"DBZ: Battle of Z" (360/PS3/Vita) On-Going Discussion Thread

[Blade]

I hope it will be something good, I'd like a DBZ game to get an average score of 70% (Metacritic) again, I believe the last one on a console was Burst Limit. I do think if they were to do a really good job RB3/BT4 could get that, but a BL2 would be so much better.

I'll end up buying whatever they release anyway, I always do.

I couldn't care less what the reviews say. I'd just like a good game.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

I couldn't care less what the reviews say. I'd just like a good game.

This. I want to get a game that is not incomplete in content, and it will give me enjoyment even after I finish it. DBZ: Sparking METEOR/Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was the last DB game that gave me this, but now I want something new.

[dbboxkaifan]

Update: 88,518 likes

We're getting really close now to 89k!

[kbrooksgohan]

Tbh I don't want a new series if it means incomplete content. They cannot follow the Raging Blast model or the Burst Limit model. It's time to step it up. That and DLC content as well. They never have any DLC that means something and it hurts the game. They try to leave stuff out and it hurts the game.

[Eddie]

Tbh I don't want a new series if it means incomplete content. They cannot follow the Raging Blast model or the Burst Limit model. It's time to step it up. That and DLC content as well. They never have any DLC that means something and it hurts the game. They try to leave stuff out and it hurts the game.

You'd prefer getting an incomplete game that costs you additional money down the line? Do you really want DLC content that will someday make all new fans getting into the old games receive an incomplete product? That DLC won't be available forever, after all. Look at the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games. They're fun. I'd even go as far as to say they did DLC the right way initially, particularly the first one. That DLC is gone now, though. New fans may not get to enjoy that additional content down the line.

[kbrooksgohan]

No I don't want an incomplete game. That was not the point of my post. I don't want an incomplete game just for the sake of making a sequel. I also think that they need to have better dlc that fans actually want and not just existing characters with boosted stats or dumb recolors.

[dbboxkaifan]

No I don't want an incomplete game. That was not the point of my post. I don't want an incomplete game just for the sake of making a sequel. I also think that they need to have better dlc that fans actually want and not just existing characters with boosted stats or dumb recolors.

They haven't had DLC since 2009 for Dragon Ball games (Xbox 360, PS3). Unless you want to count the special costumes that came with RB2's Limited Edition (2011), otherwise nothing from 2012.



Update: 88,893 likes

[Eddie]

The problem with that is you basically are saying you want an incomplete game. Am I getting old? Is 23 old now? Damn. There was a time when gamers paid for a new game and didn't feel obligated to spend extra for new bikini outfits and cowboy costumes. As I mentioned, there is such a thing as good dlc. In Marvel Ultimate Aliiance, for example, the Hulk was added to the game via downloadable content. The Hulk is a popular character, and licensing issues prevented him from being playable at launch. Later on these issues were resolved. He was added into the game (along with other popular characters), and it was worth it. Paying for content that the developers simply could not create at launch is one thing. The problem is that this is not how a great deal of dlc works. Ever heard of a little game called Street Fighter X Tekken? If you want to know why many people hate dlc, just take a look into that fiasco. Oh, and that Hulk thing (my example of good dlc) didn't work out in the end, either. You see, licenses expire. Activision can't sell that content anymore. Can some kid that loved The Avengers (film) find a copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance for 360 at some garage sale? Sure. Will he be able to play as Hulk? Unless he was lucky enough to find the "Gold Edition" of the game at this garage sale, no. New fans get screwed out of getting the complete experience. Do you want that? If yes, why? Are new fans not valued? Why is it that I can play the complete Super Mario Bros. (which came out before I was born), but some kid can't play the complete version of various modern games thanks to dlc?

In other words, get off my lawn.

[Captain-Sora]

What I want is a release that's actually polished and playable. Having a lot of content won't mean anything if I can't even enjoy the actual game. The Raging Blast series is a good example of what happens when developers decide to not put gameplay as their top priority. Instead, Spike chose to just shove in as much characters as possible without ever bothering to refine the actual game mechanics first. It's not surprising that they turned out so clunky, awkward, and buggy.

Dimps on the other hand had the right idea. Fans give them flack for making Burst Limit only go up to the Cell Saga, but those people don't seem to realize that they were being smart and doing what every video game developer should be focusing on first: the gameplay. True, not all the ideas they implemented were up to scratch and Burst Limit is by no means perfect, but at least they tried to make the damn thing playable. It actually felt like it had a budget and screamed "NEXT GEN" back in the day, unlike RB which looked like something still in the middle of production.

What we need are developers with the same mindset and capabilities as Dimps. I'm not saying that trivial things like beam struggles and Freeza Henchman Number 34 should always be excluded in favor of more important things, but let's save that stuff for later installments down the road after we get the ball rolling with a game that actually works right first.

[dbboxkaifan]

We've finally reached 89k likes with the support of all Dragon Ball fans and whatnot we're going to hit even more than just 100k!

89,000 likes

[Cold Skin]

About the DLC, it should be what replaces the sequels.
So far, all the sequels were only the equivalent of "we've added more characters, tweaked a few things, the rest is the same, yoohoo!!". Sequels were updates, with the solo mode always being erased to making yet another one, etc...

So instead of making sequels that are just updates, spend years making updates on one single game that has a solid, praised basis.
Then complete it as years go by to include every single character, every single costume, every single movie, every single story event, etc...

The Dragon Ball universe is so vast that I don't think it's possible to have it all on one same disc, so it's a waste of potential to start re-making it all and adding a few stuff on yet another disc that had to have the solo mode replaced again because of disc space, etc... Then the first games become somehow useless (see the Budokai Tenkaichi and their "why playing the first ones if you have the last one?" syndrom and the next games might have things suppressed like good story modes, instead of keeping them, expending on them, and adding alternative story mode.

Start by making the most complete game ever praised by fans and critics, and then just add what's left to add as months and years go by, without the need to release another game, just the need to add what was missing until the whole Dragon Ball universe, with all existing stages, characters, events ever possible are in.
Start by making the ultimate Dragon Ball game, then make it more and more ultimate over years.

Quit updating through discs sold separately in shops and start updating one single praised game on the very same disc everyone would have.

Really, take examples like Raging Blast 1 and 2: you just add to update the graphic models, add new characters, add new stages, add the new Galaxy modes and bonus pictures WITHOUT taking anything away like the Story mode, and change the title Raging Blast 1 into Raging Blast 2 (and the intro).

When you see Budokai Tenkaichi 3, don't you feel like it could have been just Budokai Tenkaichi 2 with an update enhancing its gameplay, number of characters and menus? Like just a big DLC?

And if it had been Burst Limit? Wouldn't it have been just simpler to add the new stages, new characters, new cutscenes, etc... and change the title to Burst Limit 2?

So yeah, I think it's about time they stop releasing games that are just updates of a same series they restarted from scratch and added little more, and start making actual updates that just have them correcting gameplay that needs to be corrected, adding the new content, and not re-work all characters and stages we see in every single sequel. That would buy them some time to only work on a gigantic patch on a game that already exists, and would be less expansive for us than paying 60 dollars for it.

DLC - whether free or not - is the key to expand a game without limit until it becomes more complete, more perfect, or even the most complete ever in a franchise, and that's what Dragon Ball needs once it has a base game that makes everyone quite happy.
Otherwise, we'll never get the elements everyone want: 500 characters, that all have various not-copied moves, a story completely told including all series and movies ever, a whole new story, etc...
The only way to make everyone happy, is to give everything possible, and the only way to give everything possible, is to enhance one single product by constantly building on it without restarting anything over the years, slowly turning 100 characters into 500 characters, slowly turning copied animations into unique animations, slowly adding story events that were missing, slowly creating a new story, slowly adding customization for characters, etc...

[Eddie]

The problem with the "just do dlc instead of sequels" idea is that dlc does not sell very well as time goes on. The more dlc packs you put out, the more you'll see diminishing returns in that investment. You can't expect any business to continue spending money on a product over time when the consumer is less and less likely to buy each successive dlc pack. Look at Rock Band. Official dlc (as in dlc from Harmonix, not the Rock Band Network stuff) is no longer happening. People just weren't buying enough dlc for an all dlc business model to be viable. You're also, again, screwing future fans with that kind of business model as that content will inevitably be gone someday. It's also worth noting that a great deal of people don't even have decent internet connections, making dlc purchases from them unlikely. This is why we are not ready for an "all online, all the the time" console. If I'm remembering things correctly, a great deal of 360s, for example, aren't even connected online. (Over 30%, maybe?)

[VegettoEX]

Comparing an incredibly successful five-year-run of weekly DLC for a music game is not the same as comparing occasional character-based DLC for a licensed-property game.

[Eddie]

That was just the first thing to jump to mind (my brother's a huge Rock Band fan). I know I've heard other companies mention that dlc packs generally sell less and less as time goes on.

[Blade]

I don't have a problem with downloadable content so long as it's meaningful in providing additional functionality or playability that the original release does not already lack to its detriment.

See Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare or the Liberty City Story DLC for Grand Theft Auto 4. Rockstar do it right.

[Cold Skin]

Another solution would be to do it Naruto style: have each game focus only a specific period of the story.
One game for the Saiyans and Freezer, one game for Cell, one game for Majin Boo, but with level of details on story, gameplay, number of characters, specificity of each character and number of stages like never before.

I'm not sure it would please fans though, since their main objective is to have the most characters available possible to basically play with them as if they were toy soldiers...

I wouldn't mind having games that focus all of their data to one single period to make that period more detailled than ever, with a lot of detailled cutscenes, extra optionnal side-missions that mimic all filler episodes of that arc, characters that are exceptionally developped and personnalized, lots of exploration...

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Another solution would be to do it Naruto style: have each game focus only a specific period of the story.
One game for the Saiyans and Freezer, one game for Cell, one game for Majin Boo, but with level of details on story, gameplay, number of characters, specificity of each character and number of stages like never before.

They did that with Dragon Ball when it was still an on-going series, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn't want something like that. They could bring everyone from DBZ, and most of the major characters from the DBZ Movies, DB, and GT in Sparking! METEOR, which was released for PS2, so they should be able to not only do the same, but do even better, with even more characters, stages, and even better gameplay & special effects in a PS3 game.

[kbrooksgohan]

Yeah they can't do Saiyan Saga and Frieza...that would annoy the heck out of people. I would suggest adding in as much content as possible from Saiyan saga to gt. They had two years so ending at the Buu Saga is not sufficient. We've all played that already. They need to fill in the holes and make the story mode fun to play again or at least more fresh. I would like a full dragonball world with flying cars and free roaming on land and sea. Along with training and other fun things to do. They should also have npc's and npc's that are fight-able too.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

I would like a full dragonball world with flying cars and free roaming on land and sea. Along with training and other fun things to do. They should also have npc's and npc's that are fight-able too.

We already have that game. It's called Dragon Ball Online.

[Eddie]

I would like a full dragonball world with flying cars and free roaming on land and sea. Along with training and other fun things to do. They should also have npc's and npc's that are fight-able too.

We already have that game. It's called Dragon Ball Online.

Yeah, what kbrooksgohan is describing here is not a fighting game. This concept really isn't any sort of direct comparison to a Raging Blast or Sparking game. Hell, if we're talking about having cars in the game & beating the crap out of npc's, why not just say you want Grand Theft Auto: West City?