Dragon Ball: The Breakers
Developer: Dimps
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One (Reviewed), Switch, PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $29.99 USD – Available Here $49.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Whenever someone thinks of Dragon Ball they usually think of high speed battles for the sake of the planet with two world forces capable of destroying a world duking it out. What they don’t usually think of is being a normal person living in a world where someone can evaporate an entire city at the flick of their wrist. That is where Dragon Ball: The Breakers comes in as it offers a unique take on the asymmetrical multiplayer experience. Pitting seven normal survivors against some of the most iconic villains from Dragon Ball Z seems like it would make for an interesting game but unfortunately it is often far from it.
Story
Players take on the role of a character created survivor who has found themself suddenly pulled into a time rift. Set in the same universe as Dragonball Xenoverse 2, they are rescued by Time Patroller Trunks and told that they must use one of various time machines to escape from the rift in space and the Raider enemy that exists within. Here players will be treated to a barebones tutorial of how they can escape using the most simplistic methods available before they encounter Dragon Ball era Bulma and Oolong who end up getting dragged along for the ride.
With the survivor’s penchant for getting constantly sucked into time rifts, Trunks places them in an isolated area where the story comes to a halt with only minimal character interaction from then on. In fact, it is an ironic joke that Oolong directly references how much fun the city from Xenoverse 2 looks in the distance compared to the tiny hub players end up relegated to.
Gameplay
Being an asymmetrical multiplayer game, players will find themselves either as one of seven survivors scrambling around the map or playing as one of three current Raiders trying to either kill every single one of them or destroy any means of escape. As a survivor players will need to work together to locate power keys hidden in every location and try to slot them into place. If every power key is placed the Super time machine will begin to activate and if players manage to protect it from the Raider while it powers up, it will immediately end the match by transferring every surviving survivor to safety.
Should the Raider destroy this Super time machine or destroy a location before a power key can be placed, then the survivors must try and keep hiding from the Raider in the hopes of making it to a smaller rescue time machine that fans of the series will be quite familiar with. Multiple survivors can cling to the rescue time machine but it is on a cooldown and can be destroyed as well, leaving everyone to the mercy of the Raider as a result.
When things are working, which is something that happens rarely, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is an exciting game of cat and mouse. Survivors have a number of tools at their disposal to try and avoid the Raider while also completing their various objectives. This can lead to numerous occasions that pit the smarts of the survivors and willingness to take risks with the sheer might of a Raider, leading to some truly nail biting confrontations at times. These range from cowering in fear hiding in a cave or behind objects, using a skill to temporarily stun the Raider or disguise themselves as an object or even teleport quickly away using an item such as a Saiyan Pod or Flying Nimbus. All of these skills are on cooldown and players can even find items scattered around the map that can be used to attack the Raider for some amount of damage, however the camera and controls are often more dangerous than the Raider itself.
Not only does the camera not center directly behind the player, instead setting itself off to the side, but every aspect that requires a survivor to attack the Raider requires some form of aiming, which is near impossible. There are multiple fire-arms that can be used as quick escape options that can also deal damage to the Raider but even when fired near point blank they will miss almost every single time as there is no real way to properly aim these moves. In fact, this can affect skills as well with moves such as the grappling hook for a quick escape often misfiring or “Krillin’s Shoe” clipping into an object and leading to a death.
This isn’t the only time that the camera and lack of proper lock-on affects the Survivors ability to actually survive. Outside of the various skills that the player can equip and use the strongest defense and offensive capabilities a Survivor can unleash come in the form of Dragon Changes. Players can equip up to three “Transpheres” that contain the powers and abilities of numerous heroes from the Dragon Ball Z series and when activated transform the player into a facsimile of said character. These Transpheres come with various skills and special attacks that can be unleashed to not only escape from the Raider but outright attack them and try to deal damage. Players must find energy across the map, either obtained from opening chests, rescuing civilians, or even buying it from a vending machine with the more energy they obtain the longer they can remain in their changed state. While rare, it is entirely possible to straight up defeat a Raider by dealing enough damage to them, giving Survivors another way to win a match besides simply escaping.
Players can even choose to collect the Dragon Balls during a round, making a wish when all seven are assembled. Sadly this is easier said than done for a number of reasons that rely entirely on poor game design. Now while players can find Dragon Ball radars and other radars during rounds, it is up to one survivor to actually be holding all seven Dragon Balls to make a wish. This means that it is entirely possible to have all seven balls only for them to be spread around the team with no one wanting to drop their balls and with only a pinging system available for communication, it is almost impossible to actually get a team to work together especially since whenever a wish is made it only affects the Survivor making said wish, encouraging selfish gameplay or simply resulting in the team being wiped or even the Raider stealing the wish for themselves.
Unfortunately, while Dragon Change allows players to fly and attempt to take the fight to the Raider, actually controlling the character in this mode is poorly explained in the tutorial and suffers just as badly from poor camera angles and lack of solid aiming. This means that while players may try to make a last ditch effort to repel the Raider using special moves, they will often miss entirely and cost a large portion of their transformation time in a single shot whereas the Raider can continually spam ki blasts. To make things even worse, trying to simply enter a melee confrontation with a Raider is often only best treated as a time saving measure as the combat feels incredibly rough which is quite surprising given the game’s nature appearing to be almost exactly like Xenoverse 2 when things are in motion.
Now playing as an actual Raider is a far more enjoyable affair as it allows players to take advantage of almost every power available to the characters. Initially the Raider starts out in a fairly weakened form, with Cell being in his larval form, Buu not even being summoned and instead having players play as Spopovitch, and Frieza flying around in their hover pod. Raiders will gain energy from a variety of factors and increase in power, destroying large portions of the map every time they reach a new form. Of course, this can be used to prevent Survivors from collecting every key for the Super Time Machine, or annihilate foes trying to revive downed allies, or even simply eliminate a map that is a bit pesky.
Sadly, actually being able to play as the Raider can be a long endeavor as players do have the opportunity to specify which role they are queuing up for when trying to find a match, with a player’s priority increasing the longer they go without actually playing as a Raider. In practice this sounds fine, however thanks to the incredibly strange decision to not make a game crossplay in 2022 trying to find a match in Dragon Ball: The Breakers can often take a terribly long time. Less than one week after full release searching for a match on the Xbox Series X can take upwards of ten minutes or longer trying to find any role to play, let alone aiming to play as the Raider. This includes time spent restarting the matchmaking process as there is apparently a bug that limits matchmaking after a certain period of time has passed, though even then it rarely ends up being faster than a six minute wait in a hub with nothing to actually do.
It is also worth noting that while players do not need to spend any actual real money in the game, Dragon Ball: The Breakers makes use of not only a free battle pass system but also a gacha system as well. Players will earn points by completing daily and weekly challenges that will advance them along the battle pass while the gacha makes use of multiple currencies. This includes a premium currency that allows players to purchase rolls or the use of Zeni obtained from completing matches to also roll. These gacha pulls are for the aforementioned Transphere system potentially locking away powerful abilities behind the luck of the draw. Zeni is used for things such as purchasing cosmetic clothing items, emotes, stamps, and more while “Warrior Spirits” obtained from duplicate pulls can be used to power up Survivor Abilities as well as purchase special themed clothing from the store. This means that while it is entirely possible to get things without spending money, the ability to simply pay to strengthen skills and obtain rare abilities is entirely possible.
Visuals & Audio
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a fairly limited looking game as it features only a small hub and three total levels to play on. The designs for the Raiders are handled nicely though the areas themselves appear limited to what was found in the six year old Xenoverse 2 with various special attacks looking the same as before. This isn’t to say that the special moves such as the Special Beam Cannon and Spirit Bomb don’t look impressive, they just lack any notable improvement. It is also nice to note that there are some great character animations that alert Survivors to when a Raider is nearby as their character will physically shudder and scramble for safety when trying to hide.
As far as the voice work goes, the team has managed to reprise the limited voice cast for the characters found in the game but there are unfortunately a fairly small number of lines available, with Raider lines limited to the in-game shop. Sound effects are similar to what one would expect from the Dragon Ball universe though the background music is incredibly simplistic.
Overall
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is an interesting idea that falls flat thanks to poor camera and control decisions as well as a lack of crossplay in 2022. While the cat and mouse game of Survivor vs Raider may be a delight at times, with the average match actually being quite fun when everything works well, between excessive matchmaking times and multiple monetization methods this experiment falls mostly flat even for the most diehard Dragon Ball fans.
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