Cloud Monday - Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Part 2 - Side Quests Are Weird In A Known Story

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I streamed this game, developed by, CyberConnect2, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

I was concerned last time that getting the game to work might be a one off, but i was wrong. once again, the game started for the first time when i wanted to play it. it's a welcomed surprise and i may check out some of the other games that refused to work.

A lot of what i said in part 1, https://youtu.be/_IdUPMR6gTE, are true in this part. but the thing that stuck out the most was actually doing side quests. If, like me, you're familiar with the story of Dragon Ball Z then the idea of doing side quests is strange as it's hard to imagine how they'd fit them into the game. the stuff in part 1 worked well as a tutorial and was before Dragon Ball Z started. In this part, the side quest on the island also work because the story hadn't kicked off.

But having to save Gohan or do a side quest just felt wrong. at this point in the game i was Goku and my son had been stolen by Raditz, so naturally my response is to go and save Gohan. it's what happens in Dragon Ball Z and it's the natural thing to do. but to have the map open up a bit and for there to be side quests just didn't feel right. i tried to do one but abandoned it to continue the story.

This game is a little difficult to review. on one hand it's got pretty good game design to be streamed from the cloud to my PS4. there are some story moments hard to skip, but for the most part it works as a cloud streaming game and in that respect it's better than quite a lot in this series. But on the other hand, it's a weird game in that i don't know who's it's audience. People who like and know Dragon Ball Z already know this story. if this game was just this story then i'd understand why they'd want to play it. but the addition of social connections, RPG elements, and side quests feel more like bloat than a useful addition. so perhaps this is aimed at those who want a different type of RPG or who recognise Goku but don't know the story.

Cloud Monday - Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Part 1 - Good Game Design For Streaming, Unsure For Playing

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I streamed this game, developed by, CyberConnect2, via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a game i've been trying to stream for a while now. I try it each week, and since it came to PlayStation Plus it's never worked. Until now! I was really surprised and very unprepared for it, i've been saying for a long time that i couldn't get it to work and, at least this one time, it did.

My thinking behind trying this game is that it's slower pace might make it more suitable for it being streamed. i had hoped that, as a RPG, we'd be able to save more frequently. And it looks like we can. the game also has a decent auto save feature that seemed to be fairly active. so in comparison to Scarlet Nexus, i was more confident that i could either manually save, hit an auto save, or get to a save point in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot than Scarlet Nexus.

A welcome bonus is how big and simple the characters are on screen. they look very much like their anime counterparts, so when there was some macroblocking i was still able to work out what was happening and wasn't really hampered. this is a great looking game and it feels like you're playing in the anime. so when there is macroblocking or stream tearing, it takes you out of the experience, more than anything else, because it looks so much like what it's based on.

But, whilst there are many positives about the game design and how suitable it is for being streamed from the cloud i can't ignore how other parts of it weren't great for actually playing. In, nearly, every section of this first part there was something that i found annoying or something that made the game less accessible. 

The way it introduces anything new with tutorial cards of screen is simply lazy and something i'll always complain about. it's something that's not that accessible to new players. i'd expect the cards if i was looking for a reminder on how to do something. They have Goku and Gohan at the start, Goku could simply be telling Gohan the basics of fighting and that could've been out introduction. The way they introduce the social aspect of this game is also baffling and a part of the game i didn't know about.

The controls were often slightly worse than i expected, for example the dash is super fast and difficult to use or when you're on Nimbus and there are collectable orbs but you have to seemingly touch them to collect them but that's difficult because Nimbus is slightly more difficult to control than expected. Also, why  can i collect items from afar but not these orbs?

Maybe in part 2 there'll be more context for everything and with more practice things will improve. but as it's been near impossible to play this game just once i'm not sure if/when Part 2 may be.