Video games based on Dragon ball Franchise often has a very specific focus. While there are occasional RPGs like Kakarot or Goku’s Legacy thrown into the mix, most have a solid focus on fighting your way through the story of the series. However, Dragon Ball: The Breakers have the courage to do something completely different. It doesn’t always hit the right notes but it’s unique enough that anime and manga fans will be thrilled for at least a few hours.
Instead of fighting some of the most iconic villains in anime history, you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to live like a normal person in the Dragon Ball universe. This is an asymmetrical 7v1 survival game similar to the game Dead by daylight or Friday the 13th: Games. In fact, there’s very little The Breakers attempts to change or improve on the formula presented in these titles beyond offering a more colorful aesthetic and animated atmosphere.
You control one of seven Survivors who are sucked into what is known as the Temporary Seam and must hide from the Raider long enough to initiate the launch sequence for the time machine, exit the area, or mount an attack. Effective enough to defeat one of the most powerful enemies of the series. There are some wrinkles in the formula, such as the ability to transform into toned versions of the series’ iconic heroes or collect dragon balls to grant a game-changing wish. , but these are not enough to make Dragon Ball: The Breakers a truly unique experience in the 7v1 survival genre.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The formula works because it offers something a little different in every match. Depending on which items you pick up early or the Raider’s luck in tracking the player, the difficulty can vary greatly between plays. Even different Raid players have playstyles that are different enough to make each a compelling challenge both to play and to survive.
The three Raiders present at launch are Cell, Frieza, and Majin Buu, each of whom undergo a series of slow transformations until becoming an unstoppable force of destruction. Early forms had to focus on tracking down civilians lost in the Temporal Seams or picking players one by one to build up their strength, slowly destroying parts of the map along the way.
To play as a Raider can be a lengthy process. Because the sides aren’t balanced, even players who set their preference to Raid won’t have a regular chance. However, each match they play while waiting for their turn to be the villain increases their Raider Priority by one, which makes it more likely that they will get the next spot. During the launch weekend, we occasionally entered up to eight matches that weren’t Raid, although the most common wait was three to five matches. Considering matches can take around ten minutes to play, this is a long time to play without playing the most enjoyable part of the game and can make it hard to feel really competent when playing against as Raid.
That’s not to say that playing as a Survivor isn’t fun. It can be a tense experience that works surprisingly well in the Dragon Ball universe, but the most exciting thing about Dragon Ball: The Breakers is doing the terror. Because communication between Survivors is limited to markers placed on the ground, not much teamwork can be accomplished. We haven’t encountered any players with issues during our gameplay, but we don’t feel much of a sense of community growth either.
Some technical issues appeared for us while playing Dragon Ball: The Breakers. Some are minor, like trees and terrain not loading properly into the opening sequence, while others cause the game to crash multiple times in a single session. Matchmaking, which the game claims takes an average of a minute, usually takes close to five minutes for us. That, plus the roughly ten minutes it can take to play a match, means a slow process for earning the coins and tokens needed to participate in the game’s gacha system for powers and characters. new. The lack of crossplay means that each platform is shielded from the others, a limited player base per console, and many key game features, like Survivor or Raider skill upgrades, hidden in the counter-intuitive menu. While none of this is enough to make a significant dent in Dragon Ball: The Breakers’ solid core, we wonder if it can hold people’s attention until the content. of the sequel is reduced or not.
Even with these issues, there are a lot of little things the game does well that are mostly redemption. The Survivor’s panic in their body language as they flee the Raider, knowing there’s little they can do if caught, coupled with a visual that closely resembles the look and feel of the anime, makes this a worthy entry. watch in the Dragon Ball franchise. There’s a sense of desperation when being caught by the Raider alone, something we haven’t seen in a Dragon Ball game so far. Although very different from what we’ve seen before, it still feels like home in Akira Toriyama’s work.
Inference
Dragon Ball: The Breakers isn’t likely to challenge titles like Dead by Daylight for the top spot in this burgeoning asymmetrical multiplayer genre, but it’s a fun game that stands out among the crowd. the rest of the Dragon Ball franchise for daring to do something different. Despite some technical issues at launch and a lot of honing needed if you want to get enough experience with the different Raiders, it’s still a worthwhile multiplayer link for anime fans.
