• Dragon Ball FighterZ - Early 2018, closed beta "before the end of summer."
• Bandai-Namco published, Arc System Works developed (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue)
• 1080p @60FPS everywhere, "higher resolution" on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X (XOX?)
• Uses the same style as Guilty Gear (Unreal 4, 3D cell shaded models made to look as 2D as possible, seamless transition between 2D and 3D perspectives)
• 3v3 tag/support style call-ins for maximum "I have no idea what the fuck is going on it's all just colors oh my god" factor.

This game looks properly good, duders. I've played a load of Dragon Ball games over the years, most of them poor, some of them good, but nothing that looks quite as solid as this does. It's exactly what high school me would have loved back when DBZ first rolled onto American television, and as I get older, I've come to appreciate anything that can recapture a bit of that magic.

Anyone else excited to have a good Dragon Ball game? Or just another good fighting game in general? (I know of three others who seemed pretty pumped if today's E3 stream was any indication...)

I would say there have definitely been a few good dragon ball games already. But this looks like a good fighting game that just happens to have dragon ball characters.

There have been good ones. This looks great though. The only thing I don't like is the tag format, as I find it just unnecessary for me in fighters.

Firstly, Budokai 3 was good fighting game as was Infinite World. Sparking Neo, Sparking Meteor and Raging Blast 2 were Fantastic Simulation games.
Here's the thing I dont get when people go theres no good DBZ games. I've just listed 5, they just made games for the audience that it should be made for. Their fans.

People that aren't into DB dont really get what their going for but gosh Sparking Meteor and RB2 Fight/Sim wise were close to perfect.

That said this looks beautiful and I loved Extreme Butoden, so this on consoles is fantastic. I hope the character roster is as big or bigger then extreme butoden as just watching the characters perform their combos and finishing moves in that graphical style is a thing to behold!

It looks phenomenal but it's still a Arc System game, with overly complicated controls if Persona 4 Arena is anything to go by. I tried BlazeBlue as well and didn't understand shit. I'm willing to learn a proper arc system fighting game but I'm not sure whether others will. Hope they simplify stuff this time around.

@thephantompear: They did Extreme Butoden which wasnt as tough to master by any means. This looks allot like that. YT it :)

Not stoked about the 3v3 aspect but getting Arcsys to make this is a great idea. Could we finallty get another great Dragonball fighter? The last good one, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 was quite a while ago.

Oh they did Extreme Butoden? That gives me hope then. If it plays well, might pick it up at release.

Arc + Dragonball Z is the most natural pairing of a developer with a storied franchise I think I've ever seen. If this is like Persona 4 Arena/Ultimax, in that it is as fast paced as Guilty Gear but has simpler inputs, this might immediately become one of my favorite games ever and actually get me into a fighting game.

Budakai 3 was a good game and XenoVerse is also pretty good, so i think claiming there are no good dbz games is a lie. This new game looks great but i dont like the 3 on 3 idea and everything looks way too cluttered for me so far.

@thephantompear: Huh? The Persona Arena games have pretty simple controls, though they do have a fair number of mechanics and systems going on like most Arc games.

@afabs515: That what I'm thinking. There's a high chance this will on the more accessible end of their games like Persona, maybe even more so. If they hit the sweet spot of accessible but still deep and do something worthwhile with the 3 on 3 aspect this could be something really great regardless of one's interest in Dragon Ball.

Seems like folks didn't play Fusions.

Footage of the game looks promising. GGXrd fused with MvC is a good mix for this game.

I hope this is successful, it looks so much better than the new Marvel vs. Capcom. Holy shit.

They should include adult gohan as a joke character because fuck adult gohan.

@cerberus3dog: I used to be with you, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate how much of a huge dork he is. Basically, I will main Great Saiyaman if he's in this.

It'll be interesting to see if my love of Guilty Gear beats out my dislike of MvC and tag stuff. Seeing that it still totally has a "dust" button is a good start though.

I really don't care about Dragon Ball, but my brother does, and I do like Arcsys fighters, so maybe this will be the game to finally bridge the gap and we play more than a handful of matches.

@cerberus3dog: Gohan: "I am actually the strongest out of everyone, I have reached elder kai level, and I possess the Z sword." Buu: "Cool, I'm just gonna eat you now."

I need to say it, how fucking weird is it that a Dragonball game was at an E3 press conference? As a notable title at that?

I just hope we get the English voice actors.

@xanadu: Can't have anyone taking the spotlight from Goku! But yeah, it's ridiculous how much of a joke Gohan became after Cell saga.

Maybe it's just that I've seen enough Dragon Ball in my life, or maybe it's that the clean look of modern anime is often utterly lacking in charm, but the visuals here aren't doing much for me at all.

I like that Gohan wasn't just a Goku clone. I really like that he became is own man and didnt feel compelled to continue the family "business".

On a side note I think we all can agree Goten sucks. His whole character is just that he is both Trunk's friend and half of a wasted joke of a character known as Gotenks.

god this looks so fucking good.

@blackichigo: Gotenks was my favorite character conceptually, and I loved his attitude (I was 12 when I first saw him, so that might have something to do with it), but yeah, Kid Trunks and Goten are horribly annoying characters.

A few people taking umbrage at my use of "good" in the title; maybe I should have said great, but I maintain that even the best DBZ game never quite hit the heights I was looking for, whereas this one has some serious potential. To each their own.

@wynnduffy said:

And here's some GIFs of the new footage shamelessly ripped from NeoGAF. Thanks, NeoGAF!

@mirado: Freeza being able to hit himself with those discs is the best shit.

@epidehl: There are so many little touches like that, such as Cell having the elbow drop he did against Vegeta, or buildings getting destroyed by deflected beams. I'm very, very excited.

@mirado: @epidehl: Some moves, like the elbow drop, I feel like I've seen in every video game incarnation of the characters. Super Saiyan 2 Gohan only has a single fight to take moves from. Perfect Cell has something like two. But I think it's hilarious what they did with the destructo discs. Not only that Frieza hits himself with them, but that he then performs the final attack he tried to stab Goku in the back with. That's real funny and a great reference.

The buildings getting destroyed by deflected beams is cool.... except that the deflected beams fly over the house, not through it. I guess it's a shockwave thing.

@xel: ok i take it back, this game looks amazing.

It looks awesome, this is the Dragonball Z game I've dreamt about since I was a kid. It might finally be time for me to learn how to play a fighting game even though I'll probably be horrendously bad.

From what I'm seeing in fgc subreddits, DBZ just came and took Capcom's lunch. It looks on a completely different plane of quality, DBZ even looks like it plays more like an MVC2/3 than MVCI. Now the question is how much will the Marvel license propel MVC to success? I have no doubt DBZ is going to be a better game, Arcsystemworks are knocking it out of the park and Capcom's fighting games are seemingly in turmoil.

The pre-release DLC pushing by Capcom for MVC is souring people, it's like they didn't learn anything from SFXT. It just doesn't look that hot which is a shame, I thought MVC3 was visually striking and still looks better. Less characters, simplified mechanics, questionable production value...it's SFV all over again.

I really want Arcsystemworks to have a very popular fighting game, the work and attention to detail they put in is amazing. They suck at marketing though...maybe Namco can help them out with that.

Guilty Gear Xrd is the best fighter this generation so of course this game will be solid. I just hope it has some of the depth of GG and not just made for the lowest common denominator that will drop it after a few weeks.

@cerberus3dog: As long as Saiya Man is a separate character like in most games.

This looks really really nice. As someone who doesn't play fighting games but likes DBZ, I'm interested.

I don't play fighting games at all, but I'm nostalgic for DBZ and this looks so good. Is this studio known for more complex fighting games? Is jumping into this game as my first real fighting game in 15 years asking for way more work than say Injustice or Mortal Kombat?

I thought Budokai 3 and Budokai Tenkaichi 3 were good :(

@sloppydetective: First, I'll say people greatly overstate the complexity of ArcSystems games. Persona 4 Arena was the first fighting game I tried to "get good" at, and it wasn't that bad. Second, if it's anything like P4A and Guilty Gear, it'll have a really good tutorial.

@sloppydetective: This is the studio that makes Guilty Gear and (I think) BlazBlu. Those are pretty complex. However, they also made Persona 4 Arena/Ultimax, which had the same complex systems but with much simpler execution (only quarter circle motions). I'm assuming this game will be like that since it will primarily appeal to DBZ fans the way P4A primarily appealed to Persona fans

I've never really been big into fighting games, but I got the new Tekken on a whim and really enjoyed it so I've been looking for something else. Was planning on Guilty Gearing it up sometime, so this was the perfect announcement for me.

Although the title got me all giddy for an actual Dragon Ball game, as opposed to just retreading DBZ.

@afabs515: @epidehl:thanks for the info guys. How well do they play on gamepads? Sticks preferred?

I just noticed this is using UE4, I wonder what extra effects that will let them use. The particle already look better than in Guilty Gear which is on UE3.

@sloppydetective: I know a lot of people prefer stick, but I've never had trouble with gamepad. They're 4 button (or 5 I guess for GG counting "Dust"), and it's easy enough to map weird button combos the shoulders, no need to try and hit Square/Triangle or X/Y with your fingers on a gamepad or anything.

@sloppydetective: They're pretty doable on pads (although GG has five buttons which is kind of annoying).

I guess I'm gunna get real good at this game seeing as Dragon Ball is my favorite franchise of all time! Also anyone else be down to listen to a podcast where Vinny and Ben teach Alex and Dan about Dragon Ball???

I'm really excited about this game. Been huge fan of dragonball since Budokai 2 (the story mode was literally a board game). I played every DB after that except Xenoverse 1. (I own 2.0)

I was never a fan of Tenkaichi split screen, so when Xenoverse came in I felt once again revived to get into DB fighting games. After playing the 2 to exhaustion I felt bored with the Boss battles where a lot of bugs took your fun away.

When i saw the screens for this game i was HOOKED. 2D dragonball is the way this game should be played. The fact you cant side step energy waves makes it harder and more enjoyable IMO. But I'm still hoping 1v1 mode exists in that game.

As for hopes and dreams, I wish you can pick Goten, Trunks, other Z fighter. And have a certain input where you fuse the kids and you had the health bars together, or what remains of them.

This is truly Marvel vs. Capcom 4.

This game is beautiful. Especially when you lay it next to MvC, it's quite staggering how much better this looks.

If this has a big cast I might have to get it even though I am woeful at all fighting games.

@sloppydetective: For Persona, I didn't feel I needed a stick since it was 4 buttons and all the stick movements were simple quarter circle motions. For Guilty Gear (playing Xrd Rev 2 now to try my hand at it) I bought a fight stick and find that very helpful for the more complicated motions, especially the Z-shaped inputs. I would wait until they show a sample command list before pulling the trigger on a fight stick.