Dragon Ball: The Breakers is Bandai’s bet on different gaming genres

The asymmetric multiplayer game genre grows over the years with some successes like “Dead By Daylight” or “Among us” and some failures like “Friday the 13th: The Game” and “Evolve”, the latter which is gradually returning. Then we had the surprise on BANDAI’s side of bringing us an asymmetrical anime multiplayer with the theme of Dragon Ball Z: “Dragon Ball: The Breakers”.

The premise differs and brought us strangeness, after all it is nothing seen before. Animes tend to be overdone with overwhelming powers and magic, how do you bring that into the genre and make it work?

Great ideas, lots of potential, problems in execution

I have some experience with asymmetric multiplayer games, so I was able to get the hang of the game quickly. For beginners, “Dragon Ball: The Breakers” has a tutorial that leaves something to be desired and does not teach you well how to play, which is quite common in this genre, unfortunately. It has a high learning curve that relies on multiple matches and defeats before you really learn how to play it, which may turn some new players off.

The gameplay boils down to two styles, the Survivor and the Invader, with seven survivors in total and one invader.

The Survivor must, as the name implies, survive and escape, or defeat the invading player. To do this he has multiple tools and abilities, among them classic objects and powers of the series, such as the flying cloud, Kaikoken, Saiyajin capsule, among others.

Fundamental to victory is the need to strengthen yourself during the match with power capsules, rescue NPCs, find items and keys, and even temporarily transform into your favorite “Dragon Ball” characters like Goku or Vegeta. Activate all the keys and the time machine and escape, or become stronger than the invader and defeat him.

The invader, on the other hand, must hunt down the players and NPCs on the map in order to become stronger, and can even destroy certain areas of the scenery to limit the exploration of the survivors. Each invader is quite unique in its gameplay: Cell is more ground-based in the beginning with a wide range of abilities, being able to blind opponents and follow his KI; Freeza has his goons to help locate players, and Majin Buu can absorb players into his body, taking them to another map unique to him.

The game uses a Gacha system to get new abilities and ends up being a very predatory system for the player, who has already spent money by buying the game. It is a system used for free games and I think it should not be used in this game, not in this way. The same gacha currency is used to buy clothes and accessories, with the coolest ones being acquired with coins that you buy with real money. The battle pass, on the other hand, can only be progressed with daily and weekly rewards, hindering progression.

“Dragon Ball: The Breakers” is fun for a broadcast, but not to everyone’s liking

In a live broadcast and with friends, “Dragon Ball: The Breakers” can be a lot of fun and bring some very funny moments, but it can be confusing for those unfamiliar with the genre of asymmetric multiplayer. I tested the PC version (Steam) and had to reduce a bit the graphics options to run better in transmissions, some friends also had problems, with game freezing or even closing during the match.

The matchmaking has moments that can take up to ten minutes. This can make the live a little dragged and turn some people away, when you die in the game and have a few seconds to be revived, opens a gap to talk to your audience, but during the game any distraction is fatal.

But it is worth saying that the game is translated into several languages with huge subtitles, which makes it very accessible to watch.

The opinion of a newbie on asymmetric multiplayer games, by AlexandreGaara

As a new player to the asymmetric multiplayer genre, I had quite a hard time in the first few matches. The game tutorial unfortunately did not help in almost anything. I needed tips from a player who had already learned about the game to really start having a good experience with the game.

I have a strong bond with Dragon Ball, but the complexity of learning how to play “The Breakers” took away some of my interest in it.

The ideas are interesting, but I felt that the combat part of the game could be a little simpler, both for the Invader and the Survivor. The Combat has very unusual commands for the fighting part. Even being of the Asymmetrical Genre, I believe they could give a little more emphasis to this part of the game, taking advantage of the Dragon Ball theme, which I believe would be the main attraction of this unusual mix between Anime theme and Asymmetrical Gameplay.

Fezudu