Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has drawn from just about every piece of Dragon Ball's canon source material, but the major story arcs that this game left out would be perfect for a potential Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3.
While it might not be coming out anytime soon, fans of the previous entries are already eagerly waiting for the announcement of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3. For a series that is practically a celebration of all things Dragon Ball though, the first two Dragon Ball Xenoverse games almost completely overlook the story arcs and characters from the series' beginning. If Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 is going to avoid being a simple retread of what the previous games have done, it needs to feature the early Dragon Ball story arcs.
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This might sound a bit strange, but there are many Dragon Ball fans that haven't seen the original series. While just about every Dragon Ball game has players revisiting key moments in the series' story, these moments almost always begin at the encounter with Raditz and move forward with the rest of Dragon Ball Z's story arcs. While there have been a handful of games that focused exclusively on early Dragon Ball material, the two eras of the series rarely ever intertwined.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 could end up with a lot more content if it were to start with the series' beginnings. Events like the world martial arts tournaments or the return of evil King Piccolo seem like they'd be a perfect fit for the Xenoverse series' time warping shenanigans. Covering the original Dragon Ball's story would not only likely make Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 the largest Xenoverse title yet, but it could also make it the most complete Dragon Ball game to date.
For Dragon Ball, power scaling is usually a discussion. As the series continues, it seems more and more characters become obsolete to the series by not being strong enough to measure up the more powerful threat that eventually appears. Adding content from early Dragon Ball wouldn't necessarily solve this problem, but it would give a number of characters a lot more time to shine. Characters like Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and even Piccolo (to an extent) have little to no place in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 because the game opens after their stories have basically reached their end.
Adding early Dragon Ball content to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 would also add to the series' roster in a meaningful way, bringing in several fan requested characters that wouldn't fit into previous entries. Characters like Master Roshi and mercenary Tao, or minions of King Piccolo like Tambourine and Drum wouldn't fit in much in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, but Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 could introduce these characters as powerful fighters and showcase their unique abilities before moving onto greater power levels,
As Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has shown, the world of Dragon Ball is a big place with plenty of room for exploration. That game featured a number of landmarks that fans of the series would be familiar with like West City and Master Roshi's house, there are way more that didn't appear, likely because they're not a relevant part of Dragon Ball Z's story.
Expanding on Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2's Conton City, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 should offer an entire world for players to explore. Players could journey to places like Mt. Fry Pan and Penguin Village, or invade enemy strongholds like Pilaf's castle or any of the Red Ribbon Army bases scattered around the world. This would give a much more natural feel of exploration in comparison to the Xenoverse series' current method where portals take players to undefined arenas for battles. This would also add value to flight when players eventually unlock, being able to fly freely through a world that was once to be an adventure in itself to explore.
Fans who are familiar with earlier parts of Dragon Ball can speak on just how different most of the fights are. Battles were mostly grounded since flight hadn't been introduced, combat was a bit more technical by utilizing different styles of martial arts, and often keeping special techniques as last resort due to how much energy they would cost the user. Outside of tournament matches, all kinds of weapons and gadgets could end up being part of a fighter's arsenal. Anything from swords and axes, to guns and even large robot armor. Elements like these kept Dragon Ball fights fresh and are something that Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 could really benefit from.
If Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 were to follow in the spirit of early Dragon Ball, players could have far more control over how their characters look and fight. A focus on the martial arts aspect of the series by allowing players to learn styles like boxing or Muay Thai would allow players to personalize their fighters more than ever and help to keep battles from becoming stale. Having access to a variety of world destroying special to moves at any given time should be something that players earn over times, much like in the series' source material.
The appearance options would benefit in a similar way by borrowing from Dragon Ball's beginnings. Although there's really only one body type for earthlings in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse games, early Dragon Ball character designs came in all shapes and sizes from giants, to werewolves. Given that other universes have similar races, it wouldn't be a bad idea to allow players more options when creating their characters beyond the five featured in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.
Though it might not seem like it, early Dragon Ball offers a ton of variety that the series has left behind in favor of others. It would be amazing if Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 could capture those elements and bring it all together into the ultimate Dragon Ball package.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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