Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2 (Nintendo Switch) Second Opinion Review

Much better character creation sections have seen the light of day, and yet, despite the obvious room more improvement, crafting your own Dragon Ball-inspired hero or heroine is truly a joy, as the final result will always look as if it came straight from Akira Toriyama's pen. It's an even bigger joy to see that character do all those crazy stuff that the various warriors of the series have done on your TV screen - and, yes, despite the lower frame-rate, Xenoverse 2 simply looks as if it came straight from an actual episode. The music is a bit of a let-down, though, especially for a Dragon Ball title, as most of the themes are either generic rock tunes or "RPG-town-fanfares," but, thankfully, there are a couple of tracks that are quite catchy.

Now, whether your character is human, Saiyan, Majin, or whatever, the protagonist of this show will be a Time Patrol member; basically, part of an elite group of people whose mission is to go back in time and fix all sorts of problems in the timeline. This, of course, is nothing more than an excuse for some lame fanservice. Sure, reliving some iconic scenes from Dragon Ball's history can be lots of fun, but it would certainly much better if this tried to offer a completely original tale to take part into.

…and while on the subject of originality, Xenoverse 2's main flaw seems to be none other than the fact that it's Xenoverse "1" all over again. Is this the better game? No doubt about it! However, whether it's worthy of a purchase wholly relies in how much someone who has already enjoyed the first one wants to experience what feels like it's marginally upgraded version.

As for those who are new here, this revolves around exploring a MMO-like hub town (a bore to do so), and doing quests for various NPCs. Of course, whether you talk to a trainer who'll offer to teach you a new technique to add to the pile, or choose to do one of the main missions, it all boils down to entering the battlefield and doing the Superman on the anime behinds of your foes - and, without any exaggeration, everything, from flying, to shooting Ki blasts from your fingers, feels awesome.

As it usually happens in such brawlers, things get a bit repetitive after a while, as the battle scenarios are not that varied as one might expect. The good news is that the skill set of your character can be customised, which, apart from letting you think what "tools" to bring into battle, kind of keeps things fresh… at least for a while. To be perfectly honest, however, most will probably stick to a favourite moveset, and rarely try something else - especially for the second half of the adventure.

Needless to say that the bulk of the fun resides in the online component that pits the player against other custom made warriors. This part becomes even better due to the fact that the Switch enables local wireless fighting for up to six players. Furthermore, due to the platform's design, it's easy to play along with a friend anywhere you want, although the Joy-Con gamepads make battles feel a bit limited.

It's also possible to activate certain moves with motion controls, although the implementation leaves a lot to be desired, as it turns out to be just a gimmick, and not something worth wasting any time with. Finally, on the technical side, while there are tons of loading screens throughout the game, they tend to be a lot faster than the ones of the PlayStation 4… although these could certainly be even better.