DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2022 Highlights

As a fan of the Dragon Ball series, it was a given that I would be tuning in now and then for the two-day DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2022 event. Among the various quizzes, challenges, merch advertising, singing, and even cooking, many current aspects of the franchise were celebrated including the upcoming movie and the various games. A bulk of the new information on these in particular was provided in the last hour and a half, which is what I wanted to go over.

One of the most exciting highlights was everything revealed about the new movie, Dragon Ball Super: Super Heroes. A new visual was unveiled which extended upon the previously released one. It shows off slightly older versions and updated designs for more characters. Most importantly for many fans is that both Trunks and Goten have new and older designs! Aside from the very short finale arc in the original Dragon Ball manga/Dragon Ball Z anime, they’ve essentially had the same design since their introduction.

Multiple scenes (without audio) and a trailer were also shown. A lot of time was spent focusing on the effects and shading. It’s no surprise either because the movie does look pretty nice from what they’ve shown. I was a big fan of the style used in the previous movie, but this new style is certainly growing on me. They also announced that it would be shown in North America this summer. Considering that the movie will be released in Japan in two months, that’s not too long of a wait for me.

The first game that was announced to be receiving new content was Super Dragon Ball Heroes. The special anime adaptation and the game are being updated with the Supreme Kai of Time arc in early Spring 2022.

For the game, a new battle system called Time Break Battle is being added that will allow for Great Ape characters to enter battles. Actual details on what these changes entail weren’t shared, so players in Japan will have to wait until the update lands to try it out.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers, a game I’ve covered before, also received some time to go over some changes they’re making based on player feedback. The game’s producer mentioned that the team is focusing on improving survivor understandability, useability, matching/role priority function, and adjustments on game balance. Many players voiced concerns about the raider being too strong and the team is taking into account data that shows survivor teams win more often after playing more games.

A practice mode is set to be implemented so players can get a better grip on the controls and mechanics. The UI is also seeing some changes along with the communication tool. Beacons that previously only appeared during the emergency escape phase will now appear under other conditions as well to avoid total one-sided matches when too many survivors die early.

For Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle it was announced that a new co-op event will be held on Saiyan Day, or March 18th. Both the Japanese and International version will be holding their own events, and the Japanese version will be hosting an Extreme Z-Battle event that was previously only in the International version.

While the game is currently celebrating its original 7th anniversary, some accommodations are being made for other players in the world. The international version of the game will be updated with language support for German and Spanish. No precise date for this update was given.

Dragon Ball Legends announced two things. The first is that a new summon for God of Destruction Beerus is coming on February 23rd, while the second is that Super Saiyan God SS Vegeta will receive a Zenkai awakening. Information on both of their abilities will be revealed on Twitter and within in-game news.

Lastly, and the one I was most hyped for, was Dragon Ball FighterZ. While the special tournament going over the entire two-day event showed off plenty of the new character, including a 30-minute character breakdown, a proper trailer was finally released. Android 21 (Lab Coat) will be available on February 24th. No price was given, but it can be reasonably assumed she will be paid DLC and cost $5 as all other individual DLC characters have cost.

That was the extent of the information provided. Many were disappointed by this as they were expecting bigger announcements than simply a release date for the character. The reasons for that constitute a separate article entirely, which you can read right here as I was weighing what the future for the game might be before this event. While I also had my fingers crossed for something more, I am nonetheless excited to try this character out. She looks like she has quite a lot of utility.

Overall it was a pretty fun event. I’m speaking from slight bias in that I found the Dragon Ball FighterZ tournament very fun to watch, but all of the other events were fun too. It’s not too often that you see a dedicated event this big that is mainly focused on the video games of a franchise. I suppose that’s just a testament to how popular Dragon Ball has become again.

If you’d like to watch some of the events yourself, both days have had their stream uploaded to Bandai Namco Entertainment America’s youtube channel. Both the Day 1 and Day 2 videos have been placed above and below this respectively. If you’re interested in the Dragon Ball FighterZ tournament which ran across both days on a separate stream, it can be watched on their Twitch channel.