Earlier this week I had a chance to play a preview demo of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. I am quite fond of the first Xenoverse. I particularly liked the graphic style and the button mashing frenzy I’m able to go into when playing it. DBX2 isn’t too different from the original, which isn’t a bad thing.
I managed to play with seven of the characters including my favourite, Trunks. The combat feels a lot more refined, especially when chaining together combos. In the first Xenoverse, I found that sometimes my button mashing wouldn’t translate and I would open myself up to my opponent, who would exploit that and beat the crap out of me. In X2, I was wildly mashing away, timing my combo moves and it felt much more fluid and purposeful. The environments are still interactive, in the sense that when you get hurled into the ground, a massive chunk gets taken out, just like in the show. It’s really rewarding when you throw a character into the ground and a bunch of rubble explodes all over the place.
After about an hour and a half of playing with the roster of characters and levels, I realised that this is the best representation of Dragon Ball in a video game. The sounds, graphics, characters and combat work perfectly together. I have played some other DB/DBZ games and while The Legacy of Goku will always be my favourite, the Xenoverse series is without a doubt the true to the anime. The original Xenoverse stepped things up with the ability to make your own character, which is a feature that is being improved upon in Xenoverse 2. It’s been confirmed that players will have more choices for custom characters, including race specific choices which will alter where your character can go. Namekians can access certain parts of Namek that other players can’t for example.
In the short time I spent with Xenoverse 2, I could sense the refinements that have been made. Little things like the janky camera from the original, which would cause minor annoyances if you were in weird positions, seem to have been fixed. The controls are tighter than ever and that’s a great thing, especially for people like me who aren’t great at fighting games. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the full game, experiencing the story, the grind of training up my unique character and all the rage-inducing defeats that drive me to keep coming back for more.
Since playing Xenoverse 2, there have been numerous confirmed new features. The new hub city will be seven times larger than the previous one and will support up to 300 players at a time, all of which can fly. Players will also be able to fly around on a hover machine for the first time. Not to mention the improved frame rate and camera. Xenoverse 2 will run at 60fps and the camera is now a “dynamic camera” according to Bandai Namco. The dynamic camera is able to track movement better during fights. A new character, Majin Vegeta has also been confirmed along with the ‘Expert Mission multiplayer mode’ which pits six players against giant NPC bosses, which is easily the feature I’m looking forward to the most.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is out on the 28th of October for PC, Xbox One and PS4.
