I don’t know why, I’m not even a big fan of the anime, but I kind of want to pick up a Dragon Ball game for PC while a bunch of them are on sale. Maybe it’s just because I like Toriyama’s style in cel-shaded 3D but am recently Dragon Quest-ed out.
Now I know that naturally, many of them are going to be straight, fairly traditional fighting games. But it looks like some of them might be closer to action RPGs, and the line is a little blurry trying to look them up.
So, can anyone recommend Dragon Ball games on PC that are closer to the ARPG side of the scale and good for single player?
I was looking at Kakarot, which definitely seems to fit, and seems to be kind o a TL;DR of the Goku story, from what I can tell?
Xenoverse looks really nice, and custom character is always great, but I can’t tell how much of a pure fighter this series is?
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I’m currently playing through the gba and budokai games. there’s a romhack for legacy of goku 2 that adds improvements.
xenoverse 2 is fun, you can wait for part 3. personally i would opt for sparking zero or kakarot
super heroes is a fun but repetitive card game.
Definitely the Legacy of Goku trilogy or Kakarot. Both accomplish roughly the same things as single-player RPGs that try to enrich the established storyline with perspective changes and new character moments. One is retro and one is modern and you can’t go wrong with either. Be sure to install the QoL romhack for the LoG 1 if you play that one. I played Xenoverse 1 as well, and it has a brand-new story that isn’t bad, and it does have deep RPG mechanics, but it can be a grindfest at times.
As much as I love the Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi games, I don’t recommend those because 1) you can’t do matches online and 2) the single-player modes are almost entirely condensed retellings of the anime over and over again between releases with little to no replay value. Those games were great if you got into them on release, and I have fond memories of doing the offline co-op with friends. You do sort of get the BT trilogy gameplay with Xenoverse, though.
The NES RPG series, Gokuden, is on my bucket list. I assume those are less approachable, but that series organically works in what-if scenarios where anyone who survived the boss fights go to Namek, regardless of canon, which is cool.
Some highlights that are great but tell an incomplete story: Super Saiya Densetsu on SNES and Attack of the Saiyans on the DS.
Monolith Soft (yes, the Xenoblade Monolith Soft) made one of the best JRPGs for the DS which is also a DBZ game; “Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans”. Game has you play as the other Z Fighters for a large amount of the game and takes place during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai arc and ends at the Saiyans arc.
@Apeman42 the legacy of goku gba games are fun…
and maybe hot take… i love dragonball the legend (kinda prefer psx for gameplay speed but dreamcast looks way better )
I second the Legacy of Goku games, but with the caveat that you may want to skip the first one. It’s rough. The amount of improvement from 1 to 2 is mind-boggling.
There’s a really good quality of life romhack for LoG 1 called “Legacy of not dying to the wolves” that brings it up to parity with the rest of the series, which I highly recommend.
Actually good advice for me, who mostly dabbles in playing old GBA games and have had this recommended to me. Haven’t had much time recently to play but if I have the time I’ll check out number 2 (assuming I don’t just pick up another Pokémon ROM hack :p)
I still find myself wanting something cel-shaded, but I can check these out too, been fluffing out my emulator collection recently anyway.
I was waiting for someone to recommend Advanced Adventure. Guess it’s up to me.
Advanced Adventure is a fantastic side-scrolling platformer beat-em-up for the GBA that recaps the original Dragon Ball up to the fight with King Piccolo. The sprite work is amazing, and you can do multiplayer 1v1 battles, among other minigames. Also, there’s a second campaign where you collect different items and pkay as Krillin, so that’s pretty cool.
Jist make sure to play the EU release for the lore-accurate wish Oolong makes with the Dragonballs.
Chrono Trigger is also made with Toriyama’s art. It’s not DBZ, obviously, but you’ll see familiar creatures like the imps that all look like Emperor Pilaf.
I’ve definitely played it several times, but it will still probably end up in rotation during my traditional winter RPG-a-thon.
Also, Blue Dragon for Xbox 360.
If you are in it just for the art, Sand Land also has his art and is an ARPG (at least from the little I saw, I never played it). Not Dragon Ball, but might be interesting?
The spectrum of RPG to Action with the current era games starts with Kakarot on the RPG side, Xenoverse in the middle, and Sparking Zero on the Action end. There is also a pure 2d fighting game in FighterZ
Kakarot has been fun so far. It really does feel like you’re playing out the show it’s really cool.
Xenoverse plays a lot more like an RPG than a fighter. It can be fun, but the meta is to put all your points in ki blast power, run away, and spam kamehameha which is very unfun to play and to play against. So, you can either have fun or be strong, but not both, which is annoying.
Haven’t played the others
I went back to Sagas recently and played most of the way through. Gamecube, PS2, maybe og xbox. it was still fun like when i was in middle school. can get slow at the end of levels when you are trying to find the last collectable on the level
There are some decent GameCube DBZ games you could check out. Dolphin world be required, idk if that’s a deal breaker in your situation or not tho.
Only in that Dolphin is an ass about not recognizing my steam controller. Would this be the Budokai games? That name rings a bell.
