Developer: Dimps Corporation, SAFARI GAMES Co., Ltd.
Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
Platforms: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission – Review
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission is a card game based on the original Super Dragon Ball Heroes, a Japanese web anime and the Super Dragon Ball Card Game, a very popular arcade card game in Japan. Instead of focusing on just one era of the series, Super Dragon Ball Heroes utilizes content and characters of every movie and timelines including non-canon series like GT and combines it with a fast-paced digital card game. All of this, combined with a lot of additional characters in impossible forms like a Super Saiyan 4 Broly or a Super Saiyan 3 Nappa results in some wacky combinations. Add a unique story to all of this and you get Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission.
Story
The game starts with an awesome video of the events just before you start playing the game. A strong enemy appears before the Supreme Kai of Time. After this video you will see yourself entering Hero Town, where the Dragon Ball Heroes card game is the most popular game to play. After seeing what it’s all about, you enter a tournament there. Before you enter, you get to create your own Hero Avatar. You can choose from eight different options. After the tournament, you get noticed by Great Saiyaman 3, the leader of the Dragon Ball Heroes. He will ask you to join the Dragon Ball Heroes to fight the anomalies from the game world as villains keep entering the real world. The story progresses in chapters and each chapter looks like a board game. You have to get past each battle point or story point to move on.
Graphics
The characters in the game are drawn exactly they should have been. They look great performing actions in battles. The Super Attacks of each character look amazing when performed. The newly created characters such as Super Saiyan 3 Nappa are perfectly designed and will give many fans an answer on how certain characters would look like in a specific form. The special attack combinations and actions all have a fun animation and look very destructive. The game looks great and it perfectly utilizes the capability of the Nintendo Switch. All the cards in the game look amazing as well.
Sound
The music in this game is exactly as you’d expect from a Dragon Ball game. An update has provided that you can customize the music played at certain menus, and you can change the music in each phase of the battles. The latter offers a lot more customization to your gaming experience. The sound effects used will immediately let you recognize it to be a Dragon Ball game.
Gameplay
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission is a an RPG combined with a tactical card game. Your deck consists out of seven cards. Each card is represented on the battlefield by the character on the card. Each battle can last up to five rounds. The playing field consists out of two areas, the attacking area and the support area. The attack area is divided into three rows, the one closest to the support area will use up the least stamina and the furthest row will use the most stamina. Each character starts with an amount of stamina and they need to recover stamina to regain their strength.
Each round ends with a battle. The characters put in the attacking area will attack the enemy. Characters that share the same type can join up and perform a team attack. There are three types: Hero Cards, Elite Cards and Berserker Cards. Heroes are more average cards with decent offensive power and great damage threshold. Elite Cards have lower base attack power but won’t lose their stamina fast. Berserker Cards have greater attack power but will lose their stamina fast when attacked. When a character has low stamina and gets attacked, they’ll get stunned and will be unable to perform an action. When characters are put in the support area, they will activate their support skill that can improve the power of your other characters.
If a character’s stamina is high, his attack power will be good as well. Putting more characters in the attacking area will grant you a high team power level. Each 3000 points will give you one hero power. These are required to perform Super Attacks. This number is found in the top right corner of the card and is seen on the info screen. Many cards will have abilities that will activate in specific rounds. These can grant you more power or inflict destructive damage on your opponents. With double and triple attacks kicking in, you can deal a lot of damage even after all of your characters have performed their attacks. Combining the right cards will result in a high damage output, but this will require a lot of memorizing cards with all their effects. Make your own tactics to optimize the damage dealt by your team.
Many cards will also have touch-action abilities. These will require you to circle around on the screen or swipe up and down fast to activate them. If you are playing in docked mode, you use the left control stick around to move a cursor for the same effect. Each attack success is determined in a timing based tap game called Charge Impact or CI. Each player has a bar and you need to stop it at the fullest moment. The one with the fullest bar will win the CI. If you lose the CI when attacking, your characters won’t perform a Super Attack. Stopping this bar is done by pressing the A button.
After winning battles, you will get modules for the Super Hero Robot. One of these modules is taken in each battle and its effect will activate in your chosen round. These effects can protect your characters from being stunned, grant extra team power and more. You will also earn items that will grant extra effects in and after battles. Gacha tickets are also earned by winning battles and can be used to acquire new cards in the Gacha Shop. Rare Gacha tickets will have a greater chance of earning stronger and different cards. When you’ve chosen your tickets, you can choose between several card packs. These differ when using normal or rare tickets. You can also create your own cards with items that can be applied to custom cards, granting access to different Super Attacks and abilities. There are over 1200 cards available in the game as of now and there are more cards to come in upcoming updates. Spending Gacha tickets to acquire cards is a fun way to expand your card inventory. If you’re lucky, you can get some good cards with spending few tickets. A good thing is that the game is free of any micro transactions.
Aside of the normal Story Mode, there’s a lot more to do in the Arcade Mode and fighting in tournaments. The Arcade Mode will let you relive certain events in the history of Dragon Ball with an extra story mode in past events of the Dragon Ball timelines. You can join tournaments to win big prizes and lots of Gacha tickets. Winning a tournament will unlock the next level to participate in.
Conclusion
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission is a great combination of a Yu-Gi-Oh-like card game and the Dragon Ball universe. The animations are always a sight to see and the Super Attacks just look amazing. The story is a fun adventure with appearances of all your favorite Dragon Ball characters. The game will require you to study and learn the game’s mechanics because a lot of tactics are required to come up with the best teams. A battle strategy is also required to complete certain goals in battles and perform the most damage against your opponents. The game offers a fine amount of game modes to play to keep you entertained for many hours. If you’re interested in collecting all cards, this game will keep you busy for a very long time. This game is a great addition to the Dragon Ball games list and if you are a fan and would like to see those combinations of characters and transformations, this game is a great buy. Every fan would like to see Nappa grow a beard in a Super Saiyan 3 transformation.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission - Review,
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Great game with easy to learn mechanics but really hard to master.Without decent knowledge to build well balanced decks, some battles or moves can be really punishing if you’re not prepared for what’s to come.