I have to hand it to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for tapping into the latent dreams of people who spent their teenage years drawing Goku on their notebooks. A lot of games offer the ability to create an original character and take part in an established fictional universe, but most of them do not allow you to feel like what you're doing impacts the already pre-determined narrative world in any way.
Xenoverse 2, meanwhile, allows you to participate directly in some of the series' most crucial battles, "fixing" anomalies in time to set the stories of the Z Fighters on the correct path. It's like somebody at Bandai Namco realized how fulfilling it would be to be able to play out that one fanfiction you wrote when you were 13 involving your favorite character's long-lost twin brother.
OK, maybe Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 does not go quite that far, but it's still a pretty fantastic concept: You get to make a custom Dragon Ball character in one of five of the series' main races (Human, Saiyan, Namekian, Frieza's race, and Majin) and join the Time Patrol, a collection of colorful heroes who gather in Conton City and are dedicated to the preservation of the Dragon Ball Z timeline. Under the guidance of the Supreme Kai of Time, your characters will travel across the sprawling timeline of the anime and manga series, looking for things that a set of time-traveling villains have meddled with and setting them right. Generally, this involves a lot of the energy-amassing, ki-blasting, and high-flying fights for which the series is known - though not always.
The adventure encompasses a single-player story campaign that takes you through most of the DBZ saga (with a few extra twists, thanks to a crew of shady villains and resurrected classic foes), a whole mess of optional Parallel Quests that can be taken on either single-player or online, or a different set of single-player side quests. The latter has you doing things like fighting for a faction in Frieza's army or training to be the next Great Saiyaman, and training sessions with DBZ heroes and villains that can teach you new skills. To round things out, you can play multiplayer fights versus the CPU, local friends, or online opponents. Suffice to say, Xenoverse 2 is jam-packed with both on and offline content.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter how much content there is if the game isn’t fun to play. Fortunately, Xenoverse 2 has a solid--if not particularly deep--fighting engine that provides a good foundation for the rest of the game to build upon. The controls feel solid and responsive, and the default button layout allows easy access to all your normal and special attacks, as well as crucial guarding and dodging maneuvers when necessary. You can customize your warrior with special gear, helpful consumable items, and a set of combat skills you purchase, acquire in quests, or learn through personal training. By equipping a custom loadout and using the special abilities innate to each individual race, you’ll develop a fighter that both looks and fights the way you like in a way that feels fun and rewarding.
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