Dragon Ball Xenoverse is a pseudo-remake of a Dragon Ball Online PC game that was never released in North America. The MMO died out a while ago, but Xenoverse resurrects it in a new experience that combines some of the MMO design with a more focused fighting game experience. The result is something that's unlike any other Dragon Ball Z title on the market. Those hoping for a return to the style of gameplay in Dragon Ball Z: Budokai might be disappointed, but otherwise,  Xenoverse is a love letter to the franchise.

Xenoverse follows the story of Future Trunks. After he returned to his own timeline, he was pressed into service by the Kai of Time as punishment for his time-traveling misdeeds. He and a number of other time-displaced heroes form the Time Patrol, and they keep time safe from malicious time travelers. Things go south when a mysterious force breaks time by going to key moments in the past and altering the outcomes. Future Trunks must summon the mystical dragon Shenron and make a wish: Summon a new hero who can stop the timeline distortion the timeline and save reality.

The plot is for Dragon Ball Z die-hards only. The "what-if" scenario only works if you know how things were supposed to play out and how the various characters interact and relate to one another. For those fans, Xenoverse is a delight. It has a real sense of humor and enjoys playing around with the available characters. There are fun scenes that deviate from the norm and would never appear in DBZ proper, like fan-favorite Vegeta getting possessed by the evil Captain Ginyu or a terrifying high-powered Hercules. The only thing that drags down the story is your created character's complete lack of personality. It feels weird to have everyone talking at them, and any scenes where they have a starring role feel out of place. Even some generic dialogue would've helped.

While Xenoverse has a huge cast of available characters, the star of the show is the create-a-character feature. As the game starts, players can choose from one of five races: Earthling, Frieza, Majin, Namekian and Saiyan. Earthling, Majins and Saiyan can pick from either gender, while the two other races are asexual. Each race has a set of customization options and combos and minor variations in abilities. Namekians, for example, can regenerate health while Earthlings gain a power boost when their Ki is maxed out. There's a robust character creation feature that allows you to alter your character's appearance and starting stats. Clothing options have to be unlocked; it's a tad disappointing since it can take a while to get gear you want.

Combat in Xenoverse takes place in a free 3-D environment. Every character has a shared set of abilities. Different characters have different combo attacks, and the exact combos are based on character or race. Special moves are done by spending either Stamina or Ki. Every fighter has Stamina and Ki but uses and recharges them in slightly different ways. These special abilities allow you to do a variety of things. There are classic energy blasts in addition to buffs, debuffs, poses, power-ups, shields, teleports, and a variety of other powers. Every character also has access to Ultimate Attacks and dodge moves. Noticeably absent from the game are the iconic  transformations. Aside from the ability to turn Super Saiyan as the Saiyan race, you can't alter your character mid-combat. It's a minor absence, but it's really noticeable when you consider how central transformation is to the Majin and Frieza races.

The controls are simple, but they suffer from overcrowding the controller. You have a strong attack, a weak attack, a ki blast, guard, evade, and so on. Everything is done with a single button press, and special moves are tied to a shoulder button and one of the face buttons. It works most of the time, but casual players might have a difficult time adjusting to some of the odd control schemes. There are ways to lightly customize the controls, but if you frequently fumble with buttons, you might end up frustrated anyway. Once you get the hang of it, you can do almost everything with little effort. The game has a smooth learning curve, and it's easy to button-mash your way through the early game, but eventually, it demands you either grind levels or master the mechanics.

All in all, Xenoverse is a game about power management. You need twitch skill to win, but what is more important is baiting enemy attacks while conserving your stamina and ki for special moves. It's an interesting gameplay design that plays into the title's MMO-style mechanics. You're not going to use a huge variety of techniques; you'll probably pick one or two attack moves and fill out the rest of your roster with utility abilities and defensive moves. It might be disappointing for people who expect something fast-paced and hectic like the show. It's an oddly thoughtful game when you get into multi-person battles. Many of the online fights boiled down to two players playing passively and trying to bait attacks. At times, you've got to approach it more like an RPG than a fighting game.

If there's one core problem with the combat, it's that it is lacks polish. It's reasonably fun most of the time, but high-speed movement doesn't always play well, and the in-game targeting can sometimes lead to missed shots. The camera can get stuck against terrain features, and that can be deadly when you have multiple enemies pounding you into the ground. There are a lot of small nagging problems that can compound and add up. Nothing absolutely ruins the game, but there's enough to decrease some of the fun.

The other thing that makes or breaks the game for players is the MMO-style design. You have a large hub area with create-a-characters who can join you on quests, which involve going to various places to fight enemies, collect loot and level up your character. The main story mode plays second fiddle to the quests and other side material. Unless you take on the side-quests, too, you'd end up underleveled. You can tackle the quests offline with the aid of AI allies, but you absolutely need to complete them to gain levels and unlock moves, costumes and the ever-elusive dragon balls.

The quests are fun, especially when you're joined by other players, but they're unmistakably repetitive. Many lack original dialogue, and you'll hear the same lines of dialogue a lot. The quests try to mix up the gameplay, but inevitably, you'll fight your way through many multicolored Saibamen and Yamcha. In short, the title has a lot of MMO-style trappings. If you enjoy the idea of a boatload of content allowing you to take on enemies with friends, it's right up your alley. If you just want to play through the scenarios, you may get frustrated by the roadblocks.

Some of the story missions just aren't very fun. Giving enemies advantages can always be a difficult thing in a game like this, but it can get extremely rough. Sometimes it makes sense, like a surprisingly fun Captain Ginyu mission involving his trademark Body Switch technique, and sometimes, enemies can avoid flinching or damage in a way that highlights some of the flaws with the combat system. Some of my least favorite missions involved fight large numbers of weak foes. There are just enough of these bad missions to make the story mode frustrating instead of fun. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the quests more because they focused on gameplay instead of the plot.

There's also a competitive multiplayer mode where you can take your created character against other players. This can be rough due to the lack of balance in the game. Xenoverse has some solid core mechanics, but unless you tailor your character, you can run into some degenerate strategies. People set up to spam high-power, hard-to-avoid attacks over and over can be a real drag to fight. There's still fun to be had, and the competitive community will likely be dwarfed by the cooperative gameplay.

Xenoverse is one of the best-looking DBZ games on the market. The characters are well animated, stylish and expressive. A few look odd, like Kid Gohan standing in for his even younger self, but by and large, they look good. The lightning engine holds back the game because it doesn't play very well with the models and often makes them look absurdly shiny. It does a poor job of replicating the look of the television series and negatively affects the overall visual quality. It's a shame because the core models are quite nice, and the game looks like a dream in motion. The voice acting is solid and includes a number of DBZ vets reprising their roles in both the English and Japanese voice acting. There's a variety of voice choices for your create-a-character, though they're mostly tied to attack cries. My favorite is a cameo from Dragonball Z Abridged's Nappa voice as Male Voice #8, complete with funny attack names.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse is a great game for fans of the franchise. It captures a lot of the style of the show and provides a bunch of content. The create-a-character feature adds a ton of replay value. It's not a game for anyone who's not a fan, but it doesn't try to be. It's mostly held back by a lack of polish in some critical places. With some stronger level design and some additional tweaks to the combat system, it would've been amazing. Instead, it has enough weak points that you must struggle past to reach the fun parts. The core gameplay isn't strong enough to reach anyone who isn't a fan, but DBZ fans will be quite happy with the final game, warts and all.

Score: 7.0/10