Hey everybody, just wrapped up Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, an action RPG with kind of a misleading name since you don’t actually play as Kakarot – aka Goku – for over half the game. Or maybe I’m weird because I expected to play as him more? Anyways, it’s fun game with a few issues that I’ll get into shortly.

I’ll tell you this now – you’re probably watching this because you’re familiar with the show, so I’m gonna treat this review like you already have some familiarity with it because otherwise I’m bound to get some things incorrect explaining the mythology and such, and I don’t want that to distract from the points I’m making.

So if you’re a fan of anything Dragon Ball, be it Dragon Ball, Z, GT, Super, the movies, the bright orange and blue outfits that also appeal to Florida Gators fans, whatever, then then this is as close as you’re getting right now to a video game that follows Dragon Ball Z shot for shot. The gang’s all here and the story follows every saga from Raditz’s first arrival all the way up to the final battle with Majin Buu.

And let me tell you, it flows like a fine wine. Seeing this come to life in 3D is a really special treat because the graphics are crisp, and the animation is excellent and it really was fun seeing this all from beginning to end. There’s some items left out for time (which is ironic because there’s other filler in it – more on that later), like Goku’s running down Snake Way, his training in the gravity chamber on the way to Namek, stuff like that. So not anything you’ll really miss per se, but there are lots of parts where he’s gone, you take over another character for awhile, then when you start fighting a boss he comes back and is like “Hey guys! I’ll handle this!” without much more than a quick explanation of where he was but suddenly he’s like 10 times more powerful than before. So that’s a little jarring for the casual viewer.

But like I said, you don’t always control Goku but you do become very well acquainted with the rest of the Z Warriors, playing as Gohan, Vegeta, Trunks, with many of the other characters acting as support characters in your party. You might say “Party? What are you talking about?” Yes, you can have a party of up to 4 while fighting evildoers and grunting while powering up like you’re passing a kidney stone. These characters can give you some help during battle or distract other baddies, and it’s all real time action combat in 3D, meaning you can fly in all directions, zoom towards your enemies, shoot them out of the air and follow up with other attacks, and so on. Everybody’s signature attacks are here and it’s really cool to watch craters form in the ground or mountains get destroyed as collateral damage to what you’re doing.

Being that it’s an RPG, there is a leveling system that I thought was more or less useless in the story sections because it’s not a game that wants you grinding levels out. If you want to blow through the story (and I say “blow through” loosely as it’s an easy 30 hours to clear all sagas) then you’ll encounter parts where you’re evenly leveled with a boss and it’ll still be tough, but suddenly when you’re playing as a good guy who transfroms and exponentially increases their strength, then you’ll tear through a boss 10 levels higher than you regardless. You can still improve your stats through random battles throughout the semi-open world if you want to, but it’s not necessary and mashing the B button repeatedly gets old after your 50th time doing it.

Everybody’s signature attacks are here and it’s really cool to watch craters form in the ground or mountains get destroyed as collateral damage to what you’re doing.

You can also improve your stats through the Community section of the game. This basically looks like a game board with emblems of characters with stats and specialties on them that you drop in each community that’ll do things like up your melee attacks, make the stat boosts from food you eat last longer, and you can level up those emblems by giving them gifts. Moving them up in rank will get you various rewards as well.

One last goodie I’ll mention is the Z Encyclopedia, which basically has lots of cool side info on characters, the main sagas, and collecting items out in the world helps fill the encyclopedia out and gets you rewards from that as well. I actually found all of this more fun to look through than play the game.

So what didn’t I like? Basically there’s not a lot to do in between story sections. There’s some side quests for, well, side characters, but it’s usually helping a character fly around and find some items or some equally menial task. What’s there honestly just isn’t that fun and feels more like a chore. Ironically side quests are typically filler, but then there isn’t much of them. You get rewards in the way of Soul Emblems and other items, but since it’s not the type of RPG where you have equipment or weapons, it’s not really all that interesting to do these except if you’re a completionist. You can also fly around and collect Z orbs but that becomes pointless once you start clearing bosses because you get rewarded a ton of those orbs already, which makes it easy to upgrade your super attacks.

Which, brings me to something else I didn’t like. The super attacks in this are obtained by a skill tree system like you see in most games now. What’s crappy is that all of this stuff is locked for most of the game until you progress further through the story. Want to get Vegeta his Big Bang attack because you have the resources to do it? Too bad, you’re still not far enough in the story that he even knows how to do it. Even upgrading Krillin’s Destructo Disk? Sorry, he’s apparently not ready for that yet either. So in the context of the story itself, it makes sense because they do all train and get better in each saga. But in the context of playing the game how you want, or if you’re like me and you like to stomp every boss you fight because you’ve overpowered your party in advance, you feel throttled through most of the game. And seeing everything ahead of you that can be unlocked later but you can’t even touch it just feels like a tease.

And just a side critique but it’s really weird to fight a boss and still watch a cutscene of your character losing the fight because that’s how the story is supposed to go. Like if I’m somehow pounding Buu into the ground as Goku and he’s Super Saiyan 3, and he’s still saying he’s not powerful enough? It’s just weird and takes you out of the moment.

So ultimately it’s a fun game. It doesn’t have a ton to do outside the story but if you want to basically play the tv show and see the world come to life, this is where it’s at and you’ll have a great time. I still get shivers that first time Goku becomes a Super Saiyan or when Gohan finally obliterates Cell with his Kamehameha, or when Goku makes that enormous Spirit Bomb the size of your mother’s rear end to destroy Kid Buu once and for all. I gave the game an 8, and lately I feel a little lame because it seems like everything I’m giving lately is in the 7 or 8 range but then it’s better than some of the turds I’ve played that are far worse. My critiques taken into account, this is still a very good game.