Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

The Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Open World Experience

The Dragon Ball series has a long history in video games. From 3D fighting games like the Budokai Tenkaichi series to RPGs like Attack of The Saiyans to traditional fighting games like the fantastic FighterZ, there is always a plethora of Dragon Ball games on the market. But there’s one particular type that fans of the series have always wanted but never got, and that’s the open world. An open-world game where you fly through the worlds of Dragon Ball has always been a dream for many gamers, especially the younger ones. In Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Namco Bandai is teaming up with Cyberconnect2, the developer behind the games Hack and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, to make this dream a reality.

The game covers the events of the second half of the manga adapted into the Dragon Ball Z series, starting with the arrival of Raditz on Earth until the defeat of Majin Buu. This era of Dragon Ball history has been covered by more video games than any other, but Kakarot may have covered it best. A forty-plus hour-long open-world RPG, Kakarot recounts the events of Z in more detail than any game has ever done before, and sometimes even expands on them. Through side quests and sometimes the main story, you’ll find the appearance of characters from the first half of the manga that didn’t appear in Z, such as Launch, and details about things that weren’t explained, such as the reason why Gohan and Vegeta’s tails didn’t grow back after they were cut off, and side stories that focus on the characters’ daily lives and are mostly found during rest periods. Between the main chapters of the manga, the game features most of its original content.

In Kakarot you play as the Saiyan characters Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Trunks and Gotenks alongside Piccolo, and the game switches between them during the story parts, while in the free parts you can choose who you want to play as. Each of the characters has its own fighting style, moves and a separate development tree where you can focus on developing your favorite character faster than others. We recommend focusing on Gohan because, surprisingly given the name of the game, he’s the character you’ll be spending most of your time playing with. The remaining characters, such as Krillin, Tenshinhan and Yamacha, are limited to supporting characters in battle but are not playable.

The gameplay in Kakarot is divided into two parts. The first section is exploration and open world. Rather than being seamless, the world of Kakarot is divided into multiple regions that you select on a map, covering all the regions you know from the manga and original series. From the mountains where Goku fought the Saiyans, to the planet Namek, to the western city and the snowy area where Dr. Gero’s laboratory and the Red League army were located. Activities in the open world include simple but entertaining side missions full of fun details for fans of the series, fishing, cooking, playing baseball, learning new moves and, most importantly, collecting Z-Spheres.

Z-Spheres are spheres that float around the world of Kakarot. You can find them everywhere and use them as currency to develop your character and unlock new moves in the development tree. I think the Z Orbs are a nice system for doing something while flying through iconic Dragon Ball areas, and what a great feeling that is. Flying freely and exploring classic areas are some of the best moments in Kakarot, fulfilling every Dragon Ball fan’s dreams. Unfortunately, with the magic of feeling and finding gone, the world of Kakarot is a little empty and suffers from repetition, but it still achieves its most important goal, which is to translate the iconic world of Dragon Ball into a video game.

The Combat Experience in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

The second part of gaming in Kakarot is combat, and here you’ll find a similar style to Budokai Tenkaichi and and there are several reasons for this.

The first is that Kakarot is not a fighting game and does not contain a competitive phase between players, which made it possible to ignore the weight and present boss fights at an appropriate difficulty level, which requires you to understand the boss’s fighting style and moves and know when to dodge , block and attack in a manner similar to what you might find with bosses. Games like Ys and Kingdom Hearts, and so I think Kakarot best translates the series’ fights and Goku’s feeling towards enemies dozens of times stronger than its counterparts.

Another way Kakarot excels is its sense of sophistication. Training and development is one of the pillars of Dragon Ball and perhaps its most famous elements, and since Kakarot is an RPG game, it was able to convey that feeling well as you see Goku’s Kamehameha getting bigger and bigger until the end of the game is around one Multiple times larger than the one that started the game. The game’s handling of transformations is also good. While the Kaioken consumes health, the Super Saiyan consumes Ki. In other words, the level of Super Saiyan increases as more Ki is consumed, giving each transformation its strengths and weaknesses, just like the Fall in the original manga and switching between them during battle. Smooth, entertaining and visually beautiful.

Unfortunately, the combat also has its own fundamental problems. The playable characters are really unacceptably similar in their tools, very few compared to other Dragon Ball games. If you develop them all in parallel, you won’t feel much difference when switching from Gohan to Vegeta and playing the strategy won’t change. This also applies to the bosses, because with the exception of a few moves, you’ll find that they’re very similar, and you’ll find strategies that work against most of them once you get tired of the game, which adds to the feeling of repetition in the game.

Technically the game is beautiful, translating the iconic Dragon Ball look to the 3D game in a way that ranges from good to impressive, and some of the cinematic scenes are truly exceptional in their visuals. Long loading times are unfortunately a problem and some side missions contain up to seven loading screens of 40 seconds each, making some moments of the game unbearable. Audio-wise, this may be the first Dragon Ball game to use the original music composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi, giving the game’s adaptation a sense of authenticity not found in most of its predecessors.

Aside from FighterZ, I have no doubt that Kakarot is the best Dragon Ball game of all time. There is a lot of love for the series in this game and a lot of fun and entertainment for every fan. As a video game, Kakarot is more of a good foundation that needs a second attempt at refinement to reach the franchise, but as the producer of Dragon Ball, I can do it Highly recommend Z in a new way to any fan of the series who wants to relive the events.

We received the PlayStation 4 version from the publisher.