Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
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 This is what Dragon Ball Z: Sagas should've Been!
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Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is an open world Fighting game, developed by Cyber Connect and Published by Bandai Namco Games. It was released on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC and runs on the Unreal Engine 4.
Story
Overall
The primary storyline of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot follows the events of the Raditz Saga through to the end of the Kid Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z.
After the Buu Saga, there is an original storyline that acts as a prequel to the events of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 as it deals with how Towa rebuilt Mira after he was reduced to his core following his defeat by the Time Patrol in Age 774 and Mira's previously unseen confrontation with the Z Warriors shortly after the defeat of Kid Buu in the main timeline of Kakarot. The events of this game occur in a separate timeline from Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, though the Towa and Mira who appear are the same in both games.
Downloadable Content
The first DLC, New Power Awakens - Part 1, is a variation of the Battle of Gods storyline, in which the events are quite different from the original Battle of Gods storyline events and the events taking place on Beerus' Planet, rather than on Earth in the original events. Just like Goku, Vegeta also does the ritual to become a Super Saiyan God, unlike in the original storyline. This is because the DLC was merely made as a training session for Goku and Vegeta, who were summoned by Whis to train on Beerus' Planet, to reach Super Saiyan God and get strong enough to fight Beerus, in order to entertain the God of Destruction, making the DLC, in turn, its own original story. The DLC also adds a few substories to go along with it.
The second DLC, New Power Awakens - Part 2, follows the events depicted in the Resurrection ‘F’ storyline as playable content. Although the DLC carries a more truer adaptation of the Resurrection ‘F’ storyline, compared to the first DLC's version of the Battle of Gods storyline, it has some elements that are different from the original storyline. The DLC also adds along a few new substories to go along with it.
The third DLC, -Trunks- The Warrior of Hope, follows the events depicted in The History of Trunks special and Trunks The History - The Lone Warrior special side-story manga chapter. Secondly, the DLC also includes the events surrounding the defeat of both Future Androids 17 and 18 and the eventual defeat of Future Cell by Future Trunks, after Future Trunks' returns to his timeline following the Cell Games. Lastly, the DLC also includes the events of Future Babidi's invasion, as shown in the Dragon Ball Super manga, where Future Trunks defeats Future Babidi, Future Dabura and their minions with the help and deaths of Future Shin and Future Kibito after training with them in the Sacred World of the Kai to prevent the release of Future Majin Buu in Future Trunks' timeline.
The fourth DLC, Bardock - Alone Against Fate, follows the events of the Bardock - The Father of Goku special. The DLC also includes a special bonus and original story that chronicles the life of young Prince Vegeta, during the time the events of the Bardock - Alone Against Fate DLC takes place.
The fifth DLC, Chaos at the World Tournament, follows the events of the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament depicted in the Piccolo Jr. Saga. The DLC also includes Kid Goku and his final battle against King Piccolo during the King Piccolo Saga, in which it acts as a prologue to the main storyline and events of the DLC.
The sixth DLC, Goku's Next Journey, follows the events of the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament depicted in the Peaceful World Saga.
Gameplay
The game is an RPG fighting game somewhat similar to Dragon Ball Xenoverse and its sequel. While the game is generally considered to be open world, it is not completely seamless as the areas are divided into individual hubs that are locked until reaching certain points of the story. These individual areas are large and can be traversed via flying or vehicles. Enemies are scattered throughout the areas and will attempt to fight the player upon detection. Various friendly NPCs can also be found throughout the map, either in cities, villages, or in remote locations. There are several mini games, including fishing and baseball. One of the game modes is called Training Grounds and allows players to face other characters in order to unlock or improve Super Attacks.
Why It Rocks
- Beautiful cel-shaded graphics that are a massive upgrade over previous Dragon Ball games, as the graphics are incredibly colorful to look at, they also are detailled and very crisp, even by 2020s standards, the characters models are also amazing and look exactly like the anime it's based on.
- Not to mention that just like the characters models that look like their anime conterpart, the graphics are also like the show art style in the environments, but with a colorful and less dark colors palette than the series despite still being faithful to the style of it, in fact the graphics are even closer to the style of the anime than the Budokai Tenkaichi games.
- Rather than being just a fighting game, like DBZ games usually are, this game is both an open-world and a fighting game. It also features RPG elements, for example you can eat food and use various items to help you on your way, making this game a fun experience and an unique one for a Dragon Ball Z game.
- Also, making an open world game with fighting game segments is an original idea and a really great one since it's could make the game stand up to the other open world games, not to mention that this game execute this extremely well even for a great Dragon Ball Z game.
- Great voice acting featuring the entire Funimation voice cast (except for Kid & Teen Gohan), the Japanese voice acting is once again excellent as all of the actors reprise their roles and they all do a great job with the voice of the characters, especially Goku, Vegeta, Krillin and Picollo.
- You can fish by using Goku's tail, in which these phases of gameplay are decent and pretty fun to play, despite not being as good as the fighting and open world phases.
- It faithfully follows the anime series, like the story mode from Budokai, Dragon Adventure from Tenkaichi 2 and Dragon Battle Collection from Raging Blast. It even includes some moments that weren't in the previous games, like the scene where Goku and Piccolo are learning to get their driver's license, which might hint that this game was intended to track the entire anime in one game, in which this game had done this really well, unlike other Dragon Ball Z game that doesn't do it too well such as the first Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku game which had cut a lot of episodes, even if it was a Game Boy Advance game.
- There is plenty of moments that are taken from the series and was made into a cutscene, which we're made into the game extremely well and feel like the original story from the original series, there is also most of the most iconic and most memorable fighting scenes of the entire series such as the fight with Vegeta when he would almost take down Goku when he transformed to a Great Ape, there is even the moment where Goku and Chichi talking about their first date ever which happen in the original Dragon Ball series from 1986 or other moments from the anime that translated amazingly well in this game.
- You can freely fly around the world without any interruption, making the exploration even better since the entire Dragon World is explorable and that it's make it even better to exploring in this game, flying in this game is also fun compared to Dragon Ball Z: Sagas in which the fly in that game is a joke and not an actual flying.
- The optimization is way better than in the first Xenoverse and FighterZ as it will work well even on an older graphics card.
- Great skill set system that allows you to add any skills you want, although limited to 4 slots.
- You can use items like the Vitadrink to heal yourself during battles, this can be great if you struggle in a fight and that you don't have that much healths before being taken down.
- Excellent soundtrack that even include some of the songs from the anime, and some original musics that are also really good to listen to, the musics are also very catchy and some of them are relatively relaxing to listen to.
- You train to improve your strength and eat food to restore your health.
- For exemple, one of the tracks named Battle at the edge of the Galaxy is awesome to listen to and make the fight feel very epic, even by DBZ standards, there are other tracks like that that is awesome to listen to, in fact the soundtrack is so awesome that you might want to listen to them for so long or even rock at them.
- This is the first Dragon Ball game where you can explore the entire Dragon World.
- There is a lots of collectibles in all of the game, which is great and can give the game a high number of replay values due to how much there are of them and also because of how great this game is.
- You don’t have to grind for EXP, which can be a good thing for some, since grinding in this game is tedious and the grinding isn't really that fun in any game whatsoever, the reason why you doesn't had to grind for EXP is because when you do major fights, you will earn a lot of them and the grinding isn't required too.
- You can collect the Dragon Balls to summon Shenron and wish for:
- Zeni (the in-game currency)
- a defeated character to be brought back
- upgrades and power-ups for you characters
- Unlike Sagas, which was falsely advertised like a sandbox game and was also a really bad game, this game actually feels like a sandbox game, despite mostly being an open world game.
Bad Qualities
- Progressing can be tedious due to how big the game is, as you can lose you very easily in some areas and some of the missions or fights are either tedious or way too hard to do, this is especially true with some of the missions who can be incredibly frustrating to do due to being either confusing or too long.
- Progressing is also tedious because of the fact that the game is really long and take at least 30 to 35 hours to beat it.
- Movement is a bit clunky when sprinting on foot, although it's not that big of a deal due to the fact that the game is very fun to play, and the controls despite that aren't bad and actually decent.
- Poor RPG system; it’s possible to beat the entire game without needing to grind for a single XP, this also make the game easier to complete too since you mostly got exp when fighting major opponents such as Vegeta or other characters.
- While the world is huge, the map is nearly linear and whenever you travel to a new area you have to sit through a loading screen.
- The Nintendo Switch version (though a decent port) suffers from heavy dips in certain areas and lacks anti-aliasing.
- The AI can be dumb at times, especially when it's the robots that come to fight you as they are extremely easy to take down due to how weak they are and also because of their dumb AL.
- The loading times are pretty long at times, especially for Switch port, almost comparable to Sonic Colors Ultimate. Luckily for Next-gen console cut the loading screen entirely.
Reception
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot received mixed to positive reviews by critics, with a score of 73/100 for the PS4, Xbox One and PC version, the PS5 version got a score of 76/100, the Nintendo Switch version is the most positively received, with a score of 78/100.
IGN awarded the game a 7 out of 10, citing "When Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is at its best, it’s incredible. The big moments of each saga are brought to life impeccably with beautiful visuals and effects – but more than that, Kakarot also shows love to the smaller, more character driven moments that made fans fall in love with the anime in the first place. As a result, Kakarot is a wonderful way to revisit the story of Dragon Ball Z, whether you’re a fan or looking to jump in for the first time.
However, while it’s backed by extremely solid combat, it also comes with major drawbacks like poorly implemented RPG mechanics, a general lack of polish, and some disappointingly shallow and repetitive sidequests."
Sales
In Japan, the game sold 89,537 copies in its first week of release[1]. This marks higher opening week sales than Dragon Ball FighterZ which sold 68,731 copies and is the highest opening week sales for a Dragon Ball game in Japan since 2008's Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit.
In March 2020, Bandai Namco announced sales of over 2 million worldwide.[2] By December 2021, sales of 4.5 million were announced.[3] In March 2023, the game had hit 6 million in sales.[4]
Trivia
- This is the first game in which Aya Hisakawa voices Bulma in the Japanese version (she also voices Baby Trunks).
- This is also the first Funimation dub production in which Kid Trunks has the same voice actor as his baby counterpart, as in this case, it's Alexis Tipton, who's been voicing Kid Trunks since Super.
- This marks the debut of Masashi Ebara as Mr. Satan, as Unshō Ishizuka passed away in 2018.
- This is the first Game where Jeannie Tirado voices Pan in the Goku's Next Journey DLC instead of Elise Baughman.
- This is the first game where Bill Jenkins voices Guru, reprising his role from Dragon Ball Z Kai.
- Doc Morgan and Kyle Hebert reprise their roles as the Narrator from Dragon Ball Z Kai and Dragon Ball Z in trailers for the game.
- Todd Haberkorn's voice for Android 19 in the game is different from his performance in Dragon Ball Z Kai.
- Despite reprising Dodoria and Farmer with Shotgun, John Swasey does not reprise his role as ZTV Cell Games reporter, with Kyle Phillips filling in for Swasey.
- Kristen McGuire voices Goku as a baby, marking the first time a Gohan voice actor doesn't voice Goku as a baby/child in the Funimation dub.
- Brittany Lauda takes over the role as Kid Chi-Chi, following Laura Bailey's retirement from the franchise.
- Oddly, while Gohan's quotes and voice change as the story progresses in the Community board, Dende's voice doesn't change even though his adult voice actor is present in the game.
- In this game, Raditz dies normally by succumbing to the wound inflicted by Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon rather than Piccolo finishing him off.
- Originally, Recoome incorrectly said Jeice's name instead of his own when the Ginyu Force appear and pose to Frieza on Namek (though the subtitles render this line as "Guys!"). This has been fixed in later versions of the game.
- The game's "Z-Encyclopedia" reference material introduces the idea that Piccolo's apparent destruction of Earth's Moon, as seen in "Gohan Goes Bananas!", was no more than an illusion.