Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a wish come true for Dragon Ball fans. Despite some minor pacing issues and long load times, Xenoverse 2 is a content-packed, well-made anime fighter.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Developer: Bandai Namco
Price: $79.99
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PS4 code for review.
At this point it’s likely clear that I’m an enormous fan of Dragon Ball. I was very fond of Dragon Ball Xenoverse, despite its issues, so I went into Xenoverse 2 with cautious excitement. What I received was a sequel that added a great deal of content and interesting new story concepts, while fixing most of the issues the first game had.
The story of Xenoverse 2 is, structurally, fairly similar to that of the first game, with more detailed events. Basically, you play as a “Time Patroller”, a fighter whose job is to travel through time with Trunks and the Supreme Kai of Time in order to correct events from the series that have been altered for the worst. For example, a mysterious power has made it so Goku and Piccolo are both killed by Raditz in their first battle. As your customized personal character, you’ll go back in time to help Goku and Piccolo defeat this enhanced Raditz in order to restore time to what it once was.
This concept is fantastic by itself, but Xenoverse 2 adds onto it in a very intelligent manner. Due to the dubious canonicity of the Dragon Ball movies, the memorable villains seen in these movies are often overlooked in terms of plot in other Dragon Ball games. Xenoverse 2 takes advantage of its time/dimension-travelling concept in order to use these movie characters to their maximum potential. Villains like Turles, Lord Slug, Cooler, and Janemba have been brought into the canon dimension in order to destroy history. Integrating these characters into canon without changing them to suit the canon universe is genius, as it lets players finally see the interactions between movie villains.
Outside of the movie content, the story is fairly similar to the original Xenoverse‘s, but with more detailed plotlines. The addition of characters like Zarbon and Dodoria allows for a more thorough look at plotlines and classic sagas, lengthening the story in a way that feels legitimate and earned. Unfortunately, the game tends to have noticeably long load times throughout its entirety, which hurts the pacing of each play-session.
The gameplay of Xenoverse 2 is, again, very similar to the first game in terms of structure. Battles are flashy and action-packed, with players throwing flying punches, kicks, and energy beams at one another in an intensely colorful symphony of anime-centric violence. There are a ton of diverse playable characters from all eras of Dragon Ball, alongside your personal avatar, which provides a grand sense of variety to the roster. The addition of Dragon Ball Super charactersis especially neat, as the series is recent, and still-running. The various costumes and movesets that each character has adds even more to the already robust roster, making Xenoverse 2 a great example of how a roster can be both large and diverse in an anime game.
Wandering around Xenoverse 2‘s hub outside of battle is vastly improved when compared to the original Xenoverse. Instead of slowly running around a large town, you can use hover-board like vehicles, and eventually flight, to move between areas quickly. This is necessary, since the new hub is a whopping seven times larger than that of the first Xenoverse, which is an accomplishment in-and-of itself. The only problems with this is that you get the ability to fly around the hub far later than you should, and the vehicles you use aren’t much faster than running, making the first part of the game something of a slog in-terms of travelling.
The amount of mentors in-game has vastly improved as well, with characters like Raditz and numerous versions of Gohan all serving as “teachers”, who give your character access to a plethora of iconic moves from the entire Dragon Ball series. The quests to obtain these moves, and the majority of the game’s quests for that matter, are easy when compared to the bumpier difficulty of the main plot, which makes completing Xenoverse 2 far more enjoyable.
Xenoverse 2‘s visuals are exquisite, if not par-for-the-course for recent Dragon Ball games. Cel-shading is used to give the world and its characters an animated appearance, complimented by Akira Toriyama’s iconic art-style. Battle damage is a nice touch, as it echoes the series’s sense of violence and danger that encompasses each major battle. The frame-rate never stutters, keeping the action fast and fun. The numerous new arenas look great, and, as with the rest of Xenoverse 2‘s visuals, interpret the feeling and atmosphere of their source material perfectly.
Xenovere 2‘s sound is divisive. The classic sound-effects return, which is an absolute necessity for any and all Dragon Ball games. The memorable screech and whistle of a Kamehameha, or the sharp “whoosh” of teleportation are mainstays for a reason, which Xenoverse 2 understands, and respects. The music, on the other hand, is unmemorable at best. Fairly generic guitar riffs are abundant throughout the game, which makes for a solid atmosphere for fighting, but never expands into memorable territory.
The Final Word
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is yet another exceptional Dragon Ball game. The story, roster, and gameplay are all exemplary, and the new and improved content in the game is absolutely fantastic. Though the game suffers from some pacing and loading issues,with remarkably average music, Xenoverse 2 is still an amazing Dragon Ball game that will make any fan ecstatic.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
