Quick Look: Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

New era of DB on GB!

All systems Goku THE GAME!

A DBZ game in 2020 needs to do way more wacky shit... I think my dream DBZ single player game at this point would be something that adds player choice and interesting fail states into the mix in a way that allows for a jumbled up retelling of the story in fun ways - give me a game where I can beat Raditz with Goku but then that leads to some weird consequences down the line that changes how everything goes.

That chart at the beginning reminds me of the first time I realized Yamcha was a punchline. Gamespot had a similar thing several years ago (Budokai 3-time, I think) that showed who had defeated/killed whomever else as a diagram. And Yamcha's line was just a single, self-contained loop that connected to no one.

Still not sure I need to replay Raditz->Cell AGAIN, but with enough side stuff, I could certainly be convinced.

@aostroff:You're describing what I REALLY loved about the first Xenoverse game. It didn't get AS deep as what we'd want, but the little glimpses of 'what-ifs' actually made a lot of sense within the narrative, in a way I felt they got further and further from in the sequel.

But the little questions like "What if Napa and Vegeta didn't fuck around and just went full-on Great Ape." "What if Freeza just skipped to his 4th form" and "What if Ginyu managed to hit Vegeta with his body swap" were all really fun scenarios to play out.

Love that this game included the Original JP DBZ Soundtrack. Finally a DBZ game in the US has the proper soundtrack. It help this game retain the authentic DB feel.

Jan, Gohan TOTALLY encounters a robot in the original cut of DBZ. It leads to a tragic tale of friendship and loss. I'm shocked by this robo-erasure.

Looks bad!

there is a part where you play out the driver's license episode in this game, it was one of the main marketing points iirc

What does the line coming off Napa go to????

Disappointment is stored in the Dragon Balls.

Jason? Jason????

JASON!?

I'm surprised Vinny didn't do the Quick look for this.

Mondo cool.

I wonder if games like these that don't do the full voice acting would be better NOT doing the "miscellaneous line read that roughly matches the tone of the dialog" every third line thing. Because I feel like that's way more distracting and annoying than just having silence. Some games do it well, by which I mean having it happen rarely.

Budget theme game intended to capitalize on fan enthusiasm? Great, just what I wanted.

More JJ quicklooks!

This really seems like one of the GBA rpg games made in 3D. Man those were weird but fun games.

The kind of dumb shit I'd want to see in a Dragon Ball Z rpg is a first encounter where you are controlling the farmer in a pickup truck and then get fucking wasted by Radditz.

What's with all the flying to pick up orbs? Reminds me of Superman 64

That shit where they just completely skip collecting the dragon balls is kind of stunning!

Also, can you switch to Japanese voices or are you stuck with English in this version?

I'm sick and half conscious and Baba's voice is really fucking with me right now.

Weird how much they seemed to have jacked the Persona 5 graphic aesthetic?

This looks pretty much like if you made a 3D Legacy of Goku. That's not an entirely bad thing since the second and third games of that series are great.

I'm excited for this, even knowing full well that it'll be bad.

I miss these kinda games and you better fucking believe I'll have more fun playing this than most games released this year.

Y'know, I typically don't mind the shortened VA because I read past text before they finish anyway. If they just say something truncated while I read through it, to at least get emotion across with their voice, that actually works out with the balance I try to get between my patience and the characters' personality.

This awful voice makes Gohan sound like he's like 10 or 11 years old but he's supposed to be 4-5 at this point in the story, which would explain why he doesn't know Puar or any of Goku's other friends.

i feel like the studio could look at this as an improvement because they managed to make a (semi) openworld rpg like the big AAA studio's, but i don't know if this makes for a better, more fun game than the xenoverse ones. Jeff ploughing through the game with S ranks left & right in his first hours is also concerning for a game that is mostly focused on it's combat. And that Tien / Nappa moment was more comical than dramatic, especially that moment where Nappa had to look concerned at the Tribeam.

Oh well, if you're into DBZ, just playing a game in that world is often fun enough. Just feels like there's a better game able to be made.

This game moves almost as slow as the show

@garwalk: The voices seem fine to me on their own. The bigger problem is the very stilted way the cutscenes are stitched together.

I'm 10 hours in. Game is Not bad at all. Sure its simplistic but if you're a DBZ fan...its a must buy. I'm having a ton of fun and i'm only mid way through Frieza Saga.

Yeah I'm a fan, cursed to buy every game since Budokai 1.

The non voice over for the side quests isn't that surprising. Reminds me a lot Yakuza. A lot of Japanese games seem to not have voice work for smaller things.

On another note: Good game or not, one thing I like about these DBZ games is how good they look. Love the art style. They seem to nail the show.

Dragon Ball Z Infinite Worlds ps2 has your dumb shit like actually running Snake way, I remember Liking it back in the day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoH2WKXU1z8

Let Vinny play DBZ games you cowards

Had a thought while watching this: did we really NEED another Saiyan->Cell+Buu Sagas videogame retelling? Is there a particularly compelling reason this thing didn't just use the Kid Buu fight as the tutorial, then pick up the Dragonball Super storyline? You know: that thing a lot of the longtime fans who came back to FighterZ wouldn't be familiar with and haven't already played 10 times over the years???

This reminds me that I need to go back to watching DBZ Kai and chasing it with All Systems Goku. Hmm. Where did I leave off? Were they still on Namek?

hey why the fuck is gohan not wearing his piccolo outfit?????

Edit: Hell yeah.

This games more or less what I expected it was gonna be to play but in terms of style Its wonderful and Ill play it happily on that alone. It feels very earnest. CC2 are absolutely trying their best, they're just not really amazing at it. That's okay though. They don't really make games like this anymore. The open world seems to take weird specific things from modern games and ignore everything else.

If you watched Super you probably got used to the Japanese voices, the cutscenes are a lot better with them I think. Timing is bad in the dub in all of the dragon ball games because they 're trying to match lip flaps and timing and it just doesn't work.

"I don't like this game all that much.. but Im gonna keep on playing it" Jeff, you really are a Dragon Ball fan huh

I like Puar. Don't know why, just do.

Also Vegeta and Nappa go wine tasting would be fantastic. Especially if they go to NAPPA valley.

all the currency and boards reminds me of mobile gotcha game

in dbz they barely ever show the searching of the dragon balls, that aint a thing in z

@royalghost: The English voice actors have confirmed that they typically never have access to any kind of lip flaps when recording the voice over, which is why nothing ever matches up. They get the dialogue lines and that is it.

I'm interested! Though a little too much of this is reminding me of Xenoverse, and I liked those games! The combat just looks Real similar, and I was hoping for, I dunno, 2 buttons for attacking instead of just one? Something. I don't need DBFighterZ-level combat, but Xenoverse's formula sure did wear thin after a while.

I will probably still get this. The flyin-around looks fun!

is this...Superman 64?

I wish Team 4 Star was writing and voicing this game...

Good Quick Look, I always felt like Jeff and Jan were a good combo and this video is another example of that. And I'm always happy to see Jan on more content with the rest of the team.

As for the game itself... It seems really bad. As a big Dragon Ball fan, I was exited when they announced a new RPG based on the series, there's so many interesting things that could be done using that universe, but this isn't what I was expecting at all. This is like an offline Xenoverse repeating the story from Dragon Ball Z for the 538th time in a videogame, with absolutely uninteresting gameplay, awful fighting and flying mechanics, poor animation, and it just looks incredibly ugly overall. From visuals to gameplay this game almost looks like a fan-made project where someone grabbed an old Nintendo 64 Dragon Ball game and exported it to a new engine with higher resolution and better lighting without touching anything else. The environments specially just look atrocious. Dragon Quest has already shown us how it is possible to make Toriyama's design work on a 3D videogame, shame people responsible for Dragon Ball games still haven't figured it out (with the exception of FighterZ).

Overall, it just seems like Bandai Namco is hoping to make money from nostalgia alone without putting any effort, as it is been usual with Dragon Ball in recent years.

edit: Even though I'm happy for having Jan on this QL, I'm also sad Dan has already left and we didn't get an All Systems Goku reunion for this video.

I'll be honest, I never thought this game looked all that great from the previews of it. And this Quick Look just confirmed that it's another one of "those" Dragon Ball games.

That being said, there is some real good sounding music in this QL that pulls a few nostalgic heartstrings.

38:04

“I bet those robots’ve been programmed to guard the building.”

I’ll take “Dialogue That Wasn’t Localized By Fluent English Speakers” for $1000, Alex.