's the best way to avoid being in the corner or expand a combo
R2 Is used to close the gap from the enemies by rashing towards them and R1 to grap them known as dragon rush. Tapping L1 L2 will call for your hero assists and by holding any of the two will cause a character switch. Last but not least
you have the sparking blast by combining R1 and R2. This feels your ki faster,deals more damage and restores the blue health when being hit by an enemy. Its very useful to get momentum in the game. The more characters still alive
the less the sparking blast lasts.
DragonBalls
Being a dragon ball game means you can collect the 7 orbs and call the dragon. To do that you or the opponent have to do 7 light combos in total. At the end of each combo a random ball will appear on the bottom of the screen. The second way
to obtain the dragon balls is by achieving a high combo. A combo between 10-19 grands the 1star ball 20-29 the 2nd star ad so on. If a ball already exist it wont be collected again. Once all 7 orbs re gathered
the second condition to be met, requires the user to have their Ki maxed out FYI 7 bars. Then who ever lands a light combo first will be capable of calling the dragonballs. Shenlong will then appear and grant the summoner 1 of 4 wishes.
Restore my health
Restores the current Character's HP to full /dd>
Bring back my ally
Restore a fallen character with the 1/4th of their HP
Give me ultimate power
Grants a second Sparking blast
Make me Immortal
This whish will recover the blue health of the character and will expand it.
Game Review
This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game
