From MORTAL KOMBAT IX to the EVANGELION Rebuilds, and on to TERMINATOR GENISYS, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and the new STAR TREK, there's something in the zeitgeist that's been inspiring all these long-running franchises to start offering in-story time-travel conceits to actually explain their reboots. Basically, it lets everybody have their cake and eat it, too. New fans get a fresh entry point, old fans don't feel like the time they've invested in the series has been ignored, and the creators are able to roll through their own greatest hits without feeling bound to the specifics of the originals.
DRAGON BALL Z takes its own stab at such a set-up, and then goes a step farther by allowing you - - yes, you! - - to insert yourself into the remixed history with your a customizable character. Essentially, it's the Mary Sue feature.
XENOVERSE is a long game packed with several whole universes of game options and ability trees, so I didn't have time to delve too far into it. This is a quick impression – nothing more. If you've played the various iterations of BUDOKAI, you know what kind of fighting dynamic you're in store for. Like most RPGs, you're trading smooth, in-the-moment gameplay for a longer overall experience, and this is definitely a title that'll stretch your $60 investment for eons.
I can vouch that – even if you put the spruced graphics aside – the game play has been incrementally improved, but there's still something inherently awkward about the 360x360 degree flying set-up. It's far prettier than the recent SHONEN JUMP J-STARS (you really do feel like you're playing the actual anime, and not a mock-up of it), but there's still the central barrier point of the XP stats seeming more important than the actual gameplay.
But you know what you're getting into with that.
The Mary Sue option is fun, letting you choose you template from a variety of alien races, including the Namekians and Majins, and then customize his/her appearance from there. I opted for a pink-haired Saiyan girl. There was a lot of unintentional humor when my character awkwardly interacted with DBZ's classic voice acting troupe, and characters like Krilin would break in the middle of the familiar, old story to defer to my character without using any proper names. That's easy to get past, though. And I was already finding plenty of unintentional humor in how this cast was having to once again repeat all the exact word-for-word lines that they acted out 20 years ago.
from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://ift.tt/1zJr6K7
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