This game is best described as “expansive.” With the few DLCs that are required to complete all the achievements, there is still so much I haven’t done in the game, including getting one of my CACs to Level 200.
However, your experience will depend on how enjoyable you find the main fighting and character customization mechanics. This game can be (and often is) a grind. You will be playing the same missions repeatedly, sometimes for hours, to either obtain a Skill, outfit, or other item, or obtain the TP medals to purchase them.
First, combat feels smooth enough for you to perform satisfying combos with a variety of the game’s moves. Advanced tech, such as using a ki blast after your last hit to greatly reduce your ending lag and extend combos (ki cancelling), ensures that there is somewhat of a skill and knowledge gap while still being approachable. Most of the interactions are turned-based, with the attacking player often using Ki to perform stronger Super and Ultimate attacks to deal damage, and the defending player using Stamina to Z-Vanish or to use an Evasive Skill to get out of danger and start their assault. Both players must predict what the other will do to punish any weak spots or mistakes that one side makes. My biggest issue is that to perform a stamina break, a key move to extending combos, I found the control stick inconsistent when trying to input towards the enemy. I mostly played the game using the D-Pad, which provided more precision.
There is also a huge roster, with hundreds of characters and presets to choose from, spanning from Z, GT, and Super. Although there is some overlap in moves and animations, there’s often enough to differentiate between them in terms of how to best use their light and medium attacks, stamina breaks, Skills, and transformations to win a fight.
Thankfully, the grind does feel (mostly) worth it to customize your custom character, who is the protagonist of the story. You can choose between six races (with some having two genders), with different appearances, stats, moves, and transformations. Progression is oriented around powering up your character, with most rewards giving you more options in how they attack or appear. Skills use Ki and often serve as either combo extenders or finishers. They are differentiated depending on whether they are physical (Strike) or energy-based (Ki Blast) attacks.
However, my issue with the CAC system comes with the Clothing that can be worn. Most of them are recreations of the iconic outfits from the show. Their color cannot be changed in any way, which heavily decreases their appeal, especially if playing the non-humanoid races who often have distinct skin tone colors. There are some generic options that can be recolored, but it’s the minority. I wish all the Clothing could be recolored, as these items are integral to the post-game rewards.
Speaking of the post-game, this is where the bulk of your time will be spent. The story is serviceable, with your CAC going back in time to correct changes in history caused by the evil scientist, Towa, and her creation, Mira. There are some memorable twists, such as Nappa and Vegeta turning into Great Apes against Goku, but the distortions are mostly just fighting powered-up versions of the villains. It serves as a decent introduction to the mechanics and gives you access to the side content.
Time Rifts are how each race obtains their transformation. These consist of locations and characters from the show, including Frieza’s Spaceship and Guru’s House. The Rifts have certain missions and fights to complete to earn EXP and other rewards. Eventually, depending on your race, you will earn the opportunity to obtain a transformation after a tutorial fight (E.G. fighting Vegeta and Goku in Capsule Corp to evolve into Super Saiyan). Other than the transformation and the EXP, these rifts are often negligible and can be ignored, except for Guru’s House, which gives you the opportunity to increase your Level and Attribute limits.
Another way to earn moves are Instructors, who are famous characters that appear in the hub world to teach you their abilities, such as Piccolo and the Special Beam Cannon. This mechanic also allows you to use TP medals to customize the Skills, appearance, and stats for each instructor. This allows you to make more of the cast comparable in power to your CAC.
Parallel Quests are what-if scenarios that span the sagas of Dragon Ball Z onwards, with specific goals that need to be met to access the Ultimate Finish. There are 100 of these in the base game, and up to 186 depending on what DLCs you purchased. This mode is where I had most of my fun, with many interesting missions including Vegeta turning into a Super Saiyan on Namek. However, this is also where the grind really festers, with you doing the same PQ repeatedly to obtain a reward depending on RNG.
This grind continues into Expert Missions, six vs. one fights against a super-powered boss NPC. This is how you earn TP medals, as the rewards reset upon each successful completion unlike PQs. However, you will be doing the same Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku fight a TON to get enough currency to afford the best items in the shop and the last main sidemode, the Hero Colosseum.
The Hero Colosseum is unfortunately emblematic of Xenoverse 2. A deeply engaging core gameplay that suffers immensely from RNG and the need to grind. It also has insane difficulty spikes, requiring the most exclusive figures to consistently win the later fights. Thankfully, unless you are achievement hunting (which I was), this mode is completely optional and disconnected from everything else.
The Online modes also are lacking, mostly due to the horrendous net code. Lag and disconnections were abundant for me, which is especially unfortunate for the Raids, which are a version of Expert Missions with other players that give a ton of valuable rewards, including the ability to customize more base game characters. PVP is also dead, which makes those modes unplayable unless you join a Discord server and set up a match.
Finally, the game outputs at a maximum of 60 FPS. This wasn’t much of a factor to me, but my system can perform at up to 120 FPS, so I wish the cap was increased. There were about 10 or so crashes throughout my playthrough, but that was mostly during longer sessions.
Overall, despite all the RNG and repetition, there is something so addictive about the core of Xenoverse 2 that has kept me coming back at different times in my life and deeply enjoying it. The community, though smaller than 10 years ago, is passionate, with a vast modding community. For how often and how much this game goes on sale, I would still recommend it this long after launch. There are thousands of hours of content that you can enjoy, more than any other game I’ve played. If you are hooked by your CAC and the main combat loop, then you will accept the flaws and genuinely want to push through the grind (at least to the extent required to get all achievements).
Rating: B+
