Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Trunks: Warrior of Hope Review

Out of all the DLC I played for Kakarot which aren't many admittedly, this is the one I say is worth checking out, I might even end out playing Kakarot on this DLC since I am not sure I can take it's gameplay anymore.

What's good about the DLC is that it geniunely improves on the Future Trunks backstory from the anime movie released in the 90s since those portions of the DLC are much longer and has more scenes and better written down time moments than that said 90s movie. My favorite part is when Future Gohan and Trunks are discussing the past events of DBZ in a campfire at night or just any time, the characters are discussing past events, this DBZ fan service at it's finest and it doesn't just end there either, you get to defeat Android 17 and 18 and it feels cathartic finally killing them after fighting them in the DLC as many times as you did. The difficulty spikes are still infuriating but more on that later. You even get an extended epilogue where it covers the backstory in Super where you get a Future Trunks time line version of the Buu Saga and it's decently done here especially considering they could've ended it with the Imperfect Cell defeat but they took the extra step and it was nice. Compared to the 23rd World Tournament DLC, this feels like DLC done right.

Now on to the bad, remember how the most criticized part of Kakarot was the combat? Well, it's much harder here like much harder, I even had to lower the difficulty to easy just to beat this DLC which is something I never did in the base game of Kakarot. The Android 17 and 18 fights are very difficult and you even have to win these fights by depleting their health bars which makes no sense since Future Gohan and Trunks lose to 17 and 18, what is the point of having really challenging fights that you are supposed to win, if you lose in a cutscene, it just makes the victory during gameplay feel hollow.

The fights themselves involve widdling down 17 and 18's individual health bars while both are attacking you, sounds simple enough but then you have to deal with the fact that they have individually, they have lots of HP, both have powerful attacks, both have desperation attacks that can destroy your health in half and all your flanks are covered when fighting them so you could punch 17 or 18 and either one of them can hit you from various blind spots. You fight them at least 3-4 times and all the fights can be pretty lengthy due to how much HP they have.

The bosses in general are much harder here than in the base game, characters like Android 17, 18, Imperfect Cell and Dabura will do their rage/desperation attacks much more often than any boss in the base game, you will pummel them and then there is a decent stretch of time where you must dodge their attacks and avoid getting hit, my thumb was hurting on the 17 and 18 fights.

Then there are just issues I have with Kakarot's combat in general where Ki attacks and transformations don't do much to widdle health bars down and you are better off just mashing the attack button until they are down and firing them occasionally or how many attacks and boss patterns all revolve around the same thing, punch, punch, use ki attack, enemy does powerful attack where they flash red, punch, punch, then they do rage/desperation attack, rinse repeat, I never minded this that much in the base game but playing it now, I can see more issues with it that I didn't see before.

Overall, this DLC is worth checking out if for the Future Trunks backstory portions and the value you get, but I am reminded that Kakarot's combat and that it's harder just showcases that it was never that great. This will most likely be the last DLC of this game I'll play since the rest don't sound that interesting.