Dragon Ball Online Game Review

Dragon Ball Online is an Anime inspired 3D free fantasy MMORPG inspired by, and interpreting the Dragon Ball franchise. Set in the same world as Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, you take on the role of either a Human, Namekian, or Majin and make your journey through the Dragon Ball story – retelling the entire story with you as a focal point.

Dragon Ball Online is an MMORPG adaptation of the incredibly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

It is one of the few Anime MMORPG left currently active, and is one of the few Anime adaptations that were actually done correctly.

Retaining a free to play model, Dragon Ball Online is a fine example of how you adapt an Anime into MMORPG format.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Dragon Ball Verse since I was a kid.
I’m a huge Anime fan – Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z being two of the Anime that I grew up watching – much like the majority of male teenagers at the time.
I remember waking up early every morning to record Dragon Ball Z before I went to school, then coming home psyched up, ready to watch grown men scream into my face for 20 odd minutes.
It was the greatest feeling I had as a teenager, and even made me wonder at times what it’d be like if I was born into the Dragon Ball Verse.

Unfortunately, I was not. And as such, I was forced to watch the Anime and play the Dragon Ball games to sate that need to be a part of their world.
So, naturally, when I had the opportunity to play the official Dragon Ball Online MMORPG I was beyond thrilled.
Being a huge Dragon Ball fan AND being a huge MMORPG fan, my nether regions began tingling at the very thought of what I was about to experience.

With that in mind, this will be my review of Dragon Ball Online Global.
In this review, I would like to go over whether or not Dragon Ball Online Global is worth playing currently in 2018, and further going into 2019.

Right off the bat you’re greeted with someone that looks like teen Gohan during the Cell Saga – which instantly excited me.
“Hey, maybe I can actually have some fun creating my own version of a Dragon Ball character like in Xenoverse”.
Unfortunately, that was not the case, as you are given access to a few very accurate, if not limited hairstyles, hair colors, faces and skin colors.
That was to be expected.
This is an Anime MMORPG after all – and it was released all the way back in 2010, so having high expectations going into character creation was obviously a fault of my own.
Although incredibly limited, you are still given access to 3 different classes. The Majin – like Majin Buu, the Namekians – like Piccolo or Dende, and the Humans.. which I believe have the ability to go Super Saiyan.
So.. yeah, I dunno.
Regardless, having a multitude of races each with distinguishable features at the very least makes for some additional variation.

Man, I cannot stress enough how badly I wanted to get in-game, start flying around, and proceed to begin shooting ki-blasts at everyone, raiding villages, enslaving..
Um.
I mean, how strongly I wanted to jump in and begin saving people, protecting the Earth like our fellow Z-Fighters do every day.
Unfortunately, I was met with some very dated, very wonky controls. It was terribly slow and unintuitive, your characters movements were.. okay, they weren’t bad while wandering, but man.. do not get me started on how bad mounts look in-game.
My lord.
Flying itself looked stiff as opposed to what you see in the console counterparts, NPCs were more or less stationary, monsters were very basic and didn’t really do much.
It was all a little underwhelming, as I had expected the game to play much better.

The combat is another disappointing part of the game.
As I stated above, I had wanted to go out and just mess people up.
I wanted to go on a rampage and destroy everything – or, at the very least, I wanted to be able to fly around and shoot kame-ha-me-ha’s at people.
That was definitely not the case – instead, I was met with slow combat with skills and attacks that didn’t even look like they were out of the Dragon Ball universe!
I mean c’mon – my Namekian was shooting ki blasts out of his STAFF! His STAFF, damnit! Not his hands!
Add on to that the combat was tab-target as opposed to action combat which really would’ve made things interesting, and you have.. pretty much, a generic, typical Anime MMORPG!

Dragon Ball Online utilizes a unique class system. You have two core classes per race, dealing with physical damage and spiritual damage.
Additionally, for each core class there are two optional master classes that give players access to stronger skills and weapons. This makes for a grand total of 6 core classes and 12 master classes.
Like in the Anime and Manga, each of the races are capable of undergoing transformations, such as Super Saiyan, Great Namek, and Pure Majin, that grant them drastic increases in power.
Interestingly, you are only able to attain these master classes through wishing for greater power after acquiring the Dragon Balls.
Although the classes themselves don’t seem all that faithful to the Dragon Ball universe, how you go about gaining access to further classes is.

Following along the traditional Anime MMORPG trope of not possessing a plot in any capacity – Dragon Ball Online really doesn’t do anything to attempt to distance itself from that model.
Granted, the game is only partially translated into English so that makes it incredibly difficult actually understanding anything going on, but from what I gather, there is barely any semblance of a story to follow.
Which is unfortunate, considering the fact that I love plot in my games. To me, it helps drive the reasoning behind existing in the world you’re inhabiting.

Surprisingly, Dragon Ball Online looks great.
Other than looking like weirdly muscular baby Namekians, I have absolutely no problem with the game visually.
It looks exactly like the Dragon Ball Z Anime does – something I’m sure will shock a lot of you.
Especially when you think of how poorly the gameplay is in-game.
I can only imagine how good the game would play if it played as good as it looked. And I don’t mean it looks great – it doesn’t.
In comparison to a lot of other MMORPGs, the game itself really fails to live up to anything more than “okay”.
It’s just that it really captures the Dragon Ball feel that I believe it looks as good as I’m saying it is.

The population isn’t really all that high, but for an Anime MMORPG I wouldn’t say it’s too bad.
We can’t really compare Anime MMOs to non-Anime MMOs as the population differs tremendously.
Anime MMORPGs have never, and likely will never be remotely as populated as their non-Anime counterparts like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft.
Nevertheless, for a game that is only partially translated into English and was released 8 years ago.. it’s doing well enough for itself.

Dragon Ball Online is.. actually, open world.
You’re given a sizeable map to traverse and explore by foot, through flight, or use of a vehicle (owned by Capsule Corp.)
While it’s not a huge game – you are given the option to move around freely and without restriction, exploring what the game has to offer.
That’s more than you can say about most MMORPGs.

Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Online doesn’t offer a whole lot of PvE content.
You have your traditional questing – which is more or less the same as in every other MMORPG.
You have dungeons – requiring you to team up with other players in an attempt to complete said dungeon.
And finally, you have events – which consist of bosses being spawned in a raid-like environment, requiring a large amount of players to take down.

Dragon Ball Online features arena-styled PvP.
You’re able to queue and go into instanced arena matches with 2 other players to participate in 3v3 fights between the Red team and the Blue team.
That’s more or less the only form of PvP available in Dragon Ball Online, but that isn’t a bad thing! It’s better to have PvP – instanced PvP especially, than no PvP at all.

Dragon Ball Online is.. an incomplete MMORPG.
I don’t know if it’ll ever be fully released, fully translated, or.. anything more than it already is, honestly.
Which is a crying shame, as the game is very reminiscent of the Anime.
If you’re a fan of the Anime, and don’t mind the slow combat and inconsistent translations, then you’d probably really enjoy the game.

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz / AMD Athlon 2600
Video Card: GeForce 7600 GT / ATI x800 or better
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 5GB

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Dual Core 2.5 GHz / AMD Athlon II X2 or better
Video Card: GeForce 8600GT / ATI Radeon HD4450 or better
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 5GB