Ladies and gentlemen, one more Dragon Ball Z game is at hand. That’s right, the Z Fighters are back and not in your stereotypical fighting game. After the success of Dragon Ball Fighter ZBandai Namco is back with another one Dragon Ball Z game, but this time with a twist. The next Dragon Ball Z game is called Dragon Ball The Breakers, an asymmetrical action game. For those unfamiliar with asymmetrical action games, Dead in daylight, Predator: Survival Areas, Secret Neighborand Friday the 13th. So how does it work? Dragon Ball The Breakers compare to other asymmetric survival games?
For our PAX West 2022 preview of Dragon Ball The Breakers, we had the chance to play one round as the Raider (Frieza) and another round as the Survivor. This was my second time playing the PAX West demo. A better understanding of how to play both the survivor and raider roles made the game even more enjoyable. For this appointment, we started by playing the survivor role first.
Survivor
As survivors, our two goals were to survive or help our team escape. To escape, the seven survivors must either defeat the Raider, escape with a super time machine, or escape with a regular time capsule. To power the Super Time Machine, survivors must collect the keys to the fivefold machine and take them to designated areas. Once the key is planted, it cannot be destroyed by the robber. If the raider attacks while planting the key, it will be canceled.
When survivors first spawn on the map, they must open chests to find materials; material can also be recovered by rescuing civilians. Chests can contain Dragonballs, Radars, Senzu Beans, Equipment, and Power Blocks. Power Blocks allow survivors to transform to help defeat the robber. Most powerups only have a short window to use to fight or fly away. Radars help players find the keys, dragon balls, citizens and equipment.
Once the zones are secured or destroyed, players must take either the super time machine or a time capsule. The Super Time Machine must be activated by at least one player and the activation speed is based on the number of time keys placed. Destroy Zones time keys still count towards the grand total. If a player chooses, they can escape in a normal time machine; however, they must maneuver it through the map to escape and it can be destroyed.
During our time as survivors, we were able to link multiple keys and find two dragon balls. Unfortunately we still lost to the raider because of the staff helping them.
Raider
After playing as Cell earlier in the week, playing as Frieza was a cinch. Since Frieza could fly, finding survivors and power-up became an unfair match-up. Frieza can use Zarbon and Dedoria to locate survivors; the two can also take out a survivor if enough damage is dealt. There’s something satisfying about slaughtering the survivors or watching them crawl away for help.
After killing enough survivors, the raider can destroy part of the map. We found that by destroying part of the map where a key was found but not planted. Any survivors still in the blast zone would perish under Frieza’s almighty power. Our time as a Raider was rather short as the survivors were slaughtered in quick succession. Only one key was planted and the last survivor tried to escape in a manual timeship. You know what’s better than slaughtering survivors? They slaughter as they flee in their ships. When the last survivor tried to escape, we managed to blow up their ship. And as she crawled for mercy, we blew up the planet.
verdict
Bandai Namco’s Dragon Ball The Breakers does a great job of combining the popular Dragon Ball franchise with an asymmetrical survival action game. The survivor side may be fined because the Raider has almost all the power. We look forward to seeing how Majin Buu compares to Frieza and Cell. The game as a survivor feels more like bidding your time to death. With one month left until the game’s release, it’s up to Dimps Corporation to fine-tune the game. We had a lot of fun in both roles, but we hope the developers give the survivors extra skills to load on the map with.
Dragon Ball The Breakers will be released on October 14, 2022. The game will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Are you excited about this upcoming game?
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