Follow the story of Son “Kakarot” Goku in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. In this homage to earlier Dragon Ball adventure games such as “Legacy of Goku” and “Sagas”, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot takes place after the events of the original first few arcs in the source material (or Dragon Ball). Having players control a young Goku coming five years from his victory of the 23rd World Tournament and defeat of Piccolo Jr., among other key characters within the Dragon Ball lore including Gohan, the aforementioned Piccolo, Vegeta, and more.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a 2020 open-world, action RPG. It is developed by Cyber Connect 2 and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

Editor’s Note: A review copy of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot was provided by Bandai Namco in support of this review. Near complete to complete spoilers for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and it’s source material may be present within this review. 

Relive one of anime and manga’s greatest rivalries in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

From the developers of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series comes the next big release in the Dragon Ball video game franchise. Cyber Connect 2, a developer under Bandai Namco’s wing known for story-driven anime titles finally gets a crack at Dragon Ball. While the developer has a history with fighting games, they have done a slew of action titles such as their work on essentially the entirety of .hack// video games. With the near universal acclaim CC2 received for its work on Bandai’s Naruto fighting games, fans were eagerly awaiting what they had in store for Dragon Ball. And although the action sequences are without question some of if not the developer’s best, the RPG and story elements could have used a bit more work.

Cyber Connect 2’s trademark action design has been greatly improved in DBZ: Kakarot.

THE GOOD: In Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot you naturally start off as the titular Son Goku; a Saiyan from the now destroyed Planet Vegeta who was raised as a human upon crash landing on Earth as a child. ‘Kakarot’ starts off nearly exactly where the titular series begins with a re-introduction to Goku and his now five year old son Gohan. Following a small tutorial this sparks the beginning events of the Saiyan arc and the handicap battle of Goku & Piccolo vs Radditz (Goku’s estranged older brother). The story covers this arc all the way to the end of the Majin Buu arc. There’s some fun easter eggs with side quests featuring minor characters such as Launch and Android 8 and this is where you’ll be getting a majority of your XP to level up your character(s). You learn brand new skills, abilities, and super attacks either by passing a certain level or story event and can unlock even more through training which is the much more difficult portion of the game. There’s also special “Villainous” enemies which are suped up versions of characters from the series that act as high level super bosses and there’s also a storyline attached to it that will make Dragon Ball Online & Xenoverse fans happy. You’ll eventually learn to cook and can upgrade a select character’s overall stats to decent lengths depending on the recipes used which are either purchased at shops or unlocked through side quests. You can also get Bulma to build things like equipment and new vehicles for characters to ride.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot covers the four canonical arcs of the second half of its source and some anime original filler.

Battles can be just as cinematic as the cut scenes with big moments that either mimic the anime and manga, or expand upon in some pretty damn creative ways. One such instance is actually in the Radditz battle when he performs a super attack that the player has to time his vanishing and maneuvering just right to avoid being hit by the heavy damage dealing move. There’s other in-game battle moments like these present as well and it really shows off Cyber Connect 2’s creativity. It should be noted that combat isn’t quite on the level of the earlier released FighterZ, but you should remember that this is an action-RPG above anything else and it shouldn’t be expected have have top tier combat. Though it would have been a nice bonus admittedly. You have your menu for healing items and super attacks as well as support and transformations and that’s really about it. You can change these to those you’ve unlocked throughout your playthrough at will. Also you kind of have to appreciate that Cyber Connect 2 nearly fully voiced the game with about 95% of all cut scenes featuring some kind of voice over work. And yes even the side quests have some voice work done. like with most recent video game entries the titular Dragon Balls are present but the wishes are limited to large sums of money, Z orbs to upgrade your characters, materials for Bulma, and wishing dead characters back to life for extra fights. The map is also completely open between land, sky, and sea and it’s probably the most explorable Dragon Ball video game map of all time. Full of secrets and rare items to find including new land marks and such you could get lost for hours just wondering what you’ll find next.

DBZ: Kakarot features an interesting, but often times unnecessary RPG system.

THE BAD: Let’s start with the simple stuff, there’s glitches. And more than just a few at that. Thankfully these are rare, but I suffered from a number of them ranging from Dragon Balls not showing up on the map making me think that it was hiding under something with its image blocked (which has happened), but I realized it was there & glitched out causing me to reload the game, to missions causing animation freezes. For example I was training at Capsule Corp to unlock a skill known as “Unbridled Power” which is a universal powerful skill pretty much every character learns and while training as Goku the animation for shield breaking broke and I was forced to reload the game and try again…..multiple times. It got to the point where I leveled my character and just cheesed the fight out of frustration. Speaking of frustrating, as a fan of Dragon Ball since literally the 90’s I have to say there are certain story and dialogue pieces that will just make you not only question your Dragon Ball fandom, but also potentially life. For one reason or another some very key memeable before memes were a thing moments & much beloved moments were just skipped. No “Over 9000”, no iconic transformation sequences for Frieza, they literally skip the entire Super Saiyan Grade 2 Future Trunks vs Imperfect Cell fight, among other things. Another thing is the food & cooking which is supposed to be a huge part of the game ultimately feels useless by level 30ish. As you’re pretty much on par with almost all of the main story enemies by that point as you consistently level up alongside them. And the skill tree, while cool also felt a bit useless as a majority of the more powerful techniques and power ups were either locked behind the main story or locked behind a certain level. Also some moves are locked behind the Training Grounds which can be fairly OP if you’re not at, near, or above the recommended level. I think I should also admit that Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot doesn’t really lend itself much to new players, or even newer fans of the franchise as a whole. If you haven’t stuck by the series for the near 30 years its been around then expect to be lost in a sense of everything that’s made it as memorable as it is. At least from a story perspective anyways.

Many fan favorite moments are present in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and many, many others…just aren’t.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: After a near 50 hour journey I can confidently say that Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a pretty good Dragon Ball game, and a very excellent experiment in what can be done with the franchise if there’s a little bit of creativity used to think outside of the fighting game realm it’s become comfortable with. Although there’s bugs I think a lot can be forgiven due to this not being Cyber Connect 2’s usual genre, but some of the story choices may not be forgivable for a lot of fans of the series. If it had a little more extra time and made some tweaks to the story I think we’d be looking at perhaps the ultimate Dragon Ball experience in video game form. However, as it is Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot does a damn close job of just that.