Xenoverse: Final Mix
Did you watch Dragon Ball Super after Battle of Gods and Revival of Frieza? Did you feel like you were watching the same thing despite the new scenes? That it was fine and all, but you’ve been there, done that? That’s what playing Xenoverse 2 at the Tokyo Game Show felt like.
I hadn’t been following Dragonball Xenoverse 2 at all really before going to TGS and playing it for the first time this week. I came away feeling like I had just played the first game again and wasn’t at all impressed. It wasn’t until after that and just before writing this article that I read up on the news thus far. Chris Carter has expressed concern over it looking the same as its predecessor. Unfortunately, I have to say, his fears are well-founded.
The demo available at TGS was only battle mode vs. either the computer or another local player. Local competitive play and being able to play as your own custom time travelers is the only real positive thing I can say about it. Then again, is it really a positive for simply adding something that should have been there to begin with? I’m not going to give your cheeseburger extra points just because you didn’t forget the cheese this time.
I got to go in and play immediately because everyone was in line for other games, so it was already a bad sign that hardly anyone was playing the game. It was so empty they even let me play multiple times. Sadder yet, upon reaching the game station, I noticed there were two controllers and the ability to play versus another player. I went alone and the promotional model declined my offer to a duel. I was KO’d before the match even began.
In her place I took on a less intimidating foe: Janemba, one of the new characters included in Xenoverse 2 which seems to be adding a number of the Dragon Ball movies as scenarios in a desperate attempt for more content, including my boy Lord Slug. It played…fine. Just fine.
It’s exactly how I remember the original Xenoverse playing: you have punches, kicks, ki attacks, supers, blocking, taunt messages, lock-on, and speed boosting. Just like the first game, the levels are enclosed in a relatively small invisible box with very little interactivity with the world. The Namek level has some destructible rocks, the Janemba level has jelly beans that float about upon contact, and the tournament arena has umbrellas behind invisible walls.
The game is meant to run smoother, though the only time I remember experiencing frame drops in the original was in the hub world, which was not in this demo. Nor was any of the story mode which I would’ve liked to have seen.
If the fighting has changed in any way since the first game, I did not see it in around 20 minutes of play. Aside from what I played, the core gameplay appears to be hitting the same beats as the first: join time patrol, traverse a hub with other players, play parts of the Dragon Ball Z sagas again with movies added, train under masters, and unlock new costumes to customize your character with.
Yes, it will have new stuff: other race transformations, a larger hub and the ability to fly in it, teaming up with friends (read: randoms online) to take down giant space gorillas (I will not make a joke about you-know-what), more costumes, and more characters and scenarios, namely the movies. They also seem to be addressing criticisms from the first game, adding the ability to play versus your friends locally using your own custom characters and improving the hub world.
Maybe I haven’t explicitly said it, but I did love playing through first game quite a lot. But I just don’t see the need to play this again. I don’t see why it couldn’t just be an expansion to Xenoverse, especially considering it came out last year. At the very least, I could see it as a redone version with the extra content included like the Kingdom Hearts Final Mix or Final Fantasy International games.
I want to see more. I want a mode in the tournament where you lose upon touching the ground or walls like in the show. But I swear if they don’t get rid of RNG loot, I will turn everyone at Bandai Namco and Dimps into chocolate.
