Review for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission. Game for Nintendo Switch and PC, the video game was released on 04/04/2019 The version for PC came out on 05/04/2019
Dragon Ball it needs no introduction. By now, especially among those interested in videogames (and therefore whoever is reading these lines) it is difficult to find someone who is not also passionate about anime and manga, or in any case impossible to find someone who has never at least heard of this work, to unless you have lived under a stone until now.
Although Dragon Ball anime and manga are so popular, probably few have heard of Dragon Ball Heroes. This is a physical collectible card game never released from Japan, which is played via game room cabinets in which everyone can form their own dream team of characters from the saga to take to the field against an enemy team, simply by placing their desired cards on the game board. The interesting thing is that Dragon Ball Heroes is not just a game, but a constantly changing world: it is a story that continues over time, with new cabinets that, in addition to proposing new sets of cards to be won with each game, even change the "theme" and carry on a real plot.
In fact, Super Dragon Ball Heroes represents, not canonically, everything a die-hard fan would do if he could take the characters from the series and come up with everything, from Broly Super Saiyan 4 to Xeno versions of all the heroes and villains, not to mention epic clashes between two different timelines that see for example fighting Goku Super Saiyan Blue against Goku Super Saiyan 4.
Errors in history
As we said, this is the very first time that the Super Dragon Ball Heroes series has come out of Japan. Although we would have loved to see it in the form of cabinets and real cards, we realize that the era of arcades is long over here and it would have been impossible. A console video game is therefore the best solution from every point of view, and Bandai Namco had the brilliant idea of creating a game complete with all digital papers (more than 1000!) obtainable in game without huge problems rather than creating one of the usual gacha game free to play: let's talk about Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission is set in a world outside the Dragon Ball series, similar to the real world, in which the inhabitants are big fans of the series and play with the cards of Super Dragon Ball Heroes competing in duels and big tournaments ( a bit like it's Yu-Gi-Oh!). However, one day our protagonist, complete beginner of Super Dragon Ball Heroes, will meet a masked man called Great Saiyaman 3, who decides to recruit him into a group that he says is devoted to the salvation of the world.
Initially, the protagonist does not understand, but when one day Cooler appears in the city in flesh and blood to sow destruction, everything acquires meaning. The villains of Dragon Ball are in fact inexplicably taking shape in the real world, and this is due to some mysterious power present within the card game.
This is why Great Saiyaman 3 has developed a device with which it is possible to enter the game, and it will be our mission to correct all the history errors that are mysteriously occurring. When the Saiyans arrive on Earth is Raditz also present? And is Vegeta already capable of becoming a Super Saiyan? These are nonsense that cannot happen in the original story, and are just a few examples of what our protagonist will need to correct to begin to understand the truth behind these strange incidents.
I summon Freeza in defense position!
Some time ago we saw some videos of Super Dragon Ball Heroes Japanese cabinet games, and it all seemed terribly simple and monotonous. We couldn't be more wrong. Every single card of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission from the over 1000 present has different values, different characteristics, and a lot of special abilities, which makes playing this game incredibly complicated in the opening bars. The game in fact puts us in front of a tutorial to make us understand the basic mechanics of the clashes, but also immediately gives us the possibility of obtaining a large number of random cards through gacha tickets, immediately catapulting us into an enormous amount of figures, effects and synergistic moves. that will not fail to put us in serious confusion.
After spending at least some time trying out the simple early battles of the story and studying the effects of our first cards, perhaps you can start navigating the complicated world of this game. Our team will consist of seven characters chosen using an equal number of cards, and the playing field will be divided into four different areas represented by lines placed in succession vertically.
During each round of the battle we will be able to place each of our characters on the line we prefer: the first 3 represent attack positions (the more you go down the line, the less the attack of that character will be incisive, but it will use less stamina to attack) while the last brings the game character out for that turn in order to allow him to recover some of his stamina. Having no characters on the battlefield for a turn or having only characters with no stamina means taking double the damage.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission will calculate the total attack power of the characters to decide which of the two factions will act first. Each attack and defense corresponds to a mini game with an indicator that goes back and forth on a bar, and through quick reflexes you will have to try to stop it as close as possible to the maximum value of the bar itself. Winning against the opponent means inflicting full damage if in attack or parrying part of the damage if in defense, with increased effects if the indicator has landed right on the maximum value of the bar.
Each player, in each round, can have from one to three consecutive attacks depending on the number of categories of characters present, which differ in Heroes (balanced characters), Elite (purely defensive and with low use of stamina) or Berserker (for high stamina consumption and capable of dealing a lot of damage). Attacking, exploiting the abilities of the cards, and filling up the mini-game bar to the maximum will also serve to obtain special energy balls: each card needs a certain number of them to launch its special attack and inflict so serious damage at the time of its assault, if successful. The battle obviously ends when one of the two players runs out of life total.
Technical side under 9000
If the game itself, arrived in the West and on consoles, is like a dream come true, the same cannot be said of the technical side of it. Graphically, the polygonal models are very poorly maintained, belonging to a technology of many years ago. However, this problem is not to be attributed to the game itself, but to the fact that the models are necessarily the same as the Japanese arcade cabinets and that they are part of a saga that has been going on since time immemorial.
For this reason, graphically you could not ask much for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission, however even the audio side makes you turn up your nose due to a few often repetitive music and dialogues that are never dubbed. If graphics and sound are not excellent, however, we must admit that dal side gameplay and longevity Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission gives its best, giving us more than a thousand cards and a huge amount of content, including history, arcade, online and much more.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission is a little gem that no Dragon Ball lover should miss. Very famous arcade game in Japan and arrived for the first time in the West, it offers us everything we could want from this type of video game: all available cards ever created (including promotional ones), a very long and interesting story mode, online battles, a way to create our own cards, and a gacha to get very generous cards. We especially appreciate not having made the title a free to play where we would have to pay any card packs and we recommend to all fans the purchase, whether on Nintendo Switch or on Steam.
► Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission is a turn based game developed and published by Bandai Namco for Nintendo Switch and PC, the video game was released on 04/04/2019 The version for PC came out on 05/04/2019
