The idea behind Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is, in a word, noble. Instead of creating an experience built around those climatic moments, Cyberconnect2 wanted to do things to celebrate all the series is. To highlight this, the demo features two side quests involving characters super fans might remember.
Nam, a character we first meet during the world tournament, is looking to provide his village provisions. The other side quest involves Android 8. He is another character that started in Dragon Ball, way back when the Red Ribbon army was more than a logo on some androids, who needs Goku to fight some robots because he isn’t a fighter. While more side tasks weren’t shown, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot boasts this and new stories involving forgotten characters.
In addition to revisiting forgotten characters, Cyberconnect2 wanted to achieve the same experience found in the source material. By this I mean, bosses are tough and will give players a run for their money. This is where things start to get iffy.
Unless things change later as you progress or there is something currently missing, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is rather simple. There is an input to jump, charge, shoot, punch, block and a few strings that utilize different commands, just not enough for the duration of these fights.
Regardless of whether bosses have large health, high defense or both, these alone do not make a fight difficult. If you can largely stun lock or dominate the fight, it doesn’t make someone like Raditz, whom you fight at the end of the demo, threatening, it just makes everything feel really slow.
This could and hopefully will change but right now Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot looks to be another anime game, just with more references for fans. For many this is enough, though they need to find a better balance if they hope to recreate the feel of the original fights.
