Feature: What We Want in XenoVerse 2

There was a lot of great games last year but one that came out of nowhere was DragonBall Z Xenoverse. DBZ games have a history of being somewhere between not good and rather good. Xenoverse was the first truly great (yet flawed) DBZ game.

For those who don't know DBZ Xenoverse was a pusdo-MMO (think Destiny) fighting game which saw you create your own DBZ fighter and go all Doctor Who traveling through the DBZ timeline and fight to correct its history. It was pure fan service wrapped in an enjoyable combat and fantastic visuals. After the story was complete there was a whole host of what if missions to be played in co-op and all for epic loot.

There was flaws however; The loot was RNG horror not unlike Destiny's first year, the story skipped out various parts of the series including rather bafflingly the entire Andrord Cell arc (sure it had the Cell games), the competitive multiplayer was pretty broken thanks to Super Saiyan's infinite energy and the entire Z-souls (special buffs and abilities), and finally simply playing with friends was a needless headache of sever cycling.

Yesterday news broke that it will be getting a sequel this year. Here's the trailer and might I say that the art style is brilliant, clearly the decision to limit this one to current gen is paying off.

So we saw some interesting things, lots of things from the anime that the first game missed are back (Namek, History History of Trunks) and what appears to be the generic hero from the first game in hologram statue form and the new player character looked a little the old ones child.

More Story
The story of the first game was pure fan service but did skip random sections for no apparent reason. whilst the trailer showed some more the teaser site actually holds my interest here. The teaser site had various promo artwork for the DragonBall, DragonBall Z and DragonBall Super (the brand new show) shows but also their movies. Another area the first game mostly skipped.

Fix the Saiyans
Not so much for balance, Super Saiyans are ridiculous OP in the shows anyway, there was other issues that annoyed fans.

1. Becoming a Super Saiyan simply meant equipping and using a skill.
2. The transformation only affected your hair colour not its shape, 
3. You could only become Super Saiyan 1-2, you couldn't become an Super Saiyan 3 or 4. (admittedly this would of require the game to alter you characters model mid match) 
4. No tails, this was a complaint of the minority but fairly valid point as almost every Saiyan in the show had a "tail story" except Goten and both Trunks. 

Fix the LootThis was something that got old very fast. Some missions had special requirements that had to be completed for you to get certain items BUT that didn't grantee you actually getting the item. Playing the same mission over and over is expected in this sort of thing but to spend an hour and walk away with 30 Hurcule wigs did not feel good.

Clothing
There was some pretty annoying issues with the clothing in XV, that just wouldn't go away.

1. Remove the stats or lets us customise them all. In the first game clothing drastically altered your stats but the top level gear is based on characters from the show and as such we couldn't make our characters unique (There was a LOT of orange Dogi in online lobbies)
2. Battle damage - seriously this is a staple of the franchise and certainly would add some dramatic flair to battles. 
3. Weapon skills didnt require the player to have said weapon equipped, hurt the immersion somewhat.

Better Balance
Super Saiyans ruled online, that was fine they are Japan's Superman after all. However the Z-soul system quickly turned sour, if you didn't use one of 4 certain Z-souls you had lost the match before it had began. That being said playing as Earthling getting creative with Kao-Ken and Potential Unlocked to defeat the glowing gits was immensely satisfying.

MentorsThe Mentor system was cool in the first title but didn't actually feature much training, it was usually 4 fights spaced out over time. Most of these training sessions was defeat foe in x time, it wasn't overtly thrilling, some missions did throw unique objectives at you but they was few and far between. Hopefully the seemingly younger protagonist means more meaningful training.

Abe's Take
I know there's a fair amount there and it sounds like the game upset us but we really did enjoy the hell out of the first game, It even handled its first two DLCs fantastically (the third one was more a content drop). The game came THIS CLOSE to being brilliant and that's very unusual for Anime games.

So I'm heading off now to pretend to shoot lasers from my hands!