DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT
Shenron or monkey’s paw, be careful what you wish for
There may have been many Dragon Ball Z games over the years, but they’ve always been fundamentally fighting games. It makes sense, given the series is mostly about big anime lads fighting each other. An action RPG covering the longrunning anime up to the Buu saga, then, must read like a dream come true for long-time fans. Dragon Quest but Dragon Ball, if you will.
However the ambition is woefully unfulfilled, most of the open-world RPG elements seemingly just there for the sake of it. From skill trees to stat-raising community boards, there’s no real depth as you’re never encouraged to engage with any of it. When even the legendary Dragon Balls are reduced to an uninspired fetch quest, you know something’s wrong.
That’s because the combat these serve is so simplistic. It’s similar to the Xenoverse games as you fly around arenas beating the stuffing out of each other by mashing out fists or projectiles. You occasionally need to read your opponent to get the drop on them, but even with a strategy of spamming special attacks, recharging your Ki, then repeating, it’s rare to get below an A rank.
CELL DAMAGE
Even when you’re sending foes across the screen, it lacks impact. A few thousand HP is rendered meaningless when bosses are built like super-soaked sponges. For defeated opponents, it all too often follows a cutscene to show that actually, you lost. Conversely, the cutscenes are also where the big pay-offs happen, rendering your actual efforts obsolete.
The visuals do at least look the part. Kakarot is beautifully faithful to its hand-drawn roots, not only recreating many of the show’s iconic beats but also keeping up with each character’s changes in costume and appearances. The pacing is, however, all over the place: some moments are relegated to a text box summary while others force you to speak to multiple characters with nothing of note to say before the plot can continue.
There are quieter moments to enjoy outside the loud main events, such as a minigame taken from the show’s hilarious driving school episode. But when just getting through the mandatory dialogue can net you more XP than a dozen side-quests or random battles, there’s little reason to pursue the optional stuff when it’s the very uninspired staple found in other open world games.
DBZ fans will nonetheless find Kakarot a great abridged alternative to reliving the complete saga. But you have to wonder if CyberConnect2 wouldn’t have saved time and effort going with a more linear genre than a bloated, halfhearted RPG. Whatever your thoughts on the DBZ warriors’ most antagonistic member, Vegeta, when he wraps up one fetch quest calling it an “utter waste of my time”, you can’t help but agree.
VERDICT
With unimpactful combat, Kakarot isn’t the Dragon Ball action RPG fans have been waiting for but still offers a faithful recreation of the most beloved anime series. Alan Wen