Bandai Namco and CyberConnect2’s action RPG Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is now out, which means hundreds of thousands of Dragon Ball fans are currently diving deep into the game and its re-telling of Goku’s iconic saga. And as you quickly find out upon beginning the game, Kakarot can throw a lot of systems and mechanics your way right off the bat, which some might be overwhelmed by, especially in the game’s opening hours.
Here, in this feature, we’ve compiled 10 beginner’s tips and tricks that you should find handy, which will hopefully help you come to grips with some of the game’s most crucial systems a bit quicker and help you enjoy the game a bit more. So without further ado, let’s get started.
Z-ORBS
Much of your time in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot outside of combat will be spent flying around, since that is, after all, your primary method of traversal in the game. And as you’re flying around, the thing you’ll see most often is Z-Orbs- blue, green, and red orbs, scattered abundantly all throughout the world. And while you might think ignoring them and beelining it to your destination is a good idea (since there’s just so darn many of these), don’t do that. Z-Orbs is what you spend to upgrade your abilities (one of many ways to do that, actually), which means you’re gonna want to stack up on as many of these orbs as possible.
SPENDING Z-ORBS
This should go without saying and naturally follows from what we just talked about- but the game itself doesn’t really do a very good job of explaining this, so we might as well. While Kakarot tells you to collect Z-Orbs, and tells you how they’re colour coded, it doesn’t tell you that you’ll also have to spend these orbs to unlock Super moves. On any character’s character page, press Y or triangle to access the Super attack skill tree- this is where you’ll spend your orbs to unlock new moves.
EQUIP STUFF
This, too, should be obvious (at least in retrospect), but the game doesn’t really tell you any of this, or if it does, it doesn’t explain things very well. Once you’ve unlocked your Super moves, you’ll have to equip them if you want to use them. Similarly, unlocking Know-How – passive skills – isn’t enough either, and you’ll have to equip those as well. As such, you’ll have to consider which moves you’re going to keep equipped all the time, and switch things around according to different situations.
D MEDALS
D Medals are what you’ll spend in Training areas to eventually get access to Skills, and unlocking these skills, as you can imagine, is quite essential to progression in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. Thankfully, these, too, are available quite easily- through side quests, main quests, or exploration – so make sure you keep collecting these.
HEALING ITEMS
Combat in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot isn’t always the most challenging, but a few of the boss fights can be genuinely tricky to get through. These are the times when you’ll be relying on your healing items quite a bit, so you want to make sure you’re always well stocked. Outside of battle, you can buy these or find them in the world, so always have a few of these in store, and once again, make sure they’re equipped.
KEEP RECHARGING YOUR KI
Most of what you do in combat requires Ki, and these requirements can vary based on what you’re doing- but if you’re short on Ki, you won’t have a lot of options available to you in battles. Thankfully, recharging Ki is easy enough- all you have to do is hold Y or triangle. You will have to make sure during combat that you have a couple of seconds to do so, because you don’t want to leave yourself open to attacks when you’re recharging (especially during boss fights) so keep that in mind.
TIME YOUR DODGES
While most of the regular enemies in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot are pretty easy to defeat, some of the bosses, as we’ve discussed, can put up a real fight. Dodging and blocking their attacks is, as such, crucial a lot of the times. Timing your dodges perfectly is something you’re gonna want to do in particular, because perfect dodges for melee attacks gives you the chance to counter and deal some decent damage of your own.
EATING FOOD
Like many Japanese RPGs, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot makes a big deal out of cooking and eating food- and it’s actually a pretty useful system that plays a big part in character progression. Eating food provides you with temporary stat buffs, and the better the ingredients, the better the buffs (dino meat in particular is excellent for this, so keep hunting those dinosaurs). Food and meals, however, also come with some permanent boosts, and these buffs stacks, which means you get stronger buffs as you keep eating more and more. All of which is to say, keep eating food.
SOUL EMBLEMS AND GIFTS
Like many features and systems, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot does a poor job of explaining Soul Emblems and the community boards, which is surprising, because this is perhaps one of the game’s most important systems. You will get community boards from various character in the games, while you will also regularly get Soul Emblems (which are specific to characters). Placing Soul Emblems on community boards will provide you with various buffs and advantages, with each community board having different abilities, ranging from food buffs and improved stats to extra experience points and more. Meanwhile, using Gifts can be used to level up specific Soul Emblems. It’s all pretty important, and the upgrades can be very useful, especially later on in the game, so make sure you keep an eye on all your community boards.
SIDE QUESTS
There’s a lot of side quests in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and while you might be tempted to skip a few (or many) of them, since they’re not all the most engaging, the rewards most of the yield are actually quite useful. Some of these side quests are also time-bound and can only be done during certain sections of the game, so whenever you have the time (and you usually will have plenty), do any side quests you can.
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