Dragon Ball Origins 2, developed by Game Republic, follows a young Goku through the anime and manga’s Red Ribbon Army story arc, in which Goku races around the world in competition with an evil army in search of the titular balls (i.e. Japanese cartoons from the 1980s that offer a high degree of nonsensical action, toilet humor, and warped entertainment value).
Presenting itself as an action RPG, Origins 2 would be best described as an episodic overhead action game with some basic RPG elements. The experience is an often-thrilling yet sometimes-mediocre rollercoaster ride, hitting its high points through its bristling combat system and reaching its lows in its lazy, disjointed episode system.
Part beat ‘em up and part dungeon crawler, Dragon Ball Origins 2 features an impressive, well-paced combat system that allows enough creative opportunities to feed Goku’s insatiable desire to beat things up. Traversing through levels, on the other hand, often becomes a chore, due to either weak level design or ill-placed (or non-placed) save points.
While I am a proponent of increased difficulty in this hold-my-hand age of gaming, there’s something absolutely exasperating about redoing the same simple puzzles because of a particularly difficult boss or other sequence that may require a few extra attempts. This flaw isn’t widespread, but it is so glaring at times that I wanted to throw all journalistic integrity behind, quit the game, and review it based on one level. Going forward, puzzles and mazes began to feel a little more inventive at times, but never even sniff Zelda-like proportions.
The difficulty is incredibly suspect. Sometimes difficult only because of shoddy design, Origins 2 doesn’t boast the most fleshed-out or well-designed stages by any means. At times, the game feels fine tuned, other times it feels like someone had a deadline to meet.
On the bright side, a more-than-serviceable battle system distracts from some of the larger flaws. Goku’s arsenal includes a series of light attacks and finishers. The finisher, which is modified by the number of light attacks that precede it, could include an uppercut that leads into an air combo, or a rapid-fire punch combo. When the spirit meter is full, Goku can also unleash his signature Kamehameha blast through a short series of well-timed button presses.
The ability to switch from fighting stance to Power Pole throws another dynamic into gameplay that helps to add a bit more strategy to battles. Perhaps its finest characteristic, combat in Dragon Ball Origins 2 impresses with its never dull, never dry, and never stale attitude. Button mashing will get you nowhere. Along the way, Goku learns new techniques and is able to further extend his combos through a fairly straightforward, rewarding character progression system. This system, while not groundbreaking, staggers progression enough so that each new move acquisition breathes a welcome freshness into gameplay.
Goku, along with most of the other in-game characters, animates with a high degree of fluidity. Very reminiscent of the style of the source material, Dragon Ball Origins 2 does well to honor Toriyama’s original character designs and visual style. Game Republic did a fine job creating a polygonal representation of the manga, Goku especially.
Building upon its crisp, to the point animation (supplanted with nice comic book visual sound effects), Dragon Ball Origins 2 forces a blazing battle pace on to the player, even if enemies don’t seem smart enough to react to Goku’s onslaught. Since enemies’ attacks tend to fly around at random, the inclusion of a quick dash attack, combined with an after-image teleportation counterattack, helps to push the tempo up another notch.
The entire game is episodic in nature; because of this, Origins 2 tends to emanate a rather incomplete and disjointed feeling. With no true world map or even any sense of location, the feeling of adventure so prominent in the manga is lost. Perhaps an open world design with an option for air travel with the Flying Nimbus may have remedied the disjointedness of the adventure. Simply selecting an episode from a menu doesn’t cut it in what is supposed to be an adventure on a grandeur scale.