Dragon Ball: The Breakers
Not quite having the ball you’d hope for
INFO FORMAT PS4 PUB Bandai Namco Entertainment DEV Dimps YEAR 2022
There have been many times while playing The Breakers when I’ve bristled against the structure of this asymmetrical battle royale-like with its gachaloot and battle pass tiers aplenty. But it still has a certain charm.
It’s just such a perfectly off-kilter premise for a Dragon Ball game. What if, instead of playing as superpowered fighters, you were the innocent civilians in peril, running away from the city-wide destruction? Throw in a time-loop plot and you have an excuse for a ‘greatest hits’ series of villains to blast their way through mashups of somewhat recognisable locations (at the very least, the maps ooze manga creator Akira Toriyama’s distinctive design sensibilities). In practice, though, you often wait several minutes to jump into a game with similar-looking team-members, only to get demolished by the person playing, say, Frieza in a few moments. Your underpowered team of seven ordinary Joes (or Joans) need to work together to foil the villain, hiding as necessary while you scrounge the keys you need to activate the time machine.
But incur the wrath of the Big Bad and they can take you all out quickly if you don’t ‘summon’ a hero in time to keep them distracted.
You should be able to get some decent heroes for free, but that’s where a gacha-loot system comes in, which
Your underpowered team of seven need to work together to foil the villain.
combines with a battle pass for unlocking rewards. And, of course, plenty of currency you can buy for real-world money. To add insult to the death ray-injury, The Breakers isn’t even free-to-play, costing £15.99 from the outset. Despite the charm, it’s a hard one to justify sticking with.