My Perfect DBZ Game

[jkid101094]

So with Xenoverse blowing my mind recently I've actually put a lot of thought into how my perfect DBZ game would play out. Keep in mind that some things I want to suggest may not be extremely reasonable. Just keep your pants on and know that these are just my opinions of what I'd try putting in a DBZ game if I was the creative director...and had an unlimited supply of cash but whatever.

1. Big Rosters:

DBZ is a franchise that has a metric fuckton of characters and forms. I'm sure we've all been bothered by the fact that we can't always have our dream match ups simply because of the sheer number of characters in the franchise. Even with larger rosters, some games resort to using alternate forms as separate characters instead of combining them into one slot, whether it be for balancing reasons or just because they're lazy. I say to hell with balance. If I want to fight Whis as Mai I feel I should be able to. Now I'm not saying every minor character should be in a game because that's near impossible. What I am saying, however is that the slots could be used more wisely. Put all of Frieza's soldiers in one slot. Keep Cell, Frieza, Majin Buu and their forms in one slot and really dig down deep for some more obscure characters like Miss Buu or Oceanus Shenron. Every character has it's fans and the more that get thrown in the more people will be happy.

2. Character Customization and Create a Warrior:

So Battle of Z had a really good idea. "How about we let the player create alternate outfits for each character?" I say we keep that feature but expand upon it. BoZ only let you select three pieces of the character and let you adjust them with an RGB slider. For a new game that concept could be expanded by instead taking the character to the CaW screen and letting them adjust clothing, hairstyles and the colors of each. This way you wouldn't even have to program characters like Appule into the game. You could leave it up to the player to create him on their own.

As for CaW itself, have some varied voices, even allowing the player to use the voices of characters already in the game. This way characters wouldn't be limited to custom characters, but also be able to make custom forms or variants of characters already in the game. Ever wanted to see Raditz go Super Saiyan 3? Just make him in the character creator and give him Raditz's voice. Easy as pie. I also think, and I know I'm going to get flak for this, there should only be about 6 races to choose from: Human, Namekian, Majin, Freeza's Race, Whatever the Hell Cell is Considered and Shenron (more specifically Omega Shenron). I feel these are different enough in look and general abilities that they will go hand in hand with my next point: Race Creation.

Now before you go all crazy on my let me explain; just give the player some basic face and body morphing features and allow them to change the name of the race if it's displayed anywhere in-game. Allowing the player to do this in the mode itself makes it so new races won't even need to be saved and will allow players to modify their character even further to their liking. From there give the player other basic features like being able to change hair, clothes, facial features, gender and voice; preferably even with a pitch shifter to make the voice even more unique.

Now a suggestion I hear a lot is, "If we're a saiyan, let us edit our super forms, or if we're Majin let us make a skinny variation" and to that I say:

NO NO NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO.

Why? Because what that suggests is that every race would have their own predetermined forms. This kind of kills the point of making a character all your own. Instead I suggest giving each custom character about five unique 'slots'. These slots could directly tie into other custom characters. For an example of what I mean, say I make a character named 'jkid'. jkid is a human female character but I want her to go Super Saiyan so I make another character called 'jkid (SSJ)'. I then go back to jkid and scroll down to a "Transformations" section where I assign jkid (SSJ) as one of her transformations. I then go back to jkid (SSJ) and see that in her transformation section it lists jkid as a previous form. The game now allows me to edit her stats, starting at whatever jkid's is as the base. Since they are now recognized by the game as the same character they now appear in the same character select slot together as well as jkid having the option to transform mid battle.

Here's where the fun comes in, though. You could also use this system to make unique transformations that don't exist in the DBZ universe. Say I want to make jkid able to shape shift into a copy of Goku. I would simply go into the CaW mode, make a copy of Goku with some visual differences to tell them apart, set everything else to be the same as Goku's and name it jkid (Goku). Then I assign the new form to jkid and vice-versa with jkid (Goku) so that now the two can switch back and forth. I can even take the idea farther and make a jkid (Goku SSJ) character and assign it to jkid (Goku) so that it can only be transformed into while jkid is copying Goku.

This system could also allow for fusions by simply creating the result of the fusion and assigning it to one of the base characters. To avoid problems with the Fusion Dance animation not syncing up with characters of different heights the Potara Earings could be used instead. Since the transformation would only last until the end of the battle anyway there would be no problem with the fusions lasting forever like they do in the anime.

You could even one-up the system by accessing it from a Create a Skill mode as opposed to the Create a Warrior mode so that characters already on the roster could benefit from them as well without actually changing the base character's information. This would allow sillier things like Majin Buu fusing with Android 19 to be possible. Add to this the ability to create attack skills like Ki Blasts and Spirit Bomb deviants and literally anything would be possible.

3. Create a Story:

Create a Story would give the game a much longer life-span as What-If scenarios and scenarios featuring created characters could give the player countless new experiences. It could be a simple mode where you assign scenes and fights in the fashion of a timeline and assign text (without voice overs, obviously) to various characters involved. For a better idea of what I'm describing take a look at WWE's Create a Story mode and replace the cutscenes with ones similar to Supersonic Heroes. This would be an easy mode to create and a fun one to play.

4. Online Community Creations:

To wrap everything together in a nice, tight package allow for the download of community creations. Simply have a server hold uploaded content and allow the players to download other player's content for free. This would allow even players without a creative bone in their bodies to experience the full extent of the aforementioned modes without ever making anything themselves. This would also allow DBZ veterans to download well-made characters that the dev team may have forgotten about. This would allow every player to have access to a virtually endless stream of content and expand the game's lifespan tenfold.

5. Choose Your Own Story:

Of course fan stories aren't always great and have much less resources put behind them than anything official so a branching story line would scratch the itch of every DBZ fan wanting something new. Let the player assign roles to specific characters in each of the game's sagas. Want Raditz to be the Saiyan sent to Earth and Broly to come with Nappa to kill him? Just assign Raditz to Goku's role and Broly to Vegeta's and play through the DBZ storyline we all know and love with different twists depending on the characters you've chosen. Of course this is a massive undertaking as assigning characters like Krillin to role's like Frieza's would require a TON of new lines to be recorded so a branching storyline like what Xenoverse appears to be doing would be great as well. This might not even be possible without a serious amount of programming if characters don't all share the same rig which isn't very doubtful.

6. Unique or Good Gameplay:

I've never played Battle of Z but what I've seen looks like a step in the right direction. Remove the respawn aspect of the game and allow for any combination of team battles (2 on 4, 1 on 1, ect) and you already have a pretty solid system. Just add a Free Battle mode and I'm sure everyone will be happy.

Closing Thoughts:

So this is just what I'd like to see in a DBZ game, but what about you? I really have nothing left to say but questions and comments are appreciated. Thank you for reading this massive post and let's hope Xenoverse doesn't let us down as badly as UT did.

[shadowDOESrock]

Battle of Z's gameplay is "fucking shit".

And I dont think Shenrons should be able to create shenrons.
Even if it's just a silly fan character, that kind of defeats their unique purpose / status.

And there were similar silly fusions were in Budokai 3, I think

But s' a cool idea.

[jkid101094]

Battle of Z's gameplay is "fucking shit".

Is it really? I never played it but I was thinking about renting it.

And I dont think Shenrons should be able to create shenrons.
Even if it's just a silly fan character, that kind of defeats their unique purpose / status.

The same could be said about whatever Cell is and yet there is a character in DBH that looks exactly like him and also Cell-X in DBO. I don't think it's that much of a problem.

And there were similar silly fusions were in Budokai 3, I think

Yeah, but creating your own would still be fun.

[shadowDOESrock]

Is it really? I never played it but I was thinking about renting it.

There's a Demo on PSN.

The same could be said about whatever Cell is and yet there is a character in DBH that looks exactly like him and also Cell-X in DBO. I don't think it's that much of a problem.

Cell is just an android created by Gero. You could create millions the like of him, while the Shenrons are supposed to be very specific spirites.

[jkid101094]

There's a Demo on PSN.

I'm aware, I'm just extremely lazy.

Cell is just an android created by Gero. You could create millions the like of him, while the Shenrons are supposed to be very specific spirites.

Well you could honestly replace Shenrons with any race in the series. I'm just thinking though that they're one of the more unique ones.

[shadowDOESrock]

I'm aware, I'm just extremely lazy.
Well you could honestly replace Shenrons with any race in the series. I'm just thinking though that they're one of the more unique ones.

You could have the Tuffles (Baby) and Heras (Zangya, Bojack)

[jkid101094]

They both seem closer to humans than anything original.