[First Impression] Super Dragpn Ball Heroes: World Mission (Demo)
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission is one of the Demos I downloaded to my Nintendo Switch to try if how I like it and put the game in my "to buy" list depending on that. As a Dragon Ball fan, I loved the game and how it treats Dragon Ball world and characters.
Dragon Ball Heroes is a card game franchise that uses characters and concepts introduced in Dragon Ball manga, (and all of its derivate works like DBZ, DBGT, Super.) Dragon Ball Heroes uses physical cars but is played on a special Arcade Machine. (The cards look cool by themselves though.) It's played in Japanese Arcades for many years now. Though for the arcade version, you must own a deck of the cards yourself before (sold separately) to play.
While all of the Arcade versions and most of the video games based on Dragon Ball Heroes were only released in Japan. World Mission got a worldwide release and introduced me, and most of Dragon Ball fans to the amazing world of DBH!
The appeal of Dragon Ball Heroes is that you can have characters from different Sagas of the story fight each other: Young Goku vs. SSGSS2 Goku! Frieza vs. Buu! SS2 Gohan vs. Great Saiyaman!! The game is filled with characters that don't exist in the series Canon but they are dream like existences for the fans!
Super Saiyan 4 Bardok and Gohan might not be real, but God, many of us would pay for their cards! They're not the only cool imaginary characters in the game's roster!
Adding to the last point: You don't need to buy physical cards to play Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission and collect its 600+ different cards! This makes it the ultimate fan-service game for Dragon Ball fans!
World Mission: The Demo
Saving the World? Who cares? I only wanna meet my Hero!
In the SDBH. you play as yourself. You start by taking part in a Dragon Ball Heroes card game tournament, and every one is a huge fan of Dragon Ball. (So Meta!) As you defeat opponents more experienced than you. (While getting a tutorial about the world systems,) someone notices a strange power in you. He's Great Saiyaman 3!
The story starts moving when Great Saiyaman 3 explains about the virtual version of Dragon Ball world to you, and your strange powers. Someone out there is creating an anomaly that affects SDBH world and the virtual version of Dragon Ball characters in it, and the only way to stop them is to find them and challenge them in a children card game!
You decide to save the world because if you do you'll meet Son Goku. (Yeah, the player character only cares about meeting DBZ characters.
The gameplay however, is hard to explain... Each player uses a deck consisting of 7 Cards. These cards determine your teams HP and can't be changed mid battle. The actual battle consists of turns in which the player with stronger power level does the more damage.
You can put each of your fighters to fight or rest for that turn. When a fight start you play a bunch of simple mini-games to enhance your power level, (and I'm very bad at them.) *This part of the game makes it feel like you're controlling actual characters instead of making the cards fight for you!
Fighting depletes stamina and resting recovers it. Characters lose a huge chunk of their power levels when they don't have stamina. Each card also have a special effect that works in conjuncture with other cards depending on which area of the field they are placed. So the whole battle is constant switching between fighting and rest area between turns.
In my Demo playthrough I haven't completely understand the battle system, partly because I didn't need to. Super Dragon Ball Heroes is flashy and it feels more of a fan service game than something you would actually compete in. The Demo fights are easy enough that I didn't need to understand all the systems (the ones introduced so far,) to progress!
Conclusion
After I finished it, I ultimately decided that this Demo provided me of enough of the game. I already have many games in my backlog and my time is getting limited each year.
Father-Son Combo!
The Demo is interesting and I feel that if the game continued to provide new mechanics to play with throughout its whole story the game must be amazing. Though I don't think the game suits anyone who isn't already a huge fan of Dragon Ball. It's a fan-service game after all. I'm already a DBZ fan, the type who gets excited when I see a new character.
But one thing I don't know how other fans will perceive is that Dragon Ball Super characters overshadow everything in this game, and DBS is a mixed bag for the fans.
https://twitter.com/ahmadmanga/status/1313756270114070530