Genre: | Fighting | ||
Developer: | Arc System Works | ||
Publisher: | Bandai | Classification: | PG |
Release Date: | 26th January 2018 |
The three on three fighting system has also been complimented here by a shared input system, with dynamic outcomes based on characters. What this means is DBFZ doesn’t require players to specifically learn different inputs in the way you would with, say, Ryu or Ken versus E. Honda or Blanka, as you would in Street Fighter. Instead, shared combo inputs, specials and more are all the same button presses, with different actions applicable to that character. So, essentially, your muscle (input) memory remains the same, what is different is what action each character does with the same input. This means the game follows the mantra of easy to learn, difficult to master.
I spent a lot of time in the Tutorial portion of the game -- an area you physically need to walk to with your cute Chibi DBZ avatar because the game’s ‘menu’ is basically a little 3D village. If you’ve played Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, it’s a lot like that, only Chibi in its own right. Within the ‘menu’ hub, there were five locked out areas, with the aforementioned Tutorial section, a Replay area, Versus and a Ranking area. The Tutorial, thankfully, is lengthy and eases you into the game’s actual complexity slowly enough that by the time you’re attempting to summon Shenron, you don’t realise just how far you’ve come.Click here for our full Dragon Ball FighterZ impressions.
Controls and attacks are more Street Fighter-like than any other fighting games, but there are specific DBZ mechanics that work super well and helps give the game its own flavour and strategy. The aforementioned summoning of Shenron, for example, requires seven Dragon Balls collected throughout a fight based on combo numbers and a few other variables. Once you’ve collected them, you just need to land a perfect X or Square Super (basically just hitting X or Square and landing enough consecutive hits to pull off the Super), and the famous dragon appears to give you an over-the-top hand -- you can revive an ally, restore your health, gain the ultimate power of even become immortal (for a limited time).