My brief time with Dragon Ball: The Breakers and its closed network test has left me feeling mixed about the whole affair. I wouldn’t go as far as to say The Breakers is a bad game; however, in its current state, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is best reserved for hardcore fans of the franchise. With assets seemingly pulled and created from the Xenoverse 2 game, The Breakers feels cheap, even for a budget game. These feelings also extrapolate into gameplay, with most actions feeling just slightly off as if they’re missing one or two key frames of animation, particularly regarding the villain characters.
With seven survivors and one iconic big-bad (Cell or Frieza) in any given match, each round in Dragon Ball: The Breakers takes place on reasonably large maps that seemingly borrow and amalgamate recognizable locations from the long-running series. Maps include bits and pieces of West City, the outskirts and several iconic landmarks such as Frieza’s spaceship and swaths of Planet Namek. Dragon Ball: The Breakers’ narrative justifies the existence of these Frankensteind maps by chalking things up to rifts in time, which fits surprisingly well within the Xenoverse setting in which the game clearly takes place.
As survivors, players must repair a time machine by finding keys strewn about the map. These sequences occur in three distinct zones, marked by A, B and C, and then a final Z sequence in which survivors must protect the time machine as it powers on before escape is assured. Survivors have access to basic weapons, which are general purpose and are used to break containers and the like, rather than as aid against the predatory character.
“…in its current state, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is best reserved for hardcore fans of the franchise.”
Thankfully, survivors are not completely useless against Freiza or Cell. They can accumulate energy via items strewn about the map that rank up their hero class abilities, which are temporary transformations that allow survivors to briefly become iconic hero characters from Dragon Ball such as Goku, which allows direct confrontations with the Raider or villain player.
Survivor characters cannot fly but can scale most surfaces à la Breath of the Wild while also having access to grappling gear and other gadgets such as Capsule Core-inspired vehicles that make navigating the map relatively fast. Conversely, the raider character begins each match at their base form, levelling up by eliminating both NPC survivors and real players, ultimately adding a good sense of progression while evening out the battlefield.
Playing as Frieza or Cell feels closer to playing Xenoverse, with both characters capable of flight, ki blasts, special moves and secondary skills that allow scoping out survivors and running away. Unfortunately, the controls in Dragon Ball: The Breakers feel looser than in Xenoverse, which can make for some frustrating moments trying to navigate and fly around the map.
Overall, Dragon Ball: The Breakers is a decent enough idea, but one that seems to lack the polish found in similar asymmetrical multiplayer titles. Time will tell just how well The Breakers develops, but for now, I can only recommend Dragon Ball: The Breakers for those serious about everything Dragon Ball.
