Bandai Namco's pumped out some great anime-based fighting games over the years. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is still one of our favourites, and more recently, the likes of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and Dragon Ball XenoVerse 2 have really stood out. However, none of these titles ever managed to capture the full attention of the hardcore fighting game community. A general lack of truly competitive gameplay balance keeps them away from big tournaments.
The publisher wants that to change with Dragon Ball FighterZ, though. Developed by Arc System Works - a studio that certainly knows its stuff when it comes to hardcore fighters - this latest Dragon Ball tie-in is taking direct aim at fighting game fans.
"Recently we have been releasing Dragon Ball titles more for fans of the franchise," says producer Tomoko Hiroki. "There are still plenty of aspects of this particular game that fans will still enjoy, but that was not our only goal with [Dragon Ball FighterZ]," she explains. Hiroki elaborates: "We're really aiming to create a game that satisfies fans of fighting games as well."
"We hope that this game eventually turns Dragon Ball fans into fighting game fans as well. We created this game with the hopes of achieving that," Hiroki continues. It sounds like FighterZ is going to attempt to bridge the gap between anime fighting games and more hardcore titles, then - but it's still looking to boast enough depth to satisfy more serious players. "In this game, rather than merely using a level up system or a customisation feature, users will have to use their mind, their skills, and their techniques to master the game."
All we know right now is that the release looks incredibly promising. Hopefully it all comes together for the game's launch early next year.
Comments 5
I love that the devs are trying to target the hardcore DBZ fighting fans for this game. I always love fast fighting games, especially fast DBZ games similar to Budokai 3 and Burst Limit. Tenkaichi and Xenoverse are fun with there vast roster of characters and character creation, as well as being arena fighers, but I still have not gotten that satisfied fighting experience like I have with previous games.
I showed my brother, who was insanely good at Budokai 3 back in the day, the gameplay for FighterZ and he said it looks crazy good. I can't wait.
That's what I wanted to hear. As much as I like Dragon Ball, Naruto, or any other Shonen Jump series I honestly can't stand those games made by Namco. I think they went the right direction on this one.
This is pretty interesting to me. I'm a pretty huge fan of both. DBZ Budokai 3 was the game that actually got me super hooked on fighting games.
I dunno how many remember it, but Super DBZ on PS2 tried the same thing, by being a 3D fighter with Street Fighter inputs (The dev team had people who worked on Street Fighter II if I remember right). It's not a bad game, but it was lackluster compared to Budokai and Tenkaichi. Hopefully it goes better this time.
"this latest Dragon Ball tie-in is taking direct aim at fighting game fans"
well that can be a double edged sword, a lot of DBZ fans only buy the games because they are DBZ games, if it's too "hardcore" they may actually put a lot of DBZ fans off
Super Dragon Ball Z tried to do that and even though it's a great fighter it's not that popular among DBZ fans
i hope this is a success because it does look good but as i said with many DBZ fans being more casual gamers it could backfire big time
It is very interesting - feels a lot like a Marvel vs Capcom game from what we saw.
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