Dragon Ball: The Breakers Reviews
Dragon Ball: The Breakers' poor camera and controls limit what enjoyment can be had in this interesting take on asymmetrical multiplayer that is already hindered by other design choices.
End of the day, coming into Dragon Ball: The Breakers expecting the stress of Dead By Daylight is going to be disappointing. You can fight back, as running is only part of the strategy. While it has the bad guys from Dragon Ball Z, there isn’t a huge amount that makes this feel like a Dragon Ball game outside of the title. The lack of customisation is disappointing, especially for the raiders, and not being able to queue solely to play as a raider made it take incredibly long to finally get in a game as one, let alone getting to play a few to fully get the feel for it.
DRAGON BALL: THE BREAKERS incorporates a niche but successful formula into a similarly successful franchise, which should be a match made in heaven. However, due to graphical and technical issues paired with the unbalanced gameplay and unclear progression and menus, it results in a bit of a mess of a game. It was worth a shot, but I feel as though Dragon Ball should stick to what it knows best.
It's not great, and there are better games of this ilk for players to try out, but if you're enough of a fan of Dragon Ball, you might find just enough to enjoy here that makes it worth the cost of admission.
For $19.99, Dragon Ball the Breakers is a game that a variety of gamers can enjoy; when it comes to playing on the Xbox Series X, the game feels like a 50-50 coin toss if you will find a match in a reasonable amount of time. Adding cross-play or a different matchmaking system could help. As for characters, the Gacha system and the lack of a tutorial inhibit the overall gameplay experience at first but with enough hours can be overlooked.
Dragonball: The Breakers is fun to play in short bursts, but might be somewhat lacking for players looking for a tense experience like Dead By Daylight. Hardcore fans of the franchise may have some fun trying to evade iconic villains like Frieza or obliterate entire sections of the map as Majin Buu, but anyone else should probably look elsewhere for a genuinely chilling asymmetrical survival title.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers needs to work on its online infrastructure, but beyond that it's a fast, exciting romp best played with a party full of well-known friends, as opposed to silent strangers.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a brave experiment, for sure, but at the same time it's disappointing and doesn't have enough content to entertain for a long time.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a genius idea on paper and can be fun at times, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is broken. In their efforts to slap a Dragon Ball coat of paint onto the world of asymmetrical horror-multiplayer action, Bandai Namco has failed to put any care or consideration into the gameplay mechanics that make games like these so fun and enjoyable. Mixed with matchmaking issues and egregious paid gacha mechanics, this is a poor attempt at live-service multiplayer hidden behind the veil of 90s anime nostalgia.
On the surface, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a homely spinoff with confusing controls and an apparent lack of budget. However, the more I play, the more I adore its fascinating ideas and glowing peculiarities. In spite of its notable shortcomings, this asymmetrical multiplayer title commits to outlandish gameplay mechanics and delivers a charming, absorbing Dragon Ball experience unlike any other.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers brings an incredibly unique spin on asymmetrical multiplayer, and while the foundations are strong, it still needs a bit of work to truly be something special.
All the same, despite iffy monetization choices and the general feeling that the game might not last long enough to become a permanent part of your rotation, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a frantic and fast-paced interpretation of a genre otherwise saturated in horror movie tropes.
Despite efforts to include a vast collection of Dragon Ball characters and references in The Breakers, going as far as to provide a somewhat logical explanation of why it is possible for dead villains and normal civilians being able to transform into your favorite heroes, the game is ultimately let down by its poor mechanics and systems. Instead of giving players a chance to sink their teeth into a new way to enjoy the storied franchise, Dragon Ball: The Breakers will only be consigned to the place of a bad memory, much like a poor filler episode of an anime.
Although Dragon Ball: The Breakers is actually a good idea, it is an experience that I can only recommend to anime fans due to its flaws in the implementation part, the gacha system and the luck-based gameplay that gets boring after a while with bad teammates.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
DRAGON BALL: The Breakers is a good idea held back by Pay-to-Win practices and outdated design decisions. While the game could have a bright future ahead of it, it has a long way to go before it can be considered a truly great title, and really ought to sort out it's current issues before the developers look ahead to Seasons 2 and beyond. The fundamentals are there, and the gameplay is solid; if these can be polished and modernised, then Breakers would easily go from a niche oddity to a raging blast.
If you're a fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, it's obvious that you'll be interested in trying it, but as a game, I would frankly recommend trying something else within the same genre. If Bandai Namco doesn't want to see The Breakers fail, it should definitely get down to business with updates and content, as it has a lot of room for improvement.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Dragon Ball: The Breakers brings an intriguing new way to leverage the Dragon Ball's universe, but it unluckily lacks in execution with a bad technical production, balancement issues and a monetization scheme more suited to a mobile free-to-play game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
In theory, using the Dragon Ball universe as a setting for an asymmetric multiplayer game is an innovative idea, but The Breakers executes poorly on this idea, with a tedious gameplay loop and technical issues.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a big dissapointment for me. It was difficult to go back and play it regularly for the purpose of the review. Nevertheless, I think some fans of the franchise will appreciate the new concept that it brings. Just don't expect something as exceptionnal as the last Kakarot game or FighterZ.
Review in French | Read full review