With the amount of Dragon Ball Z or DBZ adjacent games you’d think that the anime series was still recent. It’s hard to imagine here in Australia it only started airing in 2000, whereas in Japan it was a decade earlier. It’s a series that truly made it as a mainstream franchise, which only got a proper continuation in more recent years. Although that never stopped many games retelling the DBZ saga, more recently the Xenoverse games which provide ‘what if’ scenarios. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (+ A New Power Awakens Set) takes us back to the beginning, to live out the series with an open-world spin. Does it rock the dragon, or does it deserve a place in the home for infinite losers?

Kakarot is a fairly straightforward retelling of the Dragon Ball Z story. Starting from the very beginning and going right up to the end, with the newly added ‘A New Power Awakens’ content. It even goes beyond that and into the Dragon ball movies that came before DB Super (and subsequently made into DB Super arcs). When the game was first announced I was worried they would be just focusing on a few of the sagas, and we’d be spending years just waiting to play through the whole DBZ series. Everything is here and I was surprised with the number of faces and references to the original Dragon Ball series. Some collectibles around the world help fill in what happened, if you don’t look it up online straight away. 

Between the story beats of each arc which take the form of fights, there are side quests that usually have you collecting something or fighting generic enemies. While some of the ‘filler’ episodes for DBZ were fun asides from the main arcs, the filler between the story missions has none of that. Unless you enjoy flying around open worlds and collecting orbs, there isn’t much between the story quests. Given how many filler episodes there were in the unedited original you’d think they’d have plenty to work with. Especially when the story is very selective of what made it into the game.

One thing Kakarot draws attention to is the lack of the titular character. It’s something I noticed when I watched through the whole series a few years ago, Goku is frequently out of action. The series often keeps him out of the way until the big fights, and then once he’s had his moment they need to get him out of action. Don’t expect to be playing as Goku throughout the game, even the moments you figured might be a good chance to have more of him in the game are just skipped over. Although having Goku out of the way does mean you get time with other characters like Gohan, Vegeta and Piccolo, who all provide their own moves. There are even more characters when you count support characters, they aren’t playable but will fight with you when the story allows it. 

I liked how they include episode title cards as they move through the story, even when starting up the game you’re greeted with the ever familiar Cha-La Head-Cha-La- (sorry no Rock the Dragon here). There’s a lot to invoke the series, especially if you’ve enjoyed the original unedited episodes. It was a shame the credits song I wanted to hear (Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Power!) are locked behind an additional music DLC pack. At the end of each of the sagas the credits play, which would’ve been a perfect opportunity to have the original credits music too. 

Flying around the areas you’ll be collecting a lot of orbs. They’re used to unlock and upgrade your moves and give stat boosts. Don’t worry about trying to collect them all, they regenerate. The frustrating part is that there are rings of orbs, and when you fly through them it doesn’t collect them all. For those who want to collect everything you’ll understand how annoying this would be, having to maneuver your Z Fighter around.

I had a better time getting my head around the fighting mechanics in Kakarot over the fighting in Xenoverse. As you move through the story the Z Fighters' powers grow and evolve, and it introduces more to learn. Mashing out combos of physical and energy attacks only got me so far, the block and dodge are vital. Once you start getting to the Vegeta and Nappa fights you’ll be schooled on what happens if you just rely on brute force. Although once you get familiar with the block and dodge, brute force can still get you surprisingly far.

Initially I took my time to grind out fights so I wouldn’t be left in the big fights underleveled. It turns out as long as you can dodge and get out a heap of super attacks, the game levels you up enough to keep the game moving. In the power awakens DLC there’s also an item which helps with an exp boost, the game will warn you that you might unbalance the game doing so though. 

You’ll find training spots on the maps where you can learn new or upgraded attacks by winning fights. It’s essentially fighting clones of Z Fighters, most often more than one at once. It feels quite arbitrary, given other moves are unlocked by progressing the story or become unlockable through the skill tree. It feels unnecessary giving you another hoop to jump through for these extra moves. 

I had written up a whole thing about the community board and soul emblem mechanics, but not only is it hard to explain, you could play the whole game without even touching that stuff. Kakarot has a bad habit of throwing all of these different systems at you early on and the game doesn’t need most of them.

The visuals manage to capture the look of the series in cel-shaded 3D. After a few games you’d hope it isn’t even a concern any more. The action-packed memorable scenes from the series can look so good, it still feels exciting. However outside of those moments there’s a heap of scenes where it feels like a far cry from recapturing the look of the series as two static characters have a chat. 

Kakarot makes the leap onto the Switch with a solid port. The frame rate holds up well the majority of the time and never impacts gameplay. Things can get a little blurry, and it won’t have the same level of detail as the more powerful consoles. Overall I was happy with how it performs on the Switch, and even happier that I get to play this game in handheld. 

Be aware that if you allow your data to be sent to Namco Bandai, it will bug you constantly the second you’re out of wifi range. When the wifi dropped out I had some time where the game would try to find the connection every few minutes. The game doesn’t turn off the setting automatically, it just keeps stopping you mid whatever you’re doing. It’s something that can be stopped, or at least it stopped when I turned off the setting, so just be aware if you’re going to be without wifi. 

If the awkward title doesn’t give it away, one of the big additions with this version of Kakarot is the ‘A New Power Awakens’ DLC. The two DLC packs that are included are based off of the movies Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F. The Battle of the Gods pack is so light on everything, it doesn’t even bother to have a proper introduction. Resurrection F has more to do, although it’s still strange they went with the movie retellings over the Dragon Ball Super versions. You can get the third and final DLC pack based on the History of Trunks TV Special, it’s meant to be more substantial if you’re willing to pay extra for it.

Kakarot captures the feel of the anime, even referencing characters from the original Dragon Ball series. When you’re fighting the story battles you’re getting to relive those story moments, to a point. All the big flashy moments happen in the cutscenes, while the fights never truly change that much besides adding super Saiyan’s to the mix. 

If you’re looking for more traditional Dragon Ball Z instead of the Xenoverse games, Kakarot might scratch that itch. It is coated in DBZ and even original Dragon Ball nostalgia, it’s hard not to get a big smile from the intro music.