ESGS 2017: Dragon Ball FighterZ - The Hype Is Real

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I have to admit that if there was one game I was excited to try out during ESGS this year it would be Bandai Namco's Dragon Ball FighterZ. PlayStation had two setups for those interested in trying out the fighting game and I gave it a shot the moment I got inside the event because it was literally the first thing you see together with Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. I played a few rounds with the CPU and the community's excitement for this game makes sense. 

Dragon Ball is a memorial franchise for a lot of gamers for many reasons. When it was revealed at this year's E3, not only do the visuals and animations got everyone excited for the game, the gameplay felt it had the potential to be a game people can enjoy in a competitive sense. It's a 3v3 game that can be a bit overwhelming with so many elements happening at one time thanks to assists and the many explosions from Ki blasts but it has that sense of simplicity to make it fun for fans of the series with a deep system tucked in nicely for pro players in the esports realm to explore. 

With my little time with the game, I was able to easily grasp what's possible when it comes to air combos and how the assists and tagging system works. It's not as similar to the Marvel vs Capcom franchise but it's one of the closest examples for those unfamiliar. During day 1 at ESGS 2017, the game demo only had 6 available characters available: Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Cell, Majin Buu, and Freeza. That all changed when day 2 hit because to our surprise we see the game demo updated now having new characters such as Trunks, Picollo, Android 16, Krillin, and more.

Gameplay footage taken during the closed beta of Dragon Ball FighterZ.

So, I had to play yet again to get a better feel of the game since it had more variety now. In the end, with the number of matches with unknown attendees at ESGS, we found ourselves reacting together with what's happening on screen. The fighting game guy in me stopped figuring out how the game works and started having fun. Memorable moves like Krillin's Destructo Disk and Trunks Burning Attack happening in front of us with accuracy got us bonding a bit for the few minutes we had with the game. I didn't know the guy I was fighting against but we started talking and giving praise to how the game felt and towards the end when we were told that our turn was over we both had a big smile on our faces, win or lose (I lost).

Dragon Ball FighterZ is considered as the most highly anticipated title for the FGC community here in the Philippines., probably for other regions of the world.  System Arc Works (Guilt Gear, BlazeBlue) is making good use of the source material and their style in making fighting games is molding well into FighterZ. 

An open beta is planned to go live sometime in January 2018 before the game's release. Dragon Ball FighterZ will be out on January 28, 2018 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.