10-30-2016, 04:09 AM
So after writing my first review in over a year with Gears a little bit ago, I decided that I really liked writing them again. With that said, I don't plan on writing one out for every game I play, but rather games that I think deserve it, be they bad or good, and Xenoverse 2 is without a doubt, a game that deserves a review, so let's get into it.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is without a doubt an improvement over the last game, which released early in 2015, giving us nearly a 2 year gap between releases. It was about 5 months short of that mark, but I do see why it would take that long as opposed to just throwing out a game once a year nearly on the year mark like several other yearly franchises do.
The story of the game is still fairly basic, and honestly not quite as appealing as it's prequel given that the freshest thing about the first Xenoverse, was the fact that it had a new story, which was just something nice to see. With Xenoverse 2, it's a little lacking because it still has nearly the same story as the first one, someone is messing with time (if you played the first one, you get 3 guesses as to who that is, and the first two don't count) and it's up to you to help right the historical wrongs. While I am being mostly harsh or at the very least, uninterested with the story of this game, I have to say, the way the incorporated the first game into the story was pretty cool. That said, there are a few issues with the way things play out since the whole point of the story was to correct time changes, even though they leave one of the biggest ones relating to Dragon Ball Super, unchanged, and you and Trunks are technically responsible for it.
So the story not being great is usually a deal breaker with me, but that's not always the case. If the gameplay can make up for the egregious oversight, I'm willing to be a let the story slide a bit, and thankfully, I can easily say that not only do I think that the gameplay of Xenoverse 2 is improved over the first, but it may be so improved, that Dragon Ball as a game series might have the best 3D fighter around. To make a comparison, combo's always felt a little slow in the first game, and things like Stamina were largely just filled using the points you got from leveling up because it was a gauge that mattered. Also, energy based attacks were hugely important because they could easily be used to quickly defeat a large number of foes at once. In Xenoverse 2, most of these problems that either felt a little laggy or that made the game easier are eradicated. Combat is now very fast and and Stamina is super important if you want to fight in hand to hand combat, which you should do because energy based attacks are often better used as an end to a combo, instead of just being used whenever, because you will likely miss if you just fire one off at random. This is a system that makes sense, because the Arena's are large and your attacks, even the biggest of them, only cover a small space in the overall arena. You should miss those attack if you fire them off randomly. Also, what's nice about Stamina is how you use it, it's entirely possible if you fire off a beam attack, to be countered while you are charging it up, and that takes all of your stamina away. That can actually be a point of strategy though as it's possible to waste the last bit of your stamina getting countered, and then run off somewhere or take a few hits to let it recover instead of never running it out of it all the way and waiting longer for it recover than it would otherwise. On the flip side of that, the A.I. is smart, but if you have more stamina than them, you can force them to use all of theirs up and land a few free hits they can't counter until their stamina is up. Countering in this game also feels a lot better than it did before as it's not as easy to just mash the dodge button to get behind enemy, and sometimes, counters happen in rapid succession which means you can't just mash a button, you need to time your counter, and it feels pretty good when you get it right.
Xenoverse 2 also offers you up more things to do than just the story quests and parallel quests and gives you a bigger hub world to do them in. If you want to do a harder type of PQ, you can enter one where you have to fight a large or harder enemy that can beat you and everyone in a party with you, be they COM players or real ones, giving off a sense of urgency to do things right. If you want to work with Frieza and climb the ranks of his army, you can do that. Want to train against Vegeta, protect Namek and it's Dragonballs, help Buu build a family, fight with the great Saiyaman 1 and 2 or do quests for Hercule that earny you money, you can all of that as well. The best part about that, is that depending on your race, depends on whether you get extra bonuses from doing certain tasks. For example. if you are a Majin character and you help Buu build a family, he can have more members than if you weren't part of the Majin line. This is good news as it building Buu's family and sending them off to explore yields free items, so if Buu has a larger family, you get more items, and they aren't all garbage either. If you play as a human, you got more money from Hercule when completing his missions, and the list goes on. The Hub world being larger and lack in loading times is also pretty great as it allows room to explore for free items like Capsule's to restore health and food which you can give to Buu to build his family. What's nice, is that you can't just go wherever right away either as you aren't allowed to fly at the start of the game, and when you can, you find that there's more to explore making the world feel bigger and giving you a sense of freedom when you can finally fly, as there's a good amount you can't reach until you can fly.
The thing I like most about Xenoverse 2, is the inability to make a new character after beating the game, and suddenly being able to fight the hardest PQ's and bosses in the story to get the most EXP. You have to work at leveling up your character from the start every time so it doesn't feel like a cop-out. It's also nice that get more points than in the first game, so your character feels adamant to face off against whatever challenge you want to fight, rather than feeling like you need to wait for the level cap to increase to be able to beat certain missions. At one point in the game, you gain as many as 7 or 8 points a level, and then soon after, that number decreases as you reach the cap, preventing you from getting too many points, but allowing you to get enough that you don't feel stuck grinding levels for hours.
Xeonverse 2 is not a perfect game. There are some really poor story moments that way overshadow the cool ones, but the gameplay, the variety and the extra things to do better visual representation and overall better combat system really overshadow everything else. My final rating for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, is a 4.2/5. It's gonna be a hard game to beat in the anime world, and does an excellent job of making sure the theme of sequels being better than their predecessors continues like it has for this year. If you are a fan of Dragon Ball and have not picked this game up, I highly recommend it.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is without a doubt an improvement over the last game, which released early in 2015, giving us nearly a 2 year gap between releases. It was about 5 months short of that mark, but I do see why it would take that long as opposed to just throwing out a game once a year nearly on the year mark like several other yearly franchises do.
The story of the game is still fairly basic, and honestly not quite as appealing as it's prequel given that the freshest thing about the first Xenoverse, was the fact that it had a new story, which was just something nice to see. With Xenoverse 2, it's a little lacking because it still has nearly the same story as the first one, someone is messing with time (if you played the first one, you get 3 guesses as to who that is, and the first two don't count) and it's up to you to help right the historical wrongs. While I am being mostly harsh or at the very least, uninterested with the story of this game, I have to say, the way the incorporated the first game into the story was pretty cool. That said, there are a few issues with the way things play out since the whole point of the story was to correct time changes, even though they leave one of the biggest ones relating to Dragon Ball Super, unchanged, and you and Trunks are technically responsible for it.
So the story not being great is usually a deal breaker with me, but that's not always the case. If the gameplay can make up for the egregious oversight, I'm willing to be a let the story slide a bit, and thankfully, I can easily say that not only do I think that the gameplay of Xenoverse 2 is improved over the first, but it may be so improved, that Dragon Ball as a game series might have the best 3D fighter around. To make a comparison, combo's always felt a little slow in the first game, and things like Stamina were largely just filled using the points you got from leveling up because it was a gauge that mattered. Also, energy based attacks were hugely important because they could easily be used to quickly defeat a large number of foes at once. In Xenoverse 2, most of these problems that either felt a little laggy or that made the game easier are eradicated. Combat is now very fast and and Stamina is super important if you want to fight in hand to hand combat, which you should do because energy based attacks are often better used as an end to a combo, instead of just being used whenever, because you will likely miss if you just fire one off at random. This is a system that makes sense, because the Arena's are large and your attacks, even the biggest of them, only cover a small space in the overall arena. You should miss those attack if you fire them off randomly. Also, what's nice about Stamina is how you use it, it's entirely possible if you fire off a beam attack, to be countered while you are charging it up, and that takes all of your stamina away. That can actually be a point of strategy though as it's possible to waste the last bit of your stamina getting countered, and then run off somewhere or take a few hits to let it recover instead of never running it out of it all the way and waiting longer for it recover than it would otherwise. On the flip side of that, the A.I. is smart, but if you have more stamina than them, you can force them to use all of theirs up and land a few free hits they can't counter until their stamina is up. Countering in this game also feels a lot better than it did before as it's not as easy to just mash the dodge button to get behind enemy, and sometimes, counters happen in rapid succession which means you can't just mash a button, you need to time your counter, and it feels pretty good when you get it right.
Xenoverse 2 also offers you up more things to do than just the story quests and parallel quests and gives you a bigger hub world to do them in. If you want to do a harder type of PQ, you can enter one where you have to fight a large or harder enemy that can beat you and everyone in a party with you, be they COM players or real ones, giving off a sense of urgency to do things right. If you want to work with Frieza and climb the ranks of his army, you can do that. Want to train against Vegeta, protect Namek and it's Dragonballs, help Buu build a family, fight with the great Saiyaman 1 and 2 or do quests for Hercule that earny you money, you can all of that as well. The best part about that, is that depending on your race, depends on whether you get extra bonuses from doing certain tasks. For example. if you are a Majin character and you help Buu build a family, he can have more members than if you weren't part of the Majin line. This is good news as it building Buu's family and sending them off to explore yields free items, so if Buu has a larger family, you get more items, and they aren't all garbage either. If you play as a human, you got more money from Hercule when completing his missions, and the list goes on. The Hub world being larger and lack in loading times is also pretty great as it allows room to explore for free items like Capsule's to restore health and food which you can give to Buu to build his family. What's nice, is that you can't just go wherever right away either as you aren't allowed to fly at the start of the game, and when you can, you find that there's more to explore making the world feel bigger and giving you a sense of freedom when you can finally fly, as there's a good amount you can't reach until you can fly.
The thing I like most about Xenoverse 2, is the inability to make a new character after beating the game, and suddenly being able to fight the hardest PQ's and bosses in the story to get the most EXP. You have to work at leveling up your character from the start every time so it doesn't feel like a cop-out. It's also nice that get more points than in the first game, so your character feels adamant to face off against whatever challenge you want to fight, rather than feeling like you need to wait for the level cap to increase to be able to beat certain missions. At one point in the game, you gain as many as 7 or 8 points a level, and then soon after, that number decreases as you reach the cap, preventing you from getting too many points, but allowing you to get enough that you don't feel stuck grinding levels for hours.
Xeonverse 2 is not a perfect game. There are some really poor story moments that way overshadow the cool ones, but the gameplay, the variety and the extra things to do better visual representation and overall better combat system really overshadow everything else. My final rating for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, is a 4.2/5. It's gonna be a hard game to beat in the anime world, and does an excellent job of making sure the theme of sequels being better than their predecessors continues like it has for this year. If you are a fan of Dragon Ball and have not picked this game up, I highly recommend it.
