Dragonball Xenoverse, wherein teen POS finally lives his dreams

POS Industries · 03-05-2015, 05:45 PM

So earlier this week I picked up Xenoverse, which for those of you not in the know is a new DB game that combines Budokai-style gameplay with MMO-inspired character creation, leveling, equipment, and customization. You play as your own super special awesome mary sue (your choice of human, saiyan, namekian, majin, or Frieza guy) traveling through time and space under orders from Future Trunks and the Supreme Kai of Time to stop a couple ~~sexy~~ evil blue people from mucking around with historical events because one wrong move and the big timey-wimey ball of the multiverse could unravel and kill us all.

There's also side quests where you can team up with players online and beat up on various canon characters in alternate timelines or whatever as well as online vs battles and the like. The sidequests (or Parallel Quests) are generally way harder than the story quests and can drop all sorts of nice equipment and attacks from whoever you're fighting, so they're definitely worth doing repeatedly, not to mention the exp is good to make sure you aren't underleveled in the story.

Also worth noting: the first official western release of anything including female super saiyans. So that's neat, although the hair transformation effects ended up kinda lazy all around. The blonde is there, but the spiking isn't up to where it should be.

The game's main drawbacks are the heavy, repetitive grind involved in the PQs to get cool stuff, the shaky netcode, hardware slowdown on some parts (especially on the PS3 and 360 versions), equipment stats being largely preferential to strike-based builds at the expense of ki attack damage, and a few bugs and lazy design here and there. For instance, almost all the dialogue will refer to you as male even if your character is female. This might have been a coding oversight though because in all of one cutscene my female majin was gendered correctly, so it stands to reason that dialogue for both genders was likely recorded but the triggers for them were coded wrong.

Anyway, if you've got 50 bucks to burn on DBZ fanwankery, I recommend it. There's at least a couple of us that have it on PS3, too, so if you ever want to team up and punch saiyans, there you go.

Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope · 03-05-2015, 06:10 PM

I am lovin it. I am playing as a Namekian who is built like a brick house. So far I am only on Namek.

Kyanbu The Legend · 03-05-2015, 06:46 PM

I started to get this but ended up passing on it. Eh maybe I should give it a chance the next time I get paid.

POS Industries · 03-05-2015, 07:20 PM

Oh, I nearly forgot to add: One of the male create-a-character voices is DBZA Nappa, and he is hilarious and you will quote everything he says.

Kyanbu The Legend · 03-05-2015, 07:37 PM

Ok now I need this game in my life! That is all kinds of awesome! XD

Arcanum · 03-05-2015, 10:42 PM

This game came out on PC last week. I have 40 hours in it already. It has a multitude of flaws but I still love the game and am having an absolute blast despite all of its flaws.

POS mentioned shaky netcode but it's more like complete garbage netcode with anything related to the multiplayer hub world. I, and plenty of others, just get endless "connecting to servers" messages, and when we do manage to connect we get DCed after 20-30 minutes. Fortunately, there's a hilarious workaround for this.

Oh and if anyone cares I made a female majin who is the absolute best.

synkr0nized · 03-06-2015, 12:59 PM

Let me play as Cell!

This actually looks like it could be a lot of fun.
I am hopping on a plane for two weeks of business travel, though, this weekend. So I will keep an eye out for whatever you folks post about this and give it another look-see when I return.

I mean, the idea of being able to do my own ridiculous ki blasts and fwee-fighting is pretty rad. Takes me back to, like, 1999. I imagine I'd have a good time trying to stomp a mudhole in some baddies.

Do you start out super weak, like Dragonball levels, and work up as you level your character? For example, is there a level that would be when you attain Super Saiyan for saiyans, "Super Namekian" like Piccolo did after fusing with Nail for namekians, etc., or do you have those kinds of things as appropriate for your selected race at the start and instead gain more power, health, skills, etc.?

---------- Post added at 12:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ----------

watched a couple videos

I'm hyped.

POS Industries · 03-06-2015, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanum

POS mentioned shaky netcode but it's more like complete garbage netcode with anything related to the multiplayer hub world. I, and plenty of others, just get endless "connecting to servers" messages, and when we do manage to connect we get DCed after 20-30 minutes. Fortunately, there's a hilarious workaround for this.

Haven't run into that on PS3 but then again PS3 has its own host of crappy connection issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Do you start out super weak, like Dragonball levels, and work up as you level your character? For example, is there a level that would be when you attain Super Saiyan for saiyans, "Super Namekian" like Piccolo did after fusing with Nail for namekians, etc., or do you have those kinds of things as appropriate for your selected race at the start and instead gain more power, health, skills, etc.?

You pretty much start out with all the DBZ basics. Flight, ki blasts, zwee dodges, etc. So leveling up mostly just gets you more stat points and access to cooler moves, so the latter. The various levels of Super Saiyan are skills you can use in place of ultimate attacks, for instance. You're also able to be mentored by canon characters whenever they randomly appear to do so, who will teach you some of their moves, give you items, and offer up encouraging/snarky comments based on your performance during quests.

mauve · 03-06-2015, 02:43 PM

I'm not a huge fan of Dragonball (Not that I actively dislike it or anything, I just didn't really watch it as a kid; my main exposure to the franchise is from TeamFourStar so my understanding of events is limited) but I like seeing my Steam Community feed full of screenshots of groups of people doing goofy anime team poses.

POS Industries · 03-06-2015, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

my main exposure to the franchise is from TeamFourStar so my understanding of events is limited

You'd be surprised how good an idea that gives you, honestly.

03-05-2015, 05:45 PM	#1
POS Industries Argus Agony Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Gotta go fishing! Posts: 10,483	Dragonball Xenoverse, wherein teen POS finally lives his dreams So earlier this week I picked up Xenoverse, which for those of you not in the know is a new DB game that combines Budokai-style gameplay with MMO-inspired character creation, leveling, equipment, and customization. You play as your own super special awesome mary sue (your choice of human, saiyan, namekian, majin, or Frieza guy) traveling through time and space under orders from Future Trunks and the Supreme Kai of Time to stop a couple ~~sexy~~ evil blue people from mucking around with historical events because one wrong move and the big timey-wimey ball of the multiverse could unravel and kill us all. There's also side quests where you can team up with players online and beat up on various canon characters in alternate timelines or whatever as well as online vs battles and the like. The sidequests (or Parallel Quests) are generally way harder than the story quests and can drop all sorts of nice equipment and attacks from whoever you're fighting, so they're definitely worth doing repeatedly, not to mention the exp is good to make sure you aren't underleveled in the story. Also worth noting: the first official western release of anything including female super saiyans. So that's neat, although the hair transformation effects ended up kinda lazy all around. The blonde is there, but the spiking isn't up to where it should be. The game's main drawbacks are the heavy, repetitive grind involved in the PQs to get cool stuff, the shaky netcode, hardware slowdown on some parts (especially on the PS3 and 360 versions), equipment stats being largely preferential to strike-based builds at the expense of ki attack damage, and a few bugs and lazy design here and there. For instance, almost all the dialogue will refer to you as male even if your character is female. This might have been a coding oversight though because in all of one cutscene my female majin was gendered correctly, so it stands to reason that dialogue for both genders was likely recorded but the triggers for them were coded wrong. Anyway, if you've got 50 bucks to burn on DBZ fanwankery, I recommend it. There's at least a couple of us that have it on PS3, too, so if you ever want to team up and punch saiyans, there you go. __________________ Either you're dead or my watch has stopped.

03-05-2015, 06:10 PM	#2
Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope Definitely NOT a samurai Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Location: Wherever the wind leads me Posts: 5,347	I am lovin it. I am playing as a Namekian who is built like a brick house. So far I am only on Namek. __________________ Lost in the Music ~ On Hiatus Tales of a Torn World ~ World Building

03-05-2015, 06:46 PM	#3
Kyanbu The Legend Local Rookie Indie Dev Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: New Jersey Posts: 5,497	I started to get this but ended up passing on it. Eh maybe I should give it a chance the next time I get paid. __________________

03-05-2015, 07:20 PM	#4
POS Industries Argus Agony Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Gotta go fishing! Posts: 10,483	Oh, I nearly forgot to add: One of the male create-a-character voices is DBZA Nappa, and he is hilarious and you will quote everything he says. __________________ Either you're dead or my watch has stopped.

03-05-2015, 07:37 PM	#5
Kyanbu The Legend Local Rookie Indie Dev Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: New Jersey Posts: 5,497	Ok now I need this game in my life! That is all kinds of awesome! XD __________________

03-05-2015, 10:42 PM	#6
Arcanum Strike the Earth! Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Canada Posts: 3,185	This game came out on PC last week. I have 40 hours in it already. It has a multitude of flaws but I still love the game and am having an absolute blast despite all of its flaws. POS mentioned shaky netcode but it's more like complete garbage netcode with anything related to the multiplayer hub world. I, and plenty of others, just get endless "connecting to servers" messages, and when we do manage to connect we get DCed after 20-30 minutes. Fortunately, there's a hilarious workaround for this. Oh and if anyone cares I made a female majin who is the absolute best. __________________ POS Almighty has spoken.

03-06-2015, 12:59 PM	#7
synkr0nized synk-ism Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: throughout the Wired Posts: 6,861	I'd want to play as an android, probably, but I guess that's a no-go. Let me play as Cell! This actually looks like it could be a lot of fun. I am hopping on a plane for two weeks of business travel, though, this weekend. So I will keep an eye out for whatever you folks post about this and give it another look-see when I return. I mean, the idea of being able to do my own ridiculous ki blasts and fwee-fighting is pretty rad. Takes me back to, like, 1999. I imagine I'd have a good time trying to stomp a mudhole in some baddies. Do you start out super weak, like Dragonball levels, and work up as you level your character? For example, is there a level that would be when you attain Super Saiyan for saiyans, "Super Namekian" like Piccolo did after fusing with Nail for namekians, etc., or do you have those kinds of things as appropriate for your selected race at the start and instead gain more power, health, skills, etc.? ---------- Post added at 12:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ---------- watched a couple videos I'm hyped. __________________ Find love. Last edited by synkr0nized; 03-06-2015 at 12:53 PM.

03-06-2015, 02:43 PM	#9
mauve So Dreamy Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Someplace magical Posts: 6,863	I'm not a huge fan of Dragonball (Not that I actively dislike it or anything, I just didn't really watch it as a kid; my main exposure to the franchise is from TeamFourStar so my understanding of events is limited) but I like seeing my Steam Community feed full of screenshots of groups of people doing goofy anime team poses. __________________ Yoo Hoo!