DRAGON BALL: THE BREAKERS

Review

Following the bloody trails of Friday the 13^th, Predator: Hunting Grounds and Dead by Daylight, Dragon Ball: The Breakers sees a team of seven survivors trying to escape from one deadly enemy in a fully online asymmetrical game. Before jumping into the prologue, we must create our own character through a wonderful editor that resembles the one present in the Xenoverse series (but more limited). Once created, our character awakes in an unknown territory and finds out he/she is being chased by an enemy that should be already dead: Cell. Just when we are about to get obliterated, Future Trunks comes to our rescue and explains that time fractures have appeared everywhere, causing these once defeated enemies to return and threaten our world, so we need to help Trunks to fix the time break and save all the other survivors. Unfortunately, the plot ends here and there are no other signs of it continuing throughout the gameplay. The prologue also includes the game’s tutorial, which surprisingly lacks the most important mechanics for our survival, such as the use of items, abilities or signs to communicate with the rest of the team. It simply describes which one is the objective of the game (escape with the super time machine) and how to reach it (finding and activating some keys through the map). Neither does it explain how to play as a raider, so the first time playing as Cell or any other antagonist will probably be confusing.

Going more into detail, the survivors’ objective is to find keys throughout the map and activate them on specific positions within the time limit, while trying to avoid the enemy. There are other actions they can take, such as opening crates to find useful gadgets, use the radar to find the Dragon spheres or save civilians to receive healing senzu beans. Survivors are really vulnerable to the raider’s attacks, but after collecting enough power cubes they can transform for a few seconds into legendary Dragon Ball warriors, such as Goku, Piccolo or Vegeta, and fight against the raider. Winning is unlikely, though, and I never saw that happening during my matches, but fighting should grant the other survivors enough time to find the keys, activate and defend the time machine during the ignition phase. If they fail at defending it, those who are left can still escape by using their individual pods, unless they have already been destroyed. Playing as a raider, when possible (it’s completely random based on players’ preferences), is way more fun. We start as one of the historical antagonist of the series, Frieza, Cell or Majin Bu (and Spopovich), on their basic form. After completing different tasks and killing survivors we become stronger and evolve to the perfect form. Contrary to other Dragon Ball games, fighting isn’t exciting. It’s rough, confusing, with janky hitboxes, bad camera angles and no option to block attacks, which gives major advantages to the raider.

I must say that I first thought the game was also being released on mobile (but it isn’t at the moment) ‘cause graphically it looks quite dated. Character design and animations are ok, but despite the fascinating environments we have seen many times in the series, maps are pretty much empty, with flat textures and lack of detail in the landscapes and buildings. Graphics are not everything, though, and the game’s price is low enough, but it should be noted that the gameplay features an aggressive monetization scheme typical of free-to-play games. Through the main hub we can access a variety of shops where we can purchase new skins, items and abilities, but many of them require us to spend real money. For example, to obtain new Dragon Ball legendary characters’ summons (used to fight the raider), there is a gacha system based on tickets, which inevitably creates a “pay-to-win” situation where those who pay more likely have an advantage before the others, who must grind a lot instead. The matchmaking also needs to be immediately fixed, as I was often getting paired with lv.40+ players, leading me to quick deaths.

Despite its flaws, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a refreshing game in a franchise that has  always been tied to fighting and action RPG mechanics. The gameplay loop is certainly intriguing and there is much potential to grow, but it definitely needs major adjustments and a complete revision of the monetization scheme. Unless you blindly love the Dragon Ball universe, there are not enough reasons to prefer The Breakers to other multiplayer asymmetrical alternatives.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

DRAGON BALL: THE BREAKERS Steam Store Page