Dragon Ball FighterZ

Seems like Freeza can use Sorbet's lazer as some sort of assist.

That was a nice touch.

I do hope Hit, Cabba and Goku Black make it into the game.

Unlike other of Arcsys' DBZ games, transformations - or at least, some transformations - appear to be actual transformations and not separate characters. Freeza transforms into Golden Freeza.

So far, it looks like Cell is a Glass Cannon with less health but more damage output, Goku is (as usual for the Arcsys DBZ fighters) a projectile heavy character, Vegeta (also as usual) does a little less damage but is rushdown/pressure heavy (or as much as one can be exceptional for it in a game where it's the norm), Freeza looks like he has a lot of moves that extend combos in interesting ways, and Buu is an oddball with weird attacks and creative combos. I can't really get a good bead on Gohan yet.

edited 12th Jun '17 4:15:07 PM by KnownUnknown

Interview with Tomoko Hiroki (the producer):

Transformations are confirmed (as speculated previously) and instead of throws, they'll have a "Dragon Rush" mechanic that launches your opponent into the air. They also say the emphasis on aerial combat is what they hope sets it apart from other 2D fighters. I'm loving all this.

I found it interesting she says their goal was to make a game that appealed more to fighting game fans, unlike the previous DBZ games, which usually had an emphasis on going after more mainstream fans of the franchise. I'm curious to see how that works out. I remember Super Dragon Ball Z was created with a similar goal of being a more "serious" fighting game aimed at the FGC (even being released in arcades), but ended up being far less successful than the Budokai series.

edited 16th Jun '17 7:09:09 AM by comicwriter

I think the time is right for a competitive DBZ fighter in this case. A lot of people are rallying against Capcom's fighters of late (though, to be frank, ASW aren't angels when it comes to DLC: they'll sell you a brand new game with minor updates every year or so), so people are looking for other fighters to replace theirs out of spite, or even just genuine curiosity.

It also helps that where Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite completely abandoned the assist mechanic from the last two games, Dragon Ball picked it right up and showed it at the same conference that MVCI was supposed to get an information blowout at. It was kind of hilarious seeing how much Dragon Ball blew Marvel up in terms of hype because of that.

Yeah just looking at the most recent Guilty Gear, there's no way this isn't gonna have DLC. It'll likely just be less absurd than what Capcom's been doing.

The emphasis on Ariel combat reminds me of Arcana Heart, which makes it even better sounding to me.

Plus ASW has been getting better with Rev 2, a version update that's can be downloaded as an addon like Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Although I wonder if Bamco would let them pull that...

I have to admit, as someone who isn't any good at more traditional fighters like Street Fighter and the like, I'm genuinely excited about this game. It looks like it will be a lot of fun.

If it has some kind of story mode and one player content to entertain casual players, I think this will probably be ASW's ticket to mainstream success at last.

It's easily the most lucrative license they've gotten to work with and the first of its kind to get any kind of mainstream attention thanks to E3.

It's really fun how Freeza has his kienzans as an attack, and if you fail to connect with them they will return and possibly hit you instead... just like in the series. Currently, they actually ignore the opponent entirely on the return, without even doing additional chip damage. The video I was watching even had it screw over the player in a clutch moment.

Another fun thing: at least some of the supers in the game appear to be classic Marvel style, in that the character does an action first before executing it unless it's performed in the middle of a combo (and in some cases - like Buu's angry explosion - not even then). This means that just throwing those supers out is unwise, but that learning to combo into them will be a must.

I wonder what the size and breadth of the roster is going to be. Arcsys has tended to stick to only the most iconic and powerful characters before (though they've also had little problem with using movie stuff), but they've also supplemented that by having characters they didn't use as assists, which they won't be doing this time. Still, Arcsys' DB games have never been interested in Dragonball-era characters like King Piccolo, nor minions and such like Dodoria, which sets them apart from the other DB fighters out there, so my hopes are not too high for seeing many of them.

That said, the roster for this one is probably going to be pretty big, so they'll have to fill it with someone. With a 3v3 fighter, assuming a standard eight fight arcade mode and a possibly playable final boss (probably Beerus), that's going to be at least 25 characters. Probably more. Super Extreme Butoden, iirc, eventually had 25 characters, but many of those were transformations - which are part and parcel of the characters in this one.

edited 16th Jun '17 11:49:13 PM by KnownUnknown

Capcom looking REEEEEAL guilty right now. This game looks SICK. And ASW does NOT skimp out on single player content, so I'm confident we'll get something worth playing. I do hope if we do get a story mode it has actual gameplay unlike the Xrd story stuff.

I think it's a pretty safe bet to expect most of the major characters up to Resurrection F plus Bardock and Broly because they always make it. The real question is how far into Super it goes.

edited 17th Jun '17 12:41:14 AM by LordVatek

I've yet to see Super.

But fan demand seems to be that they want (or are expecting) the Blue Saiyans and other powerful characters (like Goku Black) introduced in Super to be in, even as DLC at some point. They also hope that some of the fighters from the tournament arc make it in, particularly the female ones (usually in a "so the game won't be a complete sausage fest" way; I'm unsure how popular those characters actually are).

The character roster seems to be the big question mark of the game right now. Sort of like Pokken Tournament, the cast of DBZ is huge enough that it's hard people to come up with sure hits. Since I've heard that the game was envisioned to be a sort of "dream team" type of fighting game for Dragonball Z, where characters who would never team up in canon can here, I think that means we'll be getting a lot of variance in this game's roster compared to the other DBZ fighting games.

...Personally, I kind of hope for some GT characters to get in, but that's because I really want to see Uub again.

18's pretty much guaranteed for the simple fact that she's the most consistently appearing female fighter in the series.

They'll probably want the two new saiyan girls and possibly Pan as well for the same reason.

IIRC, Arcsys last game had 18 and not 17, which was cool. That said, given the number of characters they'll need, we'll probably see him anyway.

The shoe-ins, imo, are probably:

• Krillin
• 18
• 17
• Tien
• Possibly Yamcha (neither Tien or Yamcha were playable in the last Arcsys DBZ game, but, again, they have a roster to fill so they probably won't be so exclusive this time.)
• Piccolo
• Future Trunks
• Kid Buu
• Gotenks
• Ultimate Gohan (or Saiyaman, if they don't explicitly want to Gohans)
• Broly
• Hit
• Zamasu (possibly - see below)

My theory is still that Beerus will be the unlockable final boss, rather than a regular playable character. Although, Merged Zamasu was practically tailor made as a fighting game final boss - though depending on when exactly this game went into development we might not get characters so recent.

That's still not all the characters they'd need, though. Beyond that, it really depends on what they want out of the game. Are we going to see GT characters? Are we going to see less prominent villains like Nappa, Gero or Dabura? How much of Super or the movies are we going to get? All stuff we can't really say yet.

That said, I wouldn't hold my breath for any Tournament of Power characters - at least not at launch. That's definitely way too recent.

edited 17th Jun '17 11:34:47 AM by KnownUnknown

I'm curious to see if they'll use Future Gohan, and if they'll give him one arm or two if he is playable. To my knowledge, there's only one DBZ game that featured a one-armed Future Gohan, with all other games giving him two arms but making him fight as though he only had one.

Like someone else said, the two Saiyan girls are pretty big possibilities given they seem to have already amassed a number of fans, but the problem is they're still rather new and have yet to display a concrete style or moves.

So if they are included they'll probably be down the line as DLC, like Baiken in the most recent Guilty Gear.

Yea, Kale and Caulifa are still too new to be in the game. Let them establish themselves better and more techniques then we can talk.

Beyond the characters that were already presented, characters that are basically shoe ins are the other staples: Piccolo, Krillin, 18, etc etc.

Beerus, Hit, Zamasu, and Black are the most likely Super canidates.

The real stickler are Fusions.

I can see Kale making it in since all you need for her moveset is to copy-paste Broly's techniques.

I hope Dabura makes it in. He had a surprisingly varied set of abilities.

edited 17th Jun '17 1:33:16 PM by Moth13

Kale and Caulifla aren't just new. They're brand new. This game may be only 20% done, but that's still way too far along for characters who only first got to stretch their legs two weeks ago to be in the running for launch characters.

DLC? Probably. But even so, probably still a ways along. I wouldn't expect them or any other Tournament of Power characters like Jiren to be the first DLC pack or anything.

edited 17th Jun '17 2:52:24 PM by KnownUnknown

Kale's final design was leaked like, what, five months ago? No, more like five months before she was introduced, I think. Depending on how closely Toei et al are working with ASW, and just how much time developing games can take, there's plenty of time and space to develop characters currently new to Super.

Game developers aren't going to base a character entirely on a leaked design, unless you expected them to invent their own character concept for her rather than wait for one to be given to them. Especially when you consider that this game's development has almost certainly been going on for far more than five months.

As far as I know, not even Xenoverse got too much insider leeway into knowing what characters were coming up in Super and how they would operate either - they're not as in the dark as the public, but they still don't have enough to, say, have a character done or mostly completed before they actually appear. And there's a lot less to adding characters to Xenoverse than there would be for this game (no unique animations, for one), which means Arcsys would need even more time to make use of that information anyway.

edited 17th Jun '17 3:17:45 PM by KnownUnknown

Allegedly Greninja in Smash was developed using nothing but concept art and correspondence with the Pokemon Company to make sure they were on track, and Middler from Capcom's Jojo was more or less made from scratch with a new design by Araki he came up with just for the game, so it's not unprecedented.