TwiceBittenBacklog Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Review

“Where are they sticking those fishing tails?” Dragonball Z Kakarot makes good on a promise originally made by Dragonball Budokai for the PS2. To create a faithful and complete video game adaptation of the entire Dragonball Z saga. Since the Budokai sequels made the economical decision to cut down on narrative, and eschew cutscenes in lieu of text box summaries, many have been waiting over two decades for a game like Kakarot to pick up the mantle. But this wish came with a Monkey Paw-esque caveat. By taking an easily digestible but lengthy 300+ chapter manga that is (while not entirely absent of world building and character development) single-mindedly focused on fights, and faithfully adapting it into a long form adventure game, CyberConnect2 has created a product that succeeds in it’s goals yet bends under it’s own weight. The meat of Kakarot involves going through each of the Dragonball Z sagas (Sayian, Frieza, Androids / Cell, and Buu) and participating in every fight and plot point covered in the original material. Kakarot discards a more hardline fighting game approach in favor of a more casual beat-em up style with super-moves being activated with a single button press rather than a combo of inputs. RPG elements such as leveling up and using resources in order to unlock sills attempt to add depth, but I never found myself lacking in resources to the point where I had to make decisions based around a specific build. This means the majority of your time will be spent in the creatively limited and repetitive combat for dozens upon dozens of hours. Outside of main plot fights, Kakarot offers two side activities. Side quests, and mini-games. Side quests involve either fighting one of a small subsection of enemy types, or flying around the open world collecting items whose locations are typically marked on your map. It’s true that you can be reductive with all adventure games and conclude that their side quests involve either fighting dudes, or fetching a thing. But a good game makes up for this limitation by creating an interesting narrative or context around the objective. However, in the Dragonball world the most that can be mustered is either an exhale worthy joke, or a charming nod at nostalgia. Both if you’re lucky. As for the mini-games, they lack substance. A fishing game that requires but a couple inputs. An underbaked driving game that awards you resources. Shooting ki blasts at dinosaurs or punching deer for resources. A baseball timing game where you can obtain resources. Shooting ki blasts at enemy structures for resources. Collecting the titular Dragonballs which involves flying to marked locations on the map. Once collected you can use these to unlock new fights or… collect resources. All these activities are a charming nostalgic reference to the source material but are pure tedium in their execution. To shift gears, a pure highlight is the game’s ability to capture the feeling of Dragonball Z, it’s world and it’s most memorable moments. Every location feels lovingly recreated from the manga / anime and creates a vortex of nostalgia that is inescapable for fans. Outside of the more typical “characters talk to each other while looping a stock animation and mouth movement” sections, high quality cutscenes show off highlights from the anime with style and quality that can pierce through a jaded heart. Truly the issue is that this aesthetic level nostalgic charm can’t last for the entire playthrough that Kakarot asks of you. 30 hours in and you’ll become desensitized to the charm of it’s faithfully rendered world and the creeping thoughts set in. “How many more robots will I fight? Are these side quests worth the extra time investment if I’m not having fun? Am I harming my own experience by engaging with the DLC, thus further diluting the nostalgia that brought me to this game in the first place?” The DLC itself is a mixed bag on two axes. First, is the aforementioned nostalgia. How familiar you are with the DLC’s content will play a large part in your enjoyment. Secondly, is the content itself. Take The story of Future Trunks vs the Resurrection F DLCs. Even setting nostalgia aside, Future Trunks contained a narrative that moved forward, had consequences, character arcs and drama at a human level. Combine this with an appended alternate Buu saga for Future Trunks’ world, and I can easily say I got my moneys worth. Conversely, Ressurection F has the player repeating the same two fights at varying difficulties before facing Frieza in an explosive finale. Nothing in the way of character work, just dudes getting stronger by fighting and then fighting some more. This is the most conflicted I have been in reviewing a game. What can you say about a game that set out to accomplish it’s goal, a goal demanded by fans for years, succeeded in that goal, but still resulted in a flawed product. I think CyberConnect2 made the best game possible in terms of adapting a manga, it’s that the source material did not have enough on offer to justify such a faithful adaptation. Truly, CC2 were stuck between a rock and a spirit bomb. A perplexing 6 out of 10. +2 if you’re a bigger Dragonball fan than me / -2 if you’re less of a Dragonball fan than me.