Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

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jamiljamtheman
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Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by jamiljamtheman » Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:12 pm

It has been more than 4 years since the end of the Super anime. And yet, within that time since, the games we’ve gotten have largely been Z-focused. Xenoverse 2 has a lot of super content, but in terms of the story mode is more about your created character fighting alternative-timeline Z villains. FighterZ’s initial roster is largely composed of DBZ characters, and its story mode seems like it features more Z stuff than Super. Super DLC characters and forms are nice, but outside of versus mode(s) I wouldn’t call the focus of the game Super. Kakarrot is largely a Z retelling if I understand right, though I haven’t played it. I think it has DLC for BoG and RoF but not much else.

Why oh why do we keep going back to only Z stuff even decades later? Other than SDBH, which I appreciate a lot, we don’t get enough truly DBS-focused games. This frustrates me a lot. Let’s move past RoF, and at least have fun adaptations of the remaining super arcs (that preferably aren’t as unbalanced as the arcade mode in SDBH world mission). Why is there such reluctance to do this???

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Koitsukai
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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Koitsukai » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:18 pm

Good question. Even if someone would say there isn't enough material to make a game out of DBS- which isn't true*, then you have SDBH to complement it, and that series has a lot to offer, in terms of characters and arcs, even if I don't particularly like SDBH. That might even have enough to have its own videogame.


* BoG, RoF, and U6 tourney, those short arcs in "real life" could have several stages in-game, fighting Beerus, unlocking the god forms, fighting Freeza, training with Freeza, training to master SSBKK or the god switch if it follows the manga.
And then the actual game kicks in with the Black arc with several fights and trips to the future, fusion, the future Buu arc as Trunks... and the main dish: the ToP. A good 'ol brawl with 80 people taking part. And the Broly movie, too.
The Moro and Granola, too, have a lot to offer, but it seems that without VAs, they are not touching them, except for that Dokkan Battle thing.

The real answer probably is that now the companies prefer releasing DLCs for existing games, instead of coming up with new games.

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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by sunsetshimmer » Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:08 pm

I'm personally tired of playing the same thing over and over. I mean anime story, DBZ story to be more specific. And a bit more recent games like FighterZ, Xenoverse, SDBH, even mobile games like Dokkan and Legends seem to prefer new stories over the old ones as well. Kakarot is the exception here.

Why don't they make DBS game? Because it's DBS, not DBZ. Majority of DB games were focused on Z. OG series got only few games and is barely appearing in other games. GT only got one game for GBA (i don't count Final Bout as GT game) and majority of games had barely included GT roster.

DBS has the least potential for games from all these series. It's hard to imagine something like Kakarot or Legacy of Goku based entirely on DBS as a full game, not a DLC. They could make a fighting game based on DBS sure, but for what? The same game based on DBZ with some DBS content will always sell better.

I personally don't think Super will ever get its own game. No in its current state at least. And even if they made game called "Dragon Ball Super" it would probably still have a lot of Z characters the same way US called Final Bout a GT game for having some GT representation which was just natural thing in Butoden series as every next game added content from latest anime arc. I think Super is still getting pretty solid representation in games as majority of key characters and forms are there in FighterZ or Xenoverse.
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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Modern_Dingus » Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:21 pm

You just can't bank on it's nostalgia ( yet ). DBZ's universal appeal and cult-like status just makes it one of those things where you can 100% make money off anything you make on it. It's just easier to make a DBZ game, then tack on Super ( and GT ).

My question is where are the Original Dragon Ball games, that part of the series needs an action-rpg adaptation more than anything else in my opinion. Luckily Kakarot's newest DLC will hopefully make the higher ups aware of it's potential.
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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Jord » Wed Jan 18, 2023 7:28 am

There's a much larger installed base for Z content. It's that simple.
Especially with Super turning into a niche brand with only the manga and the occasional movie I can see how games like FighterZ and Kakarot are focussing more on Z.

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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Jord » Wed Jan 18, 2023 7:28 am

There's a much larger installed base for Z content. It's that simple.
Especially with Super turning into a niche brand with only the manga and the occasional movie I can see how games like FighterZ and Kakarot are focussing more on Z.

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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Raki » Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:30 pm

The games will always focus on Z content with DB, the movies, GT, and Super playing a smaller role.
The series doesn't start with the arrival of Raditz. Stop being lazy and watch Dragonball.

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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Xeogran » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:47 am

Besides Kakarot, the era of games adapting anime faithfully seems to be done.
It'll always be mixed in with various what-ifs like Time Patrol, Fuu, Demigra, Android 21 etc. because they sell, a lot at that.
And if they turn out to be very popular, they can be easily canonized like Vomi was.

DBS is a multimedia franchise and it seems like every branch of it supports one another, so to speak.

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Yuji
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Re: Seriously, Where are the Dragon Ball Super games???

Post by Yuji » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:24 pm

I'm unsure either. If it's just the branding, they could title the game Dragon Ball Z and still focus on the Super content. Most people buying the game for the brand probably won't mind experiencing new content.

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Re: Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by Trouser » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:55 pm

Because Super will never beat Z. Also, what we need is a proper Dragon Ball OG game.

But we fans deserve a game like Kakarot with DB, DBZ, DBGT and DBS arcs in it. And movies and DBH as DLCs. But we'll never get something like that.
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Re: Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by Rafa Fast » Sat Feb 04, 2023 1:51 am

Xeogran wrote: Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:47 am Besides Kakarot, the era of games adapting anime faithfully seems to be done.
I hope that's a fact, besides DB, I don't consume japanese animations and comics, so I have no idea what's going on in this industry, specially regarding video games, I just want more DB games with original stories, or at least retellings of Classic/86 DB.
Well, I came late to the thread, but it's interesting to think about it.
Maybe there's "Dragon Ball Super Card Game"?
I think this all due to how the "Dragon Ball" brand works for Bandai.
Let's take a look at the games we got since the start of the second half of the 2010's era.

▪︎2014: Dragon Ball Z Battle of Z
▪︎2015: Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle
▪︎2015: Dragon Ball Xenoverse
▪︎2016: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
▪︎2018: Dragon Ball FighterZ
▪︎2018: Dragon Ball Legends
▪︎2018: Dragon Ball Z Xkeeperz
▪︎2020: Dragon Ball Z Kakarot
▪︎2022: Dragon Ball The Breakers
(Hope I didn't forget to include something that isn't Heroes or Super Card Game)
As you can see, the first two games were released under the "Z" brand, well, at the time, the productions we got, the Gods of Universe duology (BoG nd FnF movies) were also under the "Z" brand.
Apparently, since the start of Z, and due to its massuve sucess, for Toei and Bandai, everything should be labelled under the "Z" brand"
Look how literally every single game released in the 90's til Dokkan Battle was labelled under the "Z" brand.
Super DBZ, Z Butouden, Z The Legend, Z Budokai trilogy, Z Tenkaichi trilogy, Z legacy of Goku, Z Supersonic warriors...
Everything was a "Z" game.
IIRC, the only exception were, weirdly, Final Bout (which in the US, fell under the "GT" brand for some reason), DBGT Transformation for GBA ("GT" brand), weirdly, the Raging Blast duology (they are called Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 1 & 2 for some reason, even though both games only feature Z characters), and of course, the Classic Dragon Ball games (Origins duology, Advanced Adventure, Revenge of Piccolo Daimao...)
So as we can see, Bandai back then actually didn't consider the title "Dragon Ball" as a franchise in overall, but rather, a title for the "Pilaf-23th TB" part of the story.
In their minds, the franchise's title was actually "Dragon Ball Z", this even affected the Toei productions as well.
Even though nowadays everyone consider Battle of Gods and Fukkatsu no F as productions under the "Super" brand, they were originally part of the "Z" brand (which explains the DLCs of the two respective movies in Kakarot as well)

But things seem to have changed when the plan for Super started to take form, in 2015 we got Z dokkan battle.
But a month later, we got DRAGON BALL Xenoverse, a game featuring characters from Z, GT and the Gods of Universe saga. But the main reason to be "DB xenoverse" is probably because of its "original" story (between many quotes)
And then by the next years, only 2 games fell under the "Z" brand, while the rest was labeled under the "Dragon Ball" brand. Xkeeperz doesn't make any sense to be labelled under the "Z" brand, it features characters from all the entries in the franchise. But Dragon Ball Z Kakarot definitely have a reason for it, as it's a game focused in the Z story and characters only.
So it seems that the people of Bandai changed their minds, and now for them, "Dragon Ball" is no more "Pilaf-23th TB", but it's the franchise in overall, and now "Z" is "Raditz-Boo" only.

But event though they changed their minds about the "Z" brand title, they definitely still believe it's the most famous brand of the 5 (Super, Classic, GT and Heroes)
So even if they make a new "DRAGON BALL" game, it will have Z stuff, because it's the best-selling part of the story.
Super is its own part of the story, and not the franchise, so viewing by their perspective, there's no reason for a "Super" game to be made.
Yep, there's "Super Card Game" but it doesn't make any sense for that game to be labeled under the "Super" brand, as it features characters from almost all the entries in the series (Heroes is the only exception I believe)
And, again, viewing by their perspective, why make a game focused in Super's story and characters only, if characters from Z (and GT maybe) can be added?
That's pretty much the reason why there's no "DBS the Game", why make a Star Wars game focused in retelling only a specific movie or part of the saga, if they can retell the entire saga?
The more content, the more profit, that's how it works.
There won't be a DBS saga focused game because the capacity they have to get more profit by making make games with content that goes beyond just DBS stuff speaks louder

Sorry for huge text too.
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Re: Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by Seekeroftruth » Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:47 am

ONE OF THE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH DB Games is the need to constantly keep retelling the same damn story from the manga with no changes or twist to the story. It gets kind of old having to replay the same thing over and over.

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Re: Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by MCDaveG » Wed Mar 08, 2023 8:25 am

I always took FighterZ as more of a Super game with the Super characters being featured in the game roster/Story mode (will get to it later) and some preferences in subsequent DLC like Blue Vegito, Android 17 in ranger clothes from Super... that kinda irked me, as I am more of a fan of classic SSJ Vegito.
The story takes place probably somewhere during Super...

BUT, you are right that from the start the designs and overall appeal was based on Z and basic SSJ was the base...
With Android 18 being forced to wear her classic Z outfit in the story mode for weird reasons, getting back Android 16, Trunks being his Z self... which gets spin on it's head during the spoken lines and reactions before and after the fight (Or Krillin being Android 18s husband pretty much).
FighterZ is a pretty weird mishmash, but still the ultimate DB game for me... Little sad that we've got GT Goku over DB Goku in the roster, but I can see the appeal with his moveset being more interesting. Baby and SSJ4 Gogeta from GT were always weird additions to me.
All and all, yes, it is a Z game basically, with the weird Super crossover inside.

Honestly, Super doesn't really hold up well to Z, which still rides heavily on nostalgia and even Super got affected by it, by switching character designs back to Z after ROF and Universe 6.
I guess that TOEI/Bandai are really afraid to push things forward and do different with classic series' when all of their spin-offs are subpar and don't live long, with exception of Super, that has the original author's involvement (even in games from time to time, to design new character - FighterZ/Legends) and they did play it safe and conservative.
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Re: Seriously, where are the Dragon Ball Super games?

Post by IntangibleFancy » Mon May 01, 2023 8:17 pm

I was just about to make a thread about that because it bugs the hell out of me. Even GT had its own games despite the fact that it ended faster than Super and had less episodes.

The closest thing we have is FighterZ, but does it really feel like a Super game to any of you? It's antagonist and story revolve around one OC and her clones of Z villains. It's even called FighterZ.

BT4 isn't out yet, but if it follows the formula of the other Dragon Ball games, only a small handful of Super content is going to make it into the base game, the rest is either going to be DLC or not added at all.

And it's not like they don't have enough content to make a game out of. There are fights from BoG, RoF, filler where Goku put a hit on himself, filler with copy vegeta, Goku Black, fights leading to the ToP, and the many fights in the ToP. Movies too!
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