'Dragon Ball FighterZ's Story Mode Has Anime Fans Feeling Jealous
02/02/2018 10:53 pm EST
There's A Story Mode?
One of the biggest draws of Dragon Ball FighterZ for non-fighting games fans, other than its picture perfect recreation of famous scenes from the series, was the story mode. Some fighting games don't go out of their way to include narrative focused single-player content (with most settling for Arcade, Training, and Mission modes), but Arc System Works went the extra mile to include a new original story that fans would enjoy.
The new story, with a new character supervised by series creator Akira Toriyama, is a revelation for fans of the Dragon Ball Z fighting games which have all had story modes which just had players reliving significant events from the series.
What is the Premise?
Taking place in the world of Dragon Ball Super sometime after the Future Trunks arc, but before the initial trials against Universe 11 in the Universal Survival arc, the story starts with every strong warrior on Planet Earth surprisingly pass out.
The player themselves are inserted into the story as a wayward soul that finds themself waking up in Goku's body. Due to mysterious waves that are travelling across the Earth, Goku doesn't have access to the full extent of his strength. But thanks to sharing a body with the player's soul, is now able to fight back against a massive army of clones that have popped up along the same time as the waves.
Android 16 Is Back
One of the major additions to Dragon Ball FighterZ is the return of Android 16 to the series. Much like his siblings 17 and 18 running roughshod over Dragon Ball Super, 16 comes back to Dragon Ball and plays a central role in the game's story. A copy of the first Android and implanted with those memories, the 16 in FighterZ is brand new but for all intents and purposes is the older character.
Initially seen as an antagonist to Goku, he later reveals that he's involved with the events of the story thanks to a need to protect his new creator, Android 21, who is going through her own troubles.
Who Is Android 21?
Android 21 is a new character for Dragon Ball Fighterz designed by the series creator Akira Toriyama. She serves as the main villain of the story and has a mysterious origin. After using the Namekian Dragon Balls to revive Cell, Freeza, Nappa, and the Ginyu Force, she activates one of Dr. Gero's inventions to weaken all of these powerful warriors in order to make them easier pickings to feed on.
But she's far more layered than she first appears, as the player soon finds out the reason she hunts down strong warriors and why she brought back Android 16 in particular over any other android in Dr. Gero's line.
What is the Super Warrior Arc?
The story in Dragon Ball FighterZ is separated into three distinct story arcs. Since the story is non-canon, it allows room for many takes on its central story. To get the full experience, the player must work through three distinct stories with three distinct endings following a different main character each time.
The Super Warrior arc follow Goku, who slowly gets together a major force to fight Android 21. Fighting clones across the world, he wakes up the likes of Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha, Majin Buu, Vegeta, Gotenks, and Krillin in order to face her once and for all. The finale of their story arc ends with all of them firing their best ki attacks in order to combat the full force of Android 21 on the Supreme Kai's planet.
What Is The Enemy Warrior Arc?
The 'Enemy Warrior' arc follows Freeza instead of Goku. In this arc, it's Freeza that wakes up with a human soul inside of him rather than Goku. In order to push out the human soul and prove himself strong against the mysterious Android 21, Freeza fights an army of clones and finds himself aligning with part series foes like Nappa, Captain Ginyu, Cell, and even Goku and company when things take a turn for a worse.
After their initial brush with Android 21 proved to be a tougher fight than they'd imagined, Freeza is forced to take on this uneasy alliance with Goku and company in order to put an end to the new strong threat.
What Is The Android 21 Arc?
The 'Android Arc' is only an available option in Dragon Ball FighterZ's story mode after the player completes the other two. This arc delves more into who Android 21 is, and why she set the story into motion. It also places her uncleanly into the Dragon Ball canon. There are a few lingering questions as to her identity, but the hints here have been wonderful for fans to pick apart and theorize.
In this story, Android 18 is the one that wakes up with a human soul and she, 17, and 16 go on a quest to fight the clones and defeat Android 21. This arc also does a lot to clarify why Android 16 first seemed like a villain, and what he means to Android 21.
What Do You Get For Completing Story Mode?
Fans of the series were appreciative of Dragon Ball FighterZ' story mode, especially since it delivers on just under ten hours of new narrative content. Along with unlocking Android 21 as a playable fighter, the player is rewarded with a good amount of in-game currency to spend on lobby characters, extra colors, and online goodies like titles.
The story as serves as a great tutorial to how the game works, and the fights even get progressively tougher the further into the story mode you get. Along with these extra game-focused goods, fans are rewarded with a brand new Dragon Ball story that could easily fit into the overall timeline. Not only is Android 16's return a big deal, but the new character Android 21 has already become a major fan-favorite.
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