Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle

I first got Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle near the end of the Dragon Ball Super tv show's initial airing, whenever that was. I was in late high school at the time and, as my first RPG app game, I gotta say it leaves a strong first impression. It has summons, a rather weak main campaign, events/ challenges to help level up character cards you receive, and the world tournament events that happen every couple months. Off the bat, the game provides you with a variety of characters to use.

In my first summon, I ended up with Super Vegito from the buu saga. I spent most of my early experiences with this game completing the main campaign. Narratively, it's awful but it was all my small team could handle at the time and it just felt right to complete it first. Over the years, I grew my team and leveled up my characters. I remember when I first lost in one of the events. I attempted the Strike Battle Vegeta event and was utterly floored.

I knew I wasn't ready for these more challenging events so I played the story events. The story events, separated from the main campaign, are reenactments of existing stories from the various comics and TV shows across the history of the Dragon Ball franchise. I utilized these to grow my teams and the training missions to level them up quicker. I don't remember what level I was at but eventually I unlocked the hidden potential option.

First of all, I appreciate how the game spoon feeds the player it's different mechanics and features so it doesn't feel overwhelming. It's a problem I've seen in later games I played like this one. The hidden potential option offers to level up your character even further and improve some of their specific deficits. For instance, if your character has terrible defense, you can upgrade that specifically. It takes a while to understand how but most aren't able to when they first discover this feature as they don't have enough potential orbs. This, combined with understanding the importance of forming teams based on existing categories, allowed me to take on the more difficult events.

Though I was stronger, I still had to approach boss fights with a strategy in mind. It kept the game fresh. Before I knew it, I was unlocking characters and leveling them up faster than I ever anticipated. Eventually, I had a total of 15 LR units and I can't even count the number of UR cards to go with those. Certainly over a hundred. By that point, I was so strong that it became boring. I was replaying the same stages over and over again and beating the same boss rushes again and again and all just to own another card with new slick attack animations. I was playing the game less and less often and eventually, I got rid of it. All that progress, gone. I've moved on.

When I first started playing this game, I was intrigued and enjoying the challenges it offered. I loved unlocking a new character and using them in battle. The strategy that makes RPGs fun to play was definitely present in those earlier years of my experience. I even enjoyed the other features such as the World Tournament. But after a while, it just became boring. I don't care about ranks or leaderboards. I don't enjoy replaying the same boss rushes over and over again just for seven specific medals for a character that is all flash and no substance. As a matter of fact, that's what this game has become. It's nothing but flashy animations and numbers. Maybe this is why I don't play many RPGs. It just never was my thing.

It's still one of the better app games but that's based on the fact that the visuals aren't chibi and baby-like and it doesn't require me to smudge half my screen frantically swiping and tapping lake there's no tomorrow. Stay tuned for my Dragon Ball Legends review. It's going to be scathing.