I was really conflicted on this game. I wanted to call this a good game and while I can kind of say it is, there is a lot of flaws that hold it back from being a solid reccomendation. I do like that a single player Dragon Ball game was even made at all considering how most if not all of DB's console video game outings have been multiplayer focused to some capacity, if you wanted a pure single player game based on the franchise, you had to look in the portable scene. While I do like the game in concept, the execution could've been much better. I still think the game is worth checking out at sale price at least for both fans and dare I even say people who are new to the franchise. The latter is even crazy for me to say since most anime licensed games don't really accomplish this even the stuff made by CyberConnect2 themselves. Naruto Storm games glossed over Part 1 of the story and Storm 3 ends on a non canon cliffhanger, Demon Slayer goes up to a certain part of the story, and Jojo Eyes of Heaven tells an original story. DBZ Kakarot a mostly faithful rendition of DBZ's story that covers all the way up from Raditz to Buu.
I'll start with the good. This has to be the most faithful rendition of the DB universe in video game form of all time. In both story and even overworld design. The story isn't a cliffnotes version retelling of the series like so many of the fighting games are, the cutscenes, dialogue, voice acting(especially in English if you are familar with DBZ Kai) and even how it keeps you up to speed on the original DB series before Z with it's various lore information scattered throughout the world makes this in some ways one of the best ways to experience the story of the franchise. If you don't want to watch 291 episodes of the original series, 167 episodes of Kai or read the manga, this might be a decent way for you to consume the story if you think over 100 episodes of both anime are too much and you don't like reading. It's 90% faithful to the story of DBZ just like how many of CyberConnect2's anime licensed games are. There are however some new scenes added, and scenes that were reworked or removed entirely. It's why I say 90% faithful and not completely. There is going to be stuff lost in translation like with adaptations with almost anything, it's just inevitable when adapting anything. I say this if you are new to the series and play this game, beat the game and depending on how much you like the story watch Kai or read the manga to fill in the blanks that the game misses from time to time. If you haven't watch the experienced the story in over 10 or 20 years, this is also not a bad way to experience the story again. I still say if you like what you saw in the story of the game, check out Kai or the manga since I would be here all day if I went over every single difference.
The game also does a good job at creating that TV anime feel with chapters being seperated into episodes and even having the anime thing that they in some episodes where show the credits as the scenes of the show are playing out like this game does at the end of every saga.
Another positive is that the overworld is really faithful to the series and being able to fly, run around, swim, and jump around is quite the exhilarating feeling at first since in previous DB console games, you could never explore the series' fantasy world to this much of a degree. It was quite the fun and intersting novelty...at first.
I have also seen many bash this game's side quests and while they aren't good or fleshed out as they could be, they did do a decent enough job at breaking of the monotony of the story quests, since playing a game where you have access to flight, super speed, and even super leaping all at once as a humanoid character is once again quite novelty since not a lot of games I played even have this. I do wish I had a quick descend option like in the Tenkaichi games and even characters in the show can do it which makes it strange why you can't do in this game. Not being able to quickly ascend when you are underwater is questionable omission since it makes underwater exploration a chore and you could run out of breath as you slowly ascend.
Now on to the bad. The game's combat is very monotonous and one note, at first I liked the fact that you can easily evade by pressing x and the game does kind encourage blocking consider you have to use it to reduce damage and avoid getting staggered. Outside of Raditz, Dr. Gero, and the first Kid Buu fights, and some characters like Nappa having area of effect attacks that you have to rapidly press x to avoid and characters like Frieza, Cell and Kid Buu have ultimate attacks where you have to attack and destroy the health bar of in order to avoid losing lots of health.
Outside of these aspects, so many of the fights you partake in, is just same one note dummed down version of the Tenkaichi 2 and 3 combat system. Many of the battles is just, punch, punch, energy attack, dodge, get hit, use healing item, rinse repeat. So much of the main story fights are basically this.
I'll give Raditz, Dr. Gero and the first Kid Buu fights for being occasional shakeups to this. Raditz having his "Double Sunday" attacks being somewhat harder to dodge than your usual attacks, Dr. Gero's energy draining attacks adding some decent challenge since you got to watch out for when he grabs you and you can't spam ki attacks since he can absorb them and get health back, and Kid Buu being super aggressive and spamming energy attacks and summoning his clones that you have to take out since they have your entire flank covered.
Outside of these fights however, the game never really grows beyond on what I mentioned before. The game has a ton of moves and mechanics you will never really need to engage with all that much. Transformations are an okay shake up but not enough for the 20 to 40 hour game that Kakarot is since transformations are nothing more than temporary damage buffs.
You do have side quests, an upgrade tree and the training grounds to break up story missions but those get tiresome due to the fact that that the side quests amount to being fetch quests or fighting the same Saibamen, robots and Frieza Force soliders over and over again with barely any new enemy types or tactics. You got them and some healing robots and that's it. By the time the Buu Saga happened, there were so many side quests being thrown at me to the point where I got sick of it and I just beelined it to the next main story beat. The side quests were reasonably spaced out but the time I reach the Buu Saga, there was so much of them that I just wanted to wrap up the game by that point.
The upgrade tree while I get being there makes me question if it was a good idea long term. So many of the upgrades are locked behind long level ups, and beating the main story. I always had enough Z orbs to buy them and with how DBZ as a story is structured and how you play as multiple characters, the upgrade tree is something you want to avoid getting too invested in since if you like playing as Piccolo or Gohan, and if you know the story, uprading and levelling them both up is meaningless since both those characters don't get any major fights towards the end of the game even if you get involved with the other side activities, only one character gets the level ups and it's better off not being Piccolo or Gohan.
Training ground fights you might need to do for a few times but that too becomes a useless endeavour since you need to unlock maybe a couple of the high damage special attacks and the rest is just stuff you want to do in order to 100% complete the game. Same goes for stuff like racing and doing all the side quests
At this point, the only thing keeping me going was me being a Dragon Ball fan and seeing CC2's visuals and them doing mostly a good job at being faithful to the story of DBZ, at the same time this is where what I said early on how newcomers to DBZ and people who haven't experienced the story in 10 or 20 years could like this game in that the story would be a bigger selling point to get past the tiresome gameplay since you are getting lengthy cutscenes and a solid job at recreating the story of the anime and manga. You might have to put down the controller from during it's long cutscenes just to be warned.
Overall, while I do generally get enjoyment out of DBZ Kakarot, the execution of the kind of game it is trying to be could be a lot better carried mainly mostly by the various novelties it brings. Check it out at sale price if you can and you might get some enjoyment out of it.
The 23rd World Tournament DLC Review:
I will admit, as a DLC part of the Season Pass, this probably would've been a solid deal but I bought it seperately due to my curosity of a Dragon Ball game covering the 23rd Martial Arts tournament since whenever a DB game would even cover anything before the Saiyan Saga, this arc would get skipped over. Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure did it and so did DBZ Tenkaichi 3.
As a seperate download purchase, the DLC is rather underwhelming. Not bad, just underwhelming. The DLC does cover this part of the story decently enough and recreates most of the scenes well as expected from CyberConnect2.
I also like that DLC in someways can be more challenging than the base game of Kakarot since you don't have any overpowered moves to spam, no transformations, and you can't hold up to over 9000 recovery items so now you have to engage with the bosses and patterns and have a higher chance of possibly getting a game over, I only got one on the opening fight against King Piccolo due to the above mentioned reasons and that I forgot the controls. There were plenty of moments where my health bar was close to reaching zero.
That and I also like that the DLC added a flashback section between Tien and Tao since the anime never showed them interacting with each other before they fought at the 23rd World Tournament.
The final 3 part battle with Piccolo Jr is pretty well done too and it felt like grand epic final boss to close the DLC on. There is enough challenge and specticle here to make this a decently memorable final boss and due to the above mentioned positives I mentioned Piccolo Jr as a boss tends to shine a lot more. It's up there with some of the better battles like Raditz, Dr. Gero and Kid Buu from the base game.
What I didn't like with how few the fights were considering that this a tournament arc and that the DLC skips over at least 40% percent of it felt rather questionable to me. The DLC is already nearly $20 without the season pass and a good amount of the content in this arc are the tournament bouts so this feels like a somewhat of a cliffnotes version of the story rather than a full on adaptation.
If I got this apart of the season pass, it'd be solid and decent, but since my curosity got the better of me, I paid for the full asking price so I suppose it's my fault despite this DLC being an interesting novelty in terms of DB game content.
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