DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a role-playing game in the anime style based on the Dragon Ball Z series. If you’ve played the first part of Dragon Ball Xenoverse that was launched in 2015, then you should already know that Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 differs from other anime games by its unique and ambitious concept. You might be already familiar even with the gameplay.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is similar to the first part of the game and follows the same storyline as before. So basically it’s a massive update that all fans of the Dragon Ball franchise were waiting for and it’s as entertaining as ever.

Graphics 5/5

Graphically Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is striking, and the visuals look excellent. Also, attention to the details is impressive. The game characters have an incredible resemblance to their originals from TV series. All the actions run smoothly, and each fight looks fast and dynamic.

However, the camera can be tough to control it sometimes, especially when you’re trying to keep it up with the actions. This can be a reason of missing attacks at the worst possible moments.

Gameplay 4.5/5

Before you start the game, you need to pick a fighter and personalize him as you want. You can determine the gender of your hero, choose a race from five available (Human, Saiyan, Namekian, Frieza’s race and Majin), set his voice, facial features and other details of appearance. So you can easily create your own unique hero or copy a favorite character as well as mix and match styles.

When your Dragon Ball hero is ready, you join the Time Patrol - a team of heroes who protects Conton City and the Dragon Ball Z timeline. After that, you get into a special hub where you can learn new blows, switch the characteristics of your hero, chat with other players, find tasks or purchase some additional accessories and all sorts of useful things from the stores located here. Then you start performing your primary tasks according to the gameplay as well as some additional quests.

All battles are shown in the three-dimensional world, so most of the fightings take place in the air. Heroes are so powerful that they toss each other through canyons, beat faces with massive fists, instilled enemies on the ground, throw them almost beyond the atmosphere and so on. All their actions look incredible on the screen and therefore, the game is unimaginably fun to play. During your battles, you should monitor such important scales as health, energy and endurance. Otherwise, you’ll die, lose your balance or won’t be able to make a strong attack at all.

Also, as you progress through the game, new characters, costumes for your hero, abilities and game modes, as well as other useful features, appear.

Controls 4/5

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has a solid fighting engine and responsive controls. The default button layout gives you easy access to all regular and super attacks, as well as other important maneuvers for guarding and dodging. Combos are simple to execute, but using the right ones is tricky to master. Anyways, the game does a remarkable job in making the action accessible and usually requires not more than a few button presses.

You can also customize your warrior with special gear, helpful items and combat skills that he learns from the quests or personal training. There are enough interesting tools and special abilities innate to each race to support almost any playstyle. You can grow a fighter that both looks and fights the way you like and the way it feels fun and rewarding for you to play.

Replay Value 3.5/5

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has various exciting missions that will add some diversity to the gameplay such as finding the Dragon Balls or keeping them away from pursuing enemies. There are also some fun to play quests which you can play with other warriors, but not all of them can be tackled this way; some of these quests are for a single-player mode only.

Combats look like in the show and aren’t similar to any regular fighting game. However, you still might feel the lack of depth in combats. Thus things can get a little bit repetitive for you.

In-app purchases

This game is super pricey because it costs about $50. This price might be fine for the fans of the Dragon Ball Z series, but as for a role-playing game in the anime style it is still too high. This game also has a few additional packs for purchase.

Conclusion

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has a solid gameplay and in overall looks stunning and gives the Dragon Ball fans a chance to feel themselves as a part of the anime universe. It has minimal differences from the first part of the game and completes the same storyline. You will join the Time Patrol, help the heroes of the manga to win the most epic battles and participate in a huge number of missions that are connected to each other.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is easy to pick up and understand, has a good storyline as well as plenty of entertaining content so that everybody should try it out and somebody might even like it.

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 4.5
• Controls 4
• Replay Value 3.5

Pros

stunning visuals;
smooth animation;
lots of content for single- and multiplayer modes;
characters resemble originals from the Dragon Ball Z series;

Cons

combat gets repetitive;
all missions look similar;
terrible voiceovers;