Review for Dragon Ball Fusions. Nintendo 3DS game, the video game was released on 08/09/2016 The version for 3DS came out on 17/02/2017
There is no more famous manga in the world than Dragon Ball. Akira Toriyama's work has depopulated in all kinds of media, starting from comics and TV, then arriving at video games, cinema, and more varied merchandising (including the inevitable toilet paper). It is obvious that a concept like that of Dragon Ball is mostly suited to fighting games, in fact on every console we see almost only that kind of video game that resulted in the very recent Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.
In any case, it has not always been this way: in the days of NES and SNES (and also a little with the Game Boy Advance), there were a multitude of role-playing games based on the adventures of Goku and his companions, even of a certain quality. Today Bandarion and Bandai Namco try again a tactical and role-playing approach to give new life to the brand and exploit an exaggerated amount of fanservice using the full-scale Fusion system.
In search of the strongest warrior
The protagonist of Dragon Ball Fusions is a character customized by us, as happens on the two Xenoverse games. We will be able to choose between 5 different races: Humans, Saiyans, Namekians, Majin and Aliens. Once we have chosen the external appearance of our hero (which will also affect certain stats in battle), we will make the acquaintance of our childhood friend and rival Pinich. The two boys, very passionate about martial arts, have always dreamed of discovering who is the strongest warrior in the universe, and that is why they collected the 7 dragon balls.
They ask the Dragon God to organize a tournament that can serve the purpose, and unexpectedly this creates a portal to an alternate universe where both the protagonists and all the characters of the Dragon Ball universe from every temporal era end up. After the first moments of confusion they will meet Goten and Trunks, and will be informed by Bulma of the upcoming team tournament which will take place shortly. The protagonist and Pinich split up, ready to recruit members for their group and participate in the tournament. Too bad that various enemies of the caliber of Freeza, Cell, and Broly will stand between them and the much coveted goal.
An innovative battle system
This alternate universe in which we will move is divided into several "zones", blocked by protective barriers that can be unlocked, to advance in the story, only by recruiting enough members who will give us consumable energy of 5 different colors (related to different races). Each of these areas is a collage of parts of the world of Dragon Ball, constructed in an apparently random way and which does not lend itself to the laws of physics. We will find the island of master Roshi next to the Cell Game ring, or the Capsule Corporation scattered in the mountains totally outside the northern city. Each barrier overcome, in addition to carrying on the main story, will unlock various places (then reachable by teleportation) where we can heal ourselves, change clothes, or give life to the infamous mergers that form the heart of this game.
In Dragon Ball Fusions, thanks to a bracelet, we will be able to merge any character (regardless of the power level and thus breaking the limits imposed by the canons dictated by the series), and also get teams of 5 characters. Child Goku can merge with adult Kuririn, just as Tenshinhan can always remain together with Jiaozi forming a single being. This allows for an incredible amount of combinations, especially given the fact that there is a huge number of original recruitable characters from the title in addition to those from the manga universe, bringing the playable warriors to over 1000 units. Needless to say, it is a gigantic amount of fighters, and if we also combine the possible combinations of fusion with this, we arrive at mind-boggling figures.
Cast aside, the combat system of Dragon Ball Fusions it is very original, offering us something never seen before and also quite complicated to explain. The two teams of 5 characters will enter an arena, usually circular or square, at the same time. At the bottom of the screen there is a bar with attached icons of the 10 characters that move from left to right more or less quickly depending on the agility of the individual fighters, determining the order of the battle turns. When the turn of one of our characters comes we will be able to choose between several options, which we will list here explaining the details.
- Melee Attack:
Our character on duty will start facing the chosen target, positioning himself next to it and attacking it with punches and kicks. At this point we will have to choose from which of the 8 corners to give him the final blow, the opponent in turn will choose a corner in which to parry (also parrying on the two adjacent corners). If the parry is successful, the damage will be amortized a lot, otherwise the damage will be full and the opponent will end up thrown back towards any of our companions (who will hit him in turn), other enemies (also damaging them with a billiard effect), or even outside the arena (inflicting additional damage on the enemy and restarting it from the beginning of the turn bar).
This already shows how much of the battle is based on strategy based on character positioning. Of course, during the enemy turns we will be the ones trying to guess which side the enemy will attack, choosing a parry position.
- Aura Attack:
The characters are divided into 3 different groups, namely Power, Speed and Technique. Each of them, for each type of action, has weaknesses and resistances towards another type, in a sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors. However, this is not the only feature that diversifies the various groups, each of them has a different aura attack. Power-types will launch an attack against a single target that deals massive damage, Speed-types will hit an area around the target with an AOE attack, while Tech-types will launch a wave in a straight line at the target that is able to penetrate through the warriors positioned in between damaging everyone.
The basic melee attacks inflict much more damage than the area attacks, but the latter allow you to position yourself in advance in the point of the map that we prefer most, and to hit the enemies for full damage without giving them the opportunity to parry.
- Aura Upload:
Using this option we will skip the turn but will charge the character's aura bar more than it would get by simply attacking or defending.
- Special Attack:
Each special attack, which can be offensive, defensive, or support, costs a certain amount of aura. It goes without saying that each character will not be able to launch special attacks at the beginning of the battle but will have to charge their bar by fighting or using the Aura Loading command.
The battle, as you can imagine, ends when one of the two factions no longer has fighters with remaining life points at its disposal. In addition to what has been said, however, there are two other commands that can be used when filling a special bar: Zenkai attack and Ultrafusion.
With the Zenkai attack, the character on duty will throw himself at the target starting a short "action" session, in which for a few seconds we will be able to hit him with various types of attacks while he will try to dodge and escape instead. The more we hit the opponent, the more the aura of our warrior will be charged, who can then use a special attack with increased damage. In the event that with the Zenkai attack the unfortunate KO is sent, and that the latter has a star icon next to his name, we will recruit him among our ranks.
The Ultrafusion will instead allow us to merge all 5 of our warriors together, starting an action section like the one mentioned above but which will see us fight against all opponents at the same time. Unlike the Zenkai attack, these hits will inflict real damage to the enemies' life bar, and at the end of the time available the fused warrior will launch one last devastating area attack before splitting back into the 5 single characters. It goes without saying that this technique is able to completely change the fate of the battle.
Hoping to have been as comprehensive and clear as possible, we wanted to highlight a truly original and interesting battle system, not that of an unexpected depth, which really surprised us positively.
Technically Dragon Ball Fusions does a great job of using the Nintendo 3DS hardware. The many characters present, as well as the settings, are modeled and animated probably to the best of possibilities, not naturally reaching the level of recent productions on home consoles but still leaving an excellent impression very faithful to the style of the anime. Even the audio sector presents very catchy music and a respectable Japanese dubbing.
The translators have clearly taken, individually, the sentences of the English version, translating them without knowledge of the facts and without considering the context in which they are pronounced, going so far as to make the dialogues quite confusing or translating some technical terms related to gameplay in an incomprehensible way (when an enemy character is recruited, the term "Scouted" is used in English, ie "Recruited", while in Spanish we have a senseless "Analyzed") . If this were not enough, there is something much more serious: often and willingly during the dialogues lines of dialogue already said shortly before are repeated for no reason, instead of what the characters should really say at that moment and thus "overwriting" whole sentences.
Since there is not such a sophisticated or profound story, with a minimum of logic you can still understand what the characters mean, but if all this does not make the title unplayable it certainly makes it very annoying to read. We therefore dispassionately recommend that you use the console language in English while playing Dragon Ball Fusions.
The longevity, on the other hand, is incredible thanks to a story of decent length and then to the search for all the various warriors, which being more than a thousand make the title a sort of Pokémon even more articulated.
Dragon Ball Fusions faces the panorama of 3DS role-playing games, breaking through all the so far irreducible canons of the genre. With a very deep and strategic gameplay that will satisfy all fans of this type, it also winks at fans of the manga and anime using a fanservice based on the mergers between all the characters in the universe of Akira Toriyama. Battles can become monotonous due to their length, even random ones. Putting these flaws aside (perhaps eliminating the language by setting the 3DS to English), Dragon Ball Fusions is a solid, fun and successful RPG. Too bad for the absence of an online mode, but the mere presence of a local multiplayer to fight against the teams of friends is a welcome extra.
► Dragon Ball Fusions is a game for Nintendo 3DS, the video game was released on 08/09/2016 The version for 3DS came out on 17/02/2017
