MadCap's Game Reviews - "Dragon Ball Xenoverse - Resurrection of F"

Ooooh, another week of Xenoverse! Can I do nothing outside the realms of Dragon Ball anymore? I can, but as the things keep coming out, I'm gonna keep reviewing them so nobody can accuse me of not being current - after all, my only other options are a TV show from the 90s and the occasional summer blockbuster whenever I get the determination to actually go to the movies - and thus we are brought to the meal today, Xenovverse's brand new "Resurrection of F" pack.

It seems that the Dragon Ball universe's resurge in popularity that began with TeamFourStar beginning Dragon Ball Z Abridged that seemingly culminated in the release of the full length feature "Battle of the Gods" is ready for a Second Coming with the release of the new movie - "Resurrection F". Who's revived? You already know, everyone's favorite shapeshifting space tyrant. Freeza is back and is none too happy about having been on Namek when it asploded after five minutes and then sliced and diced by Future Trunks.

Also, while in Hell, he learned a new mode he can transform into - A "Golden Freeza" mode. To combat him and save the Earth, Goku and Vegeta must unlock the power of the blue haired "Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan", and without it - the Earth is doomed!

Of course, that's an accurate summation of the movie as far as American audiences know, not the DLC pack we've come to hear about. And it's...kind of underwhelming, really. You unlock the playable characters of Goku and Vegeta as their Blue-per Saiyan modes, Freeza as the Golden Child, and another character called "Jaco" - a space patrolman who is apparently Akira Toriyama's favorite character ever. One can also pick up the Old Kai and Jaco himself as Masters, some new Parallel Quests, and some new moves, as well as some outfit and accessory fluff. So, basically, the same as we got for the GT Pack, just with one minor difference...

NO STORY MODE!

Yeah, that was kind of a shock for me, given how big a deal the new movie seems to be. I'm all up for protecting people from spoilers, but the only people who really play Xenoverse anyway are the hardcore DBZ fans and they've already downloaded the movie illegally months ago (no, NSA, get away from my external hard drives!), so there's really no reason to put a spoiler cap on things and not bother.  The fluff alone isn't gonna do it, seeing as you didn't bother adding enough content to justify ten bucks from Xbox Live for download. Don't get lazy like other devs would, Dimps! Give us some more meat.

Bluper Saiyan Vegeta paying Freeza back for a life of torment and pain.

That being said, the parallel quests are nice, but some of them have the air of padding about them - particularly the one against Freeza in all of his forms simply to work up to defeating Golden Freeza, I mean really. As if the first Bardock level was not punishment enough in terms of grinding, you throw more of it at the player. It's not challenging, it's just irritating.

That being said, I'm also disappointed that Super Saiyan 3, Super Saiyan God, and the new Super Saiyan mode (no, I'm not using the full name for it, it's really dumb) aren't available to the player. Yes, I know we have to do our best to balance the playable races (except we don't), but setting the player up as an unstoppable badass on the level of Goku himself and then not giving us the goodies to back it up is a little depressing.  There are very easy ways to balance things out.

Super Namekian mode for Namekians...give us Transformation Levels for Majins...and so on...

...but not Humans. Nobody plays humans.

...it's Dragon Ball. Why would you?

Dragon Ball: Xenoverse is now available from Dimps and Bandi Namco for Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, and Steam.

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