Dragon Ball FighterZ accomplishes so much within a single game.
For anyone who loves Dragon Ball Z or Dragon Ball Super, there's a lot to uncover,
be it comical exchanges between heroes and villains
or the agonizing detail developer Arc System Works put into realizing each character.
If you're looking for a gateway into fighting games, you'll find an extremely accessible entry point
that's easy to slowly pick up, all while looking and feeling great throughout the learning process.
Veteran players will find a fast-paced and intense battleground
that rewards those willing to dig deeper.
There are plenty of titles built around beloved licenses, but
precious few manage to tap into the distinct energy of the property they're based on.
FighterZ keenly captures the spirit of Dragon Ball
because the team behind it is so clearly devoted.
The most immediately obvious and consistently striking quality about FighterZ is simply how good it looks.
Using the same technique found in Guilty Gear Xrd,
models in FighterZ appear 2D through clever use of cel shading
but are actually 3D.
The result is a very faithful adaptation of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's style.
While the game is of course visually impressive at face value,
what pushes it to truly remarkable territory is how the identity of the characters pours out
through character introductions, specific moves, and victory animations.
Seeing Captain Ginyu and his squad appear on the battlefield
with a giant cloud of multicolored smoke behind them
gives you the perfect sense of their ridiculous character,
even if you've never encountered the obsessively theatrical Ginyu Force before.
Such commitment to detail goes well beyond the characters.
Getting the last hit in a particular way doesn't just knock someone out
but rather sends them violently crashing through a mountain or a building in the background.
Similarly, ending with specific super moves
wreaks havoc on whatever landscape you happen to be fighting in,
even going as far as zooming out to space with a giant beam of energy blasting forth from the planet below.
Dragon Ball's world-shattering fights are absolutely the core of its appeal,
and by including such over-the-top animations, the game demonstrates that in the most convincing way.
FighterZ is not just a fighting game with Dragon Ball characters in it,
but a true Dragon Ball fighting game where the style and tone are inseparable from the thing itself.
As for the mechanics, FighterZ is team-based,
and players on both sides of the match enter with three fighters
that can be swapped mid-match
or called upon to assist with a special move while another character is active.
The key to the game's accessibility is the commonality between characters.
Most characters can combo a light attack into a medium attack into a heavy attack.
You can also knock the enemy upward and perform an air combo
in a way that feels fairly similar between characters.
These shared options make it easy to switch from one fighter to another
while still providing a firm foundation to work off of.
Anyone who just wants to get together with friends and button mash
can take advantage of the auto-combo system,
done by repeatedly pressing the light, medium, or heavy attack button.
These systems don't ruin the fun of competitive matches because
although they are a useful tool,
they're less flexible and ultimately less powerful than manual combos.
Taking a quick glance at the game’s approach to bringing in new players,
it's easy to worry that there's a lack of depth.
And while it is true that FighterZ isn't as complex as many of its contemporaries,
it's hard to argue that it's too simple for most players.
Certain characters have strange elements that are entirely unique to them,
such as Nappa who can summon tiny green monsters known as Saibamen that operate independently.
The frenetic speed of FighterZ can also make it difficult to perform optimally in the moment.
For example, it's easy to understand that a crouching heavy attack
is the appropriate response to an opponent super dashing at your face,
but it can be tricky to get the timing down when everything happens so fast.
It may sound like FighterZ is overly chaotic,
but with time, you’ll come to learn how to outthink your opponent within a split second.
Because the overall systems are so digestible, it's a hill that always seems manageable.
In addition to a fairly standard arcade mode,
Dragon Ball FighterZ features an expansive story mode with an original narrative
that focuses on a new character, Android 21.
Taking place over three different arcs, each with their own perspective,
getting the whole picture takes around eight hours,
significantly longer than most other fighting game stories.
Sprinkled throughout are fantastic interactions between characters
determined by the makeup of your team of fighters.
Having others comment on Yamcha's weakness
or having Nappa proudly proclaim his role as a fighter
are exceptionally humorous moments that stretch deep into Dragon Ball's past.
It's also a wonderful incentive to experiment with different lineups
to see how the banter changes accordingly.
Even with such amusing exchanges, the story mode feels woefully bloated.
The fights are very simple to get through, which is fine at first,
but by hour five or six you'll be begging for something to push you even a little bit.
Maybe this wouldn't be so intolerable if the story kept you motivated, but
oftentimes it will only feed you the tiniest crumb
and then send you into an onslaught of fights that are nearly identical to the previous set you just endured.
Completing battles gives you access to an array of possible skills to equip,
such as increased attack power or defense,
but again the fights are never demanding enough
to really make these choices as interesting as they should be.
All of it is spread far too thin for what's actually there.
Online is also a bit of a mess.
While the presentation of the lobby system is adorable with its chibi representations of characters,
it isn't the most functional.
Trying to figure out how to play with friends isn’t especially intuitive,
and even when you do, a room will say it's full of players
even when it clearly isn't.
Plus, even more than a week after launch,
we constantly find ourselves getting booted from lobbies for seemingly no reason at all.
At least the connection has been relatively stable during ranked and casual matches
with lag only being a significant concern once in a while on a wired connection.
Despite the cumbersome online and overly long story mode,
Dragon Ball FighterZ is without question the best time we've had in a Dragon Ball game to date.
It's such a delight to be able to play as characters
who look and feel as powerful as they do in the source material.
Yet even if you strip away the outer wrapping, there’s a completely solid and frantic fighting game underneath.
Arc System Works is one of the best fighting game developers in the market today,
and their work on Dragon Ball FighterZ only reaffirms that sentiment.
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