Dragon Ball Z ended a long time ago. The franchise didn’t.
It just moved into video games, where it’s been living comfortably ever since, from the Dragon Ball Xenoverse fighting games to the RPG Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
Which brings us to the free-to-play corner of all this, and the game that’s about to stop being the game people signed up for.
The overhaul nobody asked for
Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra picked up a real fanbase over the past year. It also picked up a pile of criticism. Now developer GANBARION and publisher Bandai Namco are planning an overhaul that will change the experience forever.
The reveal came this week in an announcement video on YouTube, backed by a developer letter on the official Gekishin Squadra website that spells out the specifics.
The letter’s reasoning is that the current game often presents new players with “lopsided matches and a high barrier to competitive play” because of its “strategic depth and knowledge-based mechanics,” which could make for a frustrating experience.
Top-down is going away
Here’s the part that matters most: the camera is changing. The game is shifting from top-down to third-person gameplay.
That’s not a tweak. That’s a different game wearing the same name.
Rules are being adjusted to favor action-packed gameplay. The role system is being simplified so players can just pick the characters they like. Customization is being expanded and implemented in a more noticeable way.
Every one of those changes points the same direction: down. Lower the barrier, widen the door, hope people walk in.
The developers know how this sounds
To their credit, the team isn’t pretending this will land softly. They acknowledge the news could be unwelcome to some fans, and say the decision wasn’t “made lightly.”
They also concede that “there may be potential ramifications.”
That’s careful language for a company that has read the room.
Social media did not take it well
Criticism has been widespread. And notably, most of the responses are coming from dedicated players who like the game exactly as it is right now.
Their argument is straightforward. The changes chase a community that may not even want to play, at the direct expense of the one that already does.
There’s a hole in the logic that’s hard to argue around. Lowering the barrier to entry only works if the people who bounced off originally find out any of this happened. Meanwhile the players who stayed have a very clear reason to leave.
The live-service problem, again
This is the recurring cost of games that keep updating. They often turn into totally different experiences than the ones fans fell in love with to begin with.
You buy in on a specific thing. Then the specific thing gets patched out from under you, usually in the name of growth.
For anyone who loves Gekishin Squadra in its current form, this overhaul is the end of an era. Full stop.
Is there a way out
Some, maybe. The development team is promising to pay attention to community feedback, so the changes could still get scaled back before they actually go through.
But don’t count on the whole thing getting shelved. It seems unlikely that Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra avoids some kind of radical overhaul at this point.
The version of the game people are defending right now has an expiration date on it. It’s the end of the year.
Play it while it’s still the game you liked.
