Let's Play DB

[ABED]

I'm not a gamer. The last system I bought was the Gamecube. However, I've recently gotten watching "Let's Play" videos on YouTube. What are some Dragon Ball video games you would suggest I watch and which I should steer clear of?

[Cold Skin]

Well, I guess it depends on the kind of things you want to see in those "let's play" videos.

For example, if you're curious to see players going through the stories and how they are presented, here are some specific cases you might want to consider:

- Dragon Ball Z Kakarot tries to retell the original story with new arrangements to make it both welcoming to persons who don't know anything about Dragon Ball and welcoming to long-time fans with slightly altered situations and never-seen-before moments to expand on some aspects that are not really explored in the classic material.
Youtuber / Streamer Jackthebus discovered the story for the very first time through this game in his "let's play", and it can be interesting to see how a person that doesn't know about the story at all reacts to living it through the game and if the game turns out to truly be "newcomer-friendly".
Otherwise, Team Four Star also went through it, and that's probably good if you want the reactions from fans of the original material who know how things were originally presented in the manga and anime, and who can react to how the game adapts it all, what it chooses to alter, to cut short or to develop for the first time, sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worst.

- Dragon Ball Z Fighterz includes an unusual story revolving around a new android (Android 21) and going three different ways, each version of the story bringing its own flavor to it, with events going into vastly different directions depending on the plot version and including unlikely interactions as most previous villains are brought back to life during the Dragon Ball Super era, and forced to cooperate with the good guys in one version of the story.
There is basically a classic "good guys versus the villain" version, a more intriguing "the good guys and bad guys are forced to cooperate against the villain" version and a final "the new character is actually one of the heroes this time" version.

- The Dragon Ball Xenoverse games aims for the "correcting history" and "what-ifs" route. Most of the main story sees external agents trying to mess with the story we know, for example by making Ginyu succeed in gaining Vegeta's body or making Raditz powerful enough to break free from Goku's hold so that Goku gets killed by the Makanko Sappo without Raditz. The player - as the custom avatar - needs to fix those events everytime they get to see a distorted version of the events we know. But after a while, especially in Xenoverse 2's numerous DLC, the story takes a more "Heroes-like" route where a specific character spends his time creating chaotic what-ifs, mixing people and forms that don't belong to the same era or timeline. This leads to unexpected situations, all bets are off in illogical events that are sure to hype fans that love to see paradoxical situations between versions of characters or arcs usually separated by decades. Having Goku reach Ultra Instinct during one of the Z arcs or Super Saiyan Blue Goku teaming up with Future Gohan for a Father-Son Kame Hame Ha against Janemba in Hell is just the tip of the iceberg.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

1) Kakarot might indeed be best as a spectator's game, for its combination of cutscenes and flashy 3D fighting.

2) After that, for recreations of the story, I think of Legacy of Goku II and Buu's Fury, which cover Cell and Buu front to back with some original diversions. But they use the original FUNi scripts, and a sprite-base beat 'em up with a top down view may not be the most exciting thing to watch.

3) The Budokai games are a bit of an albatross in this regard. The two most played, and the ones you are most likely to find being played by someone good the game are Budokai 3 and Infinite World, which have the least interesting story modes to simply watch. Budokai 1 and Burst Limit have a lot cutscenes and Budokai 2 has its cute board game adaptation of the story, but I don't know if anyone worth watching has playthroughs of them. But then as Tekken-likes their battles do not take long to finish anyway and watching someone struggle with it might be half the fun.

FighterZ's story is undercooked, terribly presented, and incomprehensible (three different story modes and we never know where Android 21 actually comes from). It is really just an excuse to get a lot of fun character banter. I'm sure someone has tried to make a coherent cutscene movie out of it. FighterZ as a spectator is best enjoyed for the tournament matches. Budokai 3 has a lot of such play online too.