What would you do to make the games more interesting?

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What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by AizenYTBR » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:17 pm

I feel the Dragon Ball Z formula is getting more and more boring (in sales it apparently isn't disappointing), but revisiting the fights against raditz, vegeta, frieza, cell and majin buu in every game is already tiring. Assuming you could create some new game with a new idea, what would you choose to do?

I would personally create a completely original story (like db heroes) and make the game in the same style as Dragon Ball Kakarot, with a "versus" mode for playing with friends. I would put several characters to be usable in the game (just like kakarot does, but I would do with even more characters), and release only for ps5, xbox series (S/X) and PC, to ensure graphical advances without having to worry about : "Does it run on PS4?"

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Xeogran » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:31 pm

1. DB Sports (or Olympics) party game with all the perks of DB universe. Imagine throwing Final Flashes during a game of football. Make it as wild as possible. A fun developer team would have a field day with this.

2. Action RPG like Kakarot but going through Heroes stories and with Ground combat implemented. I'm still puzzled how that game for some reason only had aerial fighting when many DB fights start on the ground and only then escalate into air.
As for the story, SDBH has now a lot of arcs and multiple villain groups with their henchmen, and arcs like Prison Planet or Universe Seed would work great for the adventure aspect as well.

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Grimlock » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:38 pm

Just have original stories, that's all it takes. Mechanics/gameplay obviously won't please everyone (I don't like 2D, for me it would have to be 3D games), so don't mind that much. Just make sure to make games 2D and 3D every so often.

You have a lot of concepts and ideas to explore, and take a few notes from Dragon Ball Heroes. That's it, that's an interesting game already!

On that note: I would love a game that goes on to finish what Dragon Ball Online started.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by ObnoxiousNamek » Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:05 pm

If I was Bandai this is what I’d do keep the long term support going for the games you know will sell I.e FighterZ, Xenoverse, Budokai w/e series games. In the down years instead of releasing a switch version of those games release wacky experimental games.

Games I’d like too see since they already did a sort of MVC version with DB characters I’d like to see a puzzle game in the vein of Super Puzzle Fighters II https://youtu.be/2XvXEaD7fA4 .
A DB racing game that’s like a hybrid mix of F-Zero/Mario Kart.

Windwaker styled game going through the beginning of DB all the way to the end of the king piccolo saga.

Since you have more leeway to do crazy things in the Super Dragonball Heroes side of things why not do a tactical rpg similar to the battle network series that was on the GBA.

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by NitroEX » Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:23 pm

A pipe dream of mine has always been voice actor DLC. I stopped playing the games in English long ago but if you gave me the option to switch over to previous cast members like Brian Drummond, Peter Kelamis, Scott McNeil or Saffron Henderson etc, I'd easily pay a premium. Mostly because they've never got the chance to voice any DB games before.

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Thanos » Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:34 pm

Well this goes into a bigger question about what makes the games worth playing to begin with. I think Kakarot is textbook "sounds good on paper, but in execution...". I know many enjoyed it, but I couldn't get past Nappa--this coming from someone who has bought and finished every major yearly release since Budokai 1. There's something almost... soulless about it, whatever that means. Technically, all the elements are there, but I feel nothing playing it and have no desire to return to it. There's a number of Dragon Ball games I could return to, including ones that retread the same story, but something massively misses the mark for me with that game. If I had to put it down to anything, it would be the graphics (very jarringly off-model for most characters especially coming off of FighterZ), the world size (its just too damn big--it's cool to be able to explore the planet in the Dragon Ball universe but when it's mostly empty and only really worthwhile when there's story advancement it just feels like a waste) and the gameplay (essentially a painfully generic variant of the Tenkaichi/Xenoverse fighting style). Booting it up I always get the feeling like I'm starting a game I've grinded 100% on and should probably play something else despite not getting past the first arc.

To bring it together and answer the question, I think the formula could be done well, but fixing those three elements that I mentioned--something that looks as good as FighterZ, with a modest world size (or at least one with interesting things to see and do) and engaging gameplay would definitely catch my interest.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by budokaifanatic007 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:24 am

I think they should do a game that focuses on DB and and Super and have some side quest stories that involve Toriyamas other mangas like Dr. Slump , Sand Land, Kajika , Neko Majin etc. Oh and in the Budokai format(with some over the shoulder elements) :mrgreen:
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Demon Prince Piccolo » Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:32 pm

I'd love a Legend of Zelda-style game following the beginning of OG Dragon Ball thru EoZ, where you play as Goku and get to level-up throughout the game. You're with him as he gets stronger, gains new skills and transformations, and you get to play as him in the blue-green EoZ gi during the fight with Uub. Super and GT story modes can be DLC.
The story of DRAGON BALL starts from the moment Goku met Bulma. I don't really mind the Z, so long as it's understood that it's not the true beginning of the story.

I actually prefer the Goku vs Tenshinhan and Goku vs Piccolo Jr. rivalries to the Goku vs Vegeta rivalry.

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Zephyr » Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:44 pm

I would port DBZ Sagas to modern gaming platforms.

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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Yuli Ban » Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:45 pm

Thanos wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:34 pm Booting it up I always get the feeling like I'm starting a game I've grinded 100% on and should probably play something else despite not getting past the first arc.
Funny, I had that EXACT same experience with Xenoverse 2. I'd boot it up and immediately regret it.


I'm also convinced that Conton City's hub world was the "beta" for Kakarot's open world. I mean, there's about as much to do in it. It'd also explain why the Namek level in Xenoverse 2 was so flipping large compared to just about all the other ones.

As a result, I'm also convinced that Xenoverse 3 (if it ever happens) is going to go the Kakarot route and give us a full open world.

It seems logical. Xenoverse was basically a reboot of Online, so the ultimate culmination of Xenoverse and Online's ideas should be an open world game where you fly around Dragon World with your own CaC.

If that's the case, I wouldn't mind since the whole point is roleplaying as your waifu husbando created character. And I'd hope they'd make it interesting by giving us an actual unique story instead of making Xenoverse 3 "DBZ Kakarot, but with your Steel Donut badly inserted into the events."

Unfortunately that's EXACTLY what I expect it to be.

So how do you make it INTERESTING? Already, an "open world game with a CaC" is exactly what I'd do to make a DBZ game interesting, hence why I led into this. But you can still flub it by, again, keeping the shallowness of Xenoverse 2 and crossing it with the shallowness of Kakarot. Kakarot felt soulless because of just how restricted it was. You couldn't fight on the ground; you were pigeonholed into only playing certain characters; the aesthetic of the game was clashing between Toriyama and realism; the gameplay was watered down Xenoverse which was already watered down Tenkaichi; it had Legacy of Goku-tier sidequests that were all basically the same thing; it may have had the Japanese music but there were only a handful of tracks that ever played— so imagine all that, but now with your original character, Steel Donut.

You can salvage it by using the ideas offered by the Tenkaichi games, including Ultimate Tenkaichi of all things. If that game did anything right, it was that it allowed your original-character-do-not-steal to adopt the fighting style of his mentor. It was completely wasted because Ultimate Tenkaichi didn't have a fighting system to begin with, but the concept was PERFECT.
Now imagine that in an open-world pseudo-MMO like Xenoverse. You can find mentors or even martial arts schools and learn to fight from them, and your fighting style/basic combos changes accordingly. Plus you could get buffs/nerfs to certain special moves. For example, if you're a Turtle School student whose mentor is Muten Roshi or Goku, maybe your Kamehameha has a 10% or 15% damage boost while a Crane School move like the Dodon-Pa has a 5% nerf. Maybe I learn from the Ginyu Force; my CaC under Guldo then has psychokinetic moves in their combos, or maybe I learn from Burter and now I can pull off 15 attacks in a basic combo and run/fly 20% faster. So long as they don't do the "obvious" thing and say that you can only use the specials/ultimates associated with your school/mentor and completely fuck the whole free-form fighting in the ass raw without lube, it could be oodles of fun with a bit of strategy.

If they also went back to the Tenkaichi playstyle, that'd be great. It wasn't the BEST fighting system in the world, but there was a lot more to it than Xenoverse, that's for sure. You did need to time things, learn how characters moved, and whatnot— there were special heavy attacks, charged melee attacks, stunning attacks, jumping attacks, attacks that turned your opponent around, and much, much more. Something like that feels like it'd be perfect for a CaC game rather than the spastic, unsatisfying nonsense of Xenoverse.


And playing into the pseudo-MMO of it, there would be Time Patrollers and Time Breakers all scattered about, and you could go online and interact with other players and fight anywhere in the open world. There certainly would be a lot to do, especially if they nail that customization so that you aren't basically just fighting the same character with a different coat of paint.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Thanos » Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:42 pm

It definitely seems like a largely original story is the answer, at least for single player games. At this point, it's difficult to imagine a format in which the "Raditz to Buu" formula has any tank left in the gas. Maybe that's my issue with Kakarot, at least for those of us who are old enough to have played everything over the past 19 years since Budokai, I think the game would just have to be really, really well done to be worth my time, personally if it sticks so close to the original series.

That said, I'm surprised little effort has been put into adapting the original series (outside of Advanced Adventure and Revenge of King Piccolo)--something in the vein of Kakarot, but for the beginning of Dragon Ball up through Piccolo Jr., would be awesome. Just--not CyberConnect2, please. No offense to them but the game just felt like going through the motions.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Yuli Ban » Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:49 am

That's why FighterZ was so interesting. Its original story felt like an old Z movie in video game form.

This begs the question why there hasn't been a remake of Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans. That OVA was specifically made for a video game.

It's also why Xenoverse has been so disappointing. Part of the hype for it was built around the fact it had an "original story," but that original story was literally "your original character, Steel Donut, is badly inserted into the events of Raditz to Boo" and the extent of the 'what ifs' was "What if [Bad Guy]... was STRONGER and GOFFIK??!?!?!?!?!?!!?!" Nothing fun was done with the story at all except at the very end when we got a bit more done with the Time Breakers trying to take over. No extended narratives that really played with history being changed; just single fights where the Z warriors comment disinterestedly that some ultra-strong Human/Saiyan/Majin/Namekian/Freeza person materialized out of nowhere and then helped them. Then everything' s back to normal, with nothing done to explore how this person's appearance changes history even slightly. That's just disappointing and not at all what I wanted out of "what if" game. Even if I were an 8 year old Japanese boy (aka the target demographic of Dragon Ball), I'd still be disappointed because I'd want to see things like "what if I save Yamcha and help defeat Nappa before Goku arrives?" or "what if we kill Raditz and misdirect Nappa and Vegeta so that Goku and Piccolo's rivalry continues?"
Or even "what if Mr. Satan become a ki-master and he becomes the strongest hero?"

So many fun possibilities that aren't used!
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by sunsetshimmer » Fri Oct 29, 2021 6:06 am

Or just make game that is focused on other series than DBZ.

Something like Legacy of Goku or Kakarot would've worked better with OG DB/GT story imo as they were more adventure oriented.
It's been a long time since we got something about OG DB and the best representation GT got so far was Transformation game on GBA.

DBS obviously can't work as RPG game, but it could get more representation in some fighting game.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:45 pm

They need to do more creative things with the story modes. XV3 should let you save history with the Time Patrol or ruin it with the Time Breakers. For example, you can choose to have Vegeta die in the Saiyan saga and create a new timeline with a bunch of wacky events.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Hulk10 » Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:00 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:45 pm They need to do more creative things with the story modes. XV3 should let you save history with the Time Patrol or ruin it with the Time Breakers. For example, you can choose to have Vegeta die in the Saiyan saga and create a new timeline with a bunch of wacky events.
Cool idea.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Modern_Dingus » Sun Oct 31, 2021 2:49 pm

Dragon Ball games are in desperate need of innovation, but I think a large portion of the fandom is in that awful mindset of stuff can only be a certain way. So the only "right" thing for them to do is take vague concepts everyone loves and add small changes over time that will result in something familiar and new.

We know Dragon Ball fans love:
Fighting
Transformations
What-if's
Cinematic moments

What Dragon Ball fans are tired of:
Z retellings
Odd artstyle choices ( I.e. Xenoverse's plastic )
Censorship
Retcons

So, if we took Xenoverse's Character Creator / Ability to Customize characters from the show, Kakarots Open world, Borrow a lil bit of the team arena combat from Shinobi Strikers ( including new game mods like Capture the Flag / Dragon Ball ) then we use the Heroes / Online angle for manipulating timelines ( that way you could create timelines where Vegeta goes Super on Namek, Tien wipes out Buu, etc. )
Add in the style of BT3 but with ground mechanics similar to Budokai and the polish of the 3d arena combat of XV / Kakarot. I think that's the closest you could get to a "Holy Grail" of Dragon Ball games.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by budokaifanatic007 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:47 pm

I would bring back the Budokai series but modernized. Budokai has to be one of the funnest DBZ games and holds the most replay value in my opinion. With the power of the PS5 and 2-3 year dev time they could make a game that would rival Xenoverse, Just my opinion though. Instead of raditz I think the games should start at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Modern_Dingus » Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:10 pm

Already posted, but Dragon Ball needs a spin-off. Just recently re-watched DBS: Broly, and seeing Paragus in Beetz on a space expedition with laser pistols and needing masks for the environment was super cool.

I'd love a game where you play as Saiyans from the Cold Force Era where even though you can fly and shoot weak Ki blasts, you're reliant on weapons and in desperate situations; the Great Ape form. Then you can go around and conquer and sell planets. It'd be a great chance to give the Dragon Ball universe much needed World Building.
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Re: What would you do to make the games more interesting?

Post by Demon Prince Piccolo » Sat Nov 06, 2021 2:22 am

Modern_Dingus wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:10 pm Already posted, but Dragon Ball needs a spin-off. Just recently re-watched DBS: Broly, and seeing Paragus in Beetz on a space expedition with laser pistols and needing masks for the environment was super cool.

I'd love a game where you play as Saiyans from the Cold Force Era where even though you can fly and shoot weak Ki blasts, you're reliant on weapons and in desperate situations; the Great Ape form. Then you can go around and conquer and sell planets. It'd be a great chance to give the Dragon Ball universe much needed World Building.
This sounds like a blast!
The story of DRAGON BALL starts from the moment Goku met Bulma. I don't really mind the Z, so long as it's understood that it's not the true beginning of the story.

I actually prefer the Goku vs Tenshinhan and Goku vs Piccolo Jr. rivalries to the Goku vs Vegeta rivalry.

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