Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Images from Early Development Show a Completely Different Style

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot featured the most iconic characters from Dragon Ball Z in a unique way […]

March 31, 2020, 5:52pm

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot featured the most iconic characters from Dragon Ball Z in a unique way since it was the first RPG of its kind in the franchise, but the style of the game apparently looked quite different at one point. New screenshots featured in a piece about Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot showed a different take on the game that leaned more heavily on a manga style as opposed to the cinematic, explosive one that players ended up with. Some players who’ve seen the latest images said they wished the game would’ve utilized this early style while others have suggested the version we got better suited the game.

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Twitter user KenXyro shared screenshots from a CGWORLD feature that talked about the game’s early development and showed different depictions of Goku, the world around him, and scenes from the game featuring what was said to be a style experimented with in early development. Reportedly for gameplay reasons, CyberConnect2 had to adopt the style that exists in the finished product.

Some early development shots of DBZ Kakarot

They experimented in various styles. But due to gameplay reasons they had to move towards the style that now exists in the final game.

• https://t.co/D3Mj6oU1LP pic.twitter.com/F3OhPaazcO
— 🍎 Ken Xyro | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@KenXyro) March 31, 2020

In the end, they had to go with a mix of Anime and Manga to reach the style that they did for this game.

The development process was broken down to efficiently manage the number of characters and variants that exist in the game.#dbzkakarot pic.twitter.com/HMyySjggUY
— 🍎 Ken Xyro | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@KenXyro) March 31, 2020

The art style drew mixed responses from people following the reveal of these screenshots. While many appreciated the would-be art style for the game, many admitted that the style players got probably better suited the cinematic experience of the game. It’s full of cutscenes true to the source material that are more cinematic in nature, so the style in the finished product seems like it’d be the better option to convey those moments. We’ll never know for sure though seeing how these shots were only from the early development of the game.

While players can’t go back in time to see what other moments from the game would’ve looked different in this style, they can at least now travel back in time within their games thanks to the time machine update that’s been released. It allows players to travel back in time to relive story missions or tie up loose ends assuming they’ve missed any side quests. There’s also some DLC coming to the game in the future that’ll add new characters and more.