Review: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

Title: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Platform: Xbox One| PC |PS4 (reviewed)
Developer: Dimps
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release date: Out now.
tl;dr: Become a Time Patroller and protect Dragon Ball’s history.
Price: Â£40 / $50 / â‚¬50
Family Focus: Click here for more information.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a direct sequel to the previous game, where the hero of Toki Toki City protected the Dragon Ball timeline from the evil Towa and Mira. Now, the Supreme Kai of Time has created a new place called Conton City, home to the Time Patrollers, protectors against anomalies in history. But Towa and Mira are back, ready to distort the history of Dragon Ball, and you’re the chosen Time Patroller to aid the Supreme Kai of Time and her team against evil.

As with the previous entry, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is an interesting genre in the sense that it’s a beat ’em up with MMORPG elements, as theÂ story modeÂ centres around creating a character and levelling them up, as you tackle the steady incline of difficulty.

Xenoverse 2 has various different activities besides the new story mode; let’s start with the things that aren’t new to the game; Parallel Quests. There are a hundred Parallel Quests in this instalment and whilst this may seem great to begin with, you gradually come to realise you completed a majority of these in the first game and the downloadable content. ItÂ feels a little cheap and a bit of a cop-out, to say the least.Â

The mentor system has returned to Xenoverse and has improved greatly; no longer do you need to impress your mentor to gain the next lesson, you just need to be the correct class of warrior. Xenoverse 2 has a class based system, where you must fill a separate experience bar than your level bar. Once it’s full, you can take an exam where you battle the mentors of that class and once you complete it, you rank up a class.

As for the new, though, we have a whole host of amazing content: expert missions, where you team up with other players online or with AI. Expert missions present a higher difficulty in terms of AI intelligence, meaning they will dodge more, counter your specials and manage to avoid every hit unless someone breaks their guard. Within Xenoverse 2, you have to tackle eighteen of these missions (with number fifteen being the hardest in my personal opinion).

Another addition is the hub base for the different races (I didn’t mean to rhyme…honest), Capsule Corporation for the Saiyans, Hercule’s House for the Humans, Guru’s House for the Namekians, Buu’s House for the Majins and finally, Frieza’s Spaceship for the Frieza Warriors. Within these separate worlds, you undertake missions to aid them and gain better experience, but if you’re of a race that is connected to that specific hub, you will get an opportunity to acquire a transformation for your character, i.e Saiyan equals Super Saiyan or Super Vegeta.

Finally, you have a Raid Quests, usually announced just before the weekend by Bandai Namco with start dates and times for the weekend. Raid Quests are missions where all players of the game can come together to battle a boss and this boss must be defeated at level 99. Last week,Â it was Janemba. This boss starts at level 1. Then each time the boss is defeated, they gain experience points to go up a level. In other words, every time they lose a battle, they get more powerful. However, once that boss is at level 99 and they are defeated at level 99, thatâ€™s when they are truly defeated and lose the war to the Time Patrollers! Depending on your contribution to the raid, you will acquire different items and accessories for your character.

Overall, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a vast improvement from content to the new hub world being larger and free of loading screens. Combat has been vastly improved with combos being unique to character race and you can no longer be cheap by spamming ultimate and super attacks. Graphically, the game has seen an improvement due to being current gen and PC only unlike the first Xenoverse which appeared on PS3 and Xbox 360. The storyline is amazing, expanding on the first entry and even giving you the opportunity to import your time patroller from the first game giving your old character an appearance in cutscenes and battle. Xenoverse 2 is a definite must for any Dragon Ball fan and I urge beat ’em up fans to pick it up and give the game a try.