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Come out swinging with these 8 beginner tips for Dragon Ball FighterZ
Dominate your own Tournament of Power with these Dragon Ball FighterZ tips.
With a wealth of characters and competition lying ahead of you, Dragon Ball FighterZ can be a bit intimidating, but the following tips will help set you on the right path. You'll soon be leaving your opponents looking like Namek after Frieza was finished destroying it.
1. Get yourself a tutor
Each of the key areas in Dragon Ball FighterZ’s lobby has its own gatekeeper, but none are more important than the one outside the Tutorial area. Mostly because he'll grant you access to the training room. Although these tutorials might seem a bit daunting at first, they explain basic mechanics while allowing you to enact the instructions. The tutorials will form the building blocks of understanding needed to be successful in both Arcade and Story, as well as online. They're so important that you should probably do them twice just to make sure – because the only thing better than summoning Shenron once, is summoning him twice.
2. Challenge yourself
Like every good fighting game, Dragon Ball FighterZ has a vast collection of combo challenges at its disposal. The challenges are available for every character on the roster and showcase basic combos, specials and supers. You might even discover that your character has some normal attacks that aren’t listed in the pause menu, like Cell’s follow-up back medium kick. Ultimately, it’s a nice safe zone for you to try out the eclectic cast of fighters and find your perfect match.
Vegeta’s team, the Sharp Tongued Saiyans, makes an appearance
© Bandai Namco
3. Find the perfect composition
Just like any great symphony, every team in Dragon Ball FighterZ will need to work in tandem to hit the right notes. To make sure the team gels together, you need to look at how characters play. For instance, Frieza is very strong at keeping the opposition at a distance with his Death Saucers and Death Balls, but when an enemy gets up in his face he can struggle. To help him out, Gohan can provide the perfect assists in the shape of a Dragon Punch. At the press of a button, Gohan flies in and connects a near-invincible upper, creating just enough room for you to breathe. There are also beam assists, like Goku’s Kamehameha, or lockdown assists, like Vegeta’s Ki-blast flurry, that can help you in a variety of ways. It’s all about finding the perfect match to help you pile on pressure and create sick combos.
4. Play every mode
It’s natural to invite a few friends over to fight to the death with every big fighting game, but Dragon Ball FighterZ boasts a comprehensive Arcade and Story mode for you to sink your teeth into. Players that master these modes and squeeze every ounce of value out of them will be justly rewarded with some secret characters and a whole load of Zeni to spend in the store.
The go-to store to spend all your zeni
© Bandai Namco
5. Splash the cash
Literally everything you do, from challenges to story mode, nets you Zeni – Dragon Ball FighterZ’s in game currency. With a slowly amassing fortune, you’ll definitely invest in a cornucopia of capsules from the store. Each one of these capsules offers you a shot at finding rare customisable items in DBFZ. Ranging from basic to extremely rare, these capsules will contain new colours for your favourite fighter, unique, stamps, and a whole host of chibi avatars to lounge about the online lobby.
6. Don’t stress out about your controller layout
Dragon Ball FighterZ crams so much utility into its control scheme that it can be quite intimidating. With the ability to set your buttons as your heart pleases, you’d be silly not to explore the possibilities. Every function (Ki charge, Sparking Blast, Super Dash, Vanish and Dragon Rush), aside from assists, can be executed by inputting a combination of the buttons (Light, Medium, Heavy, and Ki). That means that, as long as you have all the key buttons within reach, anything goes – if you can contort your hand to a point that it’s barely recognisable.
7. Autocombos are your friend
Combos can be hard, like really hard, when you’re just picking up a fighting game. Fortunately, Dragon Ball FighterZ has a rich and involving auto combo system attached to the light, medium, and heavy attacks. By pressing the light attack button repeatedly, you’ll execute a flurry of grounded strikes that effortlessly flow into an airborne combo. Although if you choose to attack using the medium attacks, you perform a totally different combo ending in one of your chosen character’s unique special attacks.
8. Health management
Health obviously plays a major part in every fighting game, but very few of them ask you to juggle three health bars while keeping an eye on your opponents. You can’t dodge those flying fists forever, so when you get hit, it’s important to quickly check how just how much damage you’ve taken. As that big red chunk starts to dissipate, you’ll start to see a blue/grey bar that represents recoverable health. A quick tag out will allow you to recover this health and in a pinch you can also use your Sparking Blast to recover health without switching out (or if there is nobody left to switch out to).
No matter where you start, with a little time and dedication you’ll go from a crumpled Yamcha to an unstoppable Super Sayain Goku with these tips.
