Following the recent passing of Akira Toriyama, we thought now would be a good time to take a look back at one of the more recent games from his beloved Dragon Ball franchise, Dragon Ball: The Breakers, which featured as one of Novembers PS Plus free games last year.
What is Dragon Ball: The Breakers?
Dragon Ball: The Breakers was originally released in October 2023; it’s a 1 vs many game, similar to games like Friday the 13th or Among Us, where one player is the raider (villain), who must kill the other players, whilst the other players must work together to defeat them. It is designed for up to 8 players and is an online game.
The Story
Temporal rifts have opened up across the Universe, and the Time Patrollers, an organization that stops time anomalies from occurring (think TVA from Loki), have recruited you to close these rifts. Unfortunately, some of the Universe’s strongest villains have travelled through these rifts and are causing havoc. Players can play as either a survivor or a raider. Survivors must either defeat the raider or find the 5 keys needed to power up the Super Time Machine (or survive long enough for it to reach capacity) to send the raiders back to their dimension. Raiders must kill everyone, or destroy the Super Time Machine to win.
What is Dragon Ball?
Dragon Ball was originally a Manga (Japanese comic), created by Akiro Toriyama in 1984. It follows the adventure of Goku, (a boy with a monkey’s tail) and friends, as they try to collect the 7 Dragon Balls, which are said to grant the holder a wish of their choice. During their adventures, they try to stop nefarious people and organizations from obtaining the Dragon Balls and using the wishes for evil. Dragon Ball Z follows on a few years after the conclusion of Dragon ball. Goku is revealed to be a Saiyan (a powerful warrior species) from the planet Vegeta. As the series progresses Goku gains new transformations that augment his power, and must deal with greater threats, which admittedly most of the raiders from Breakers come from then things get a bit messy. GT came next, but was poorly received and was technically retconned with Dragon Ball Super. However, plot wise it’s more of the same, but gods and Universes are involved instead of an intergalactic adventure. It’s not quite that straightforward, but I’m just trying to keep it simple.
Seasons
The game rotates through seasons, with each one adding something new. Currently Dragon Ball: The Breakers is currently in its 5th season which has added the villain Zamasu, a god of destruction if you will.
Transformations
Transformations give the characters new abilities, new powers, it makes them a lot stronger, and gives them a new look. In the game, most raiders have 4 stages, but some raiders don’t have 4 possible transformations, so are replaced by new characters instead.
Abilities
As time progresses the raider gains the ability to transform and destroy part of the map, making their life easier. As a survivor, you are unable to fight these raiders directly as you are too weak. However, if you do wish to fight them, you must either find rocket launchers hidden in crates around the map, or find transpheres or the Dragon Balls to allow you to change into one of the many available heroes for a short period of time in order to fight that raider. Each survivor also has 1 passive skill and 1 active gadget, such as a Dragon Ball radar, that may help them in their bid to win, whether they chose to fight or not.
Transpheres
Collecting transpheres allows your character to transform into one of the characters from the Dragon Ball Universe and use their abilities to fight the raider. Each character has their own attacks and abilities, which help reduce the raiders health to 0. However, each character has a time limit, which is severely reduced, should the raider inconsiderately decide to fight back. Some characters have transformations too, but should you have a preference for a certain one, you can always save up your currency to unlock them from the shop. We could go into detail about each of the playable survivors and usable characters, but we’ll be here longer than it takes to watch all the anime episodes. Besides, there are plenty of other cool articles on this site you should definitely check out as well.
Vegeta
How Dragon Ball Z starts. Warriors from the planet Vegeta invaded Earth with the intention of destroying it. Saibamen are organically grown life forms that follow any orders and can self-destruct. Nappa is Vegeta’s right-hand man, who was responsible for raising Vegeta from childhood after their planet exploded. Vegeta is ruthless and will go to any length to win. Once such tactic is turning himself into a Great Ape (imagine King Kong having a baby with Godzilla … actually don’t, that’s quite disturbing).
The Ginyu Force
During the fight, unknown facts were revealed that meant the surviving heroes have set off to the planet Namek to find and use their Dragon Balls to bring back all their dead friends. However, Vegeta unknowingly transmits audio to his boss Frieza, an evil space tyrant who also makes his way to Namek, hoping to become immortal. Things get messy and as a last resort, Frieza calls his elite henchmen, the Ginyu Force who love fighting as much as dancing and making a dramatic entrance. Guldo can stop / slow time for as long as he can hold his breath. Recoome is able to take a lot of damage as if it was nothing. Burter is like Sonic the Hedgehog mixed with an alien. Jeice is Ginyu’s right-hand man, whilst Ginyu has an ability to swap bodies with an opponent.
Frieza
After the defeat of the Ginyu Force, Frieza decides to take matters into his own hands. A merciless tyrant who loves toying with his enemies. Frieza’s transformations work in reverse, with earlier stages using less power, and stage 4 being his natural form; an energy conservation transformation if you will.
Cell
Cell is the ultimate creation of Dr Gero, a scientist formerly of the Red Ribbon army (Goku’s main enemies in the original Dragon Ball). Cell is a bioorganic bug that if it is able to absorb Android’s 17 and 18 (also created by Dr Gero) will become the perfect life force. To make matters worse, Cell has been programmed with all of the heroes moves and is hellbent on destroying the earth.
Buu
Due to Dragon Ball’s popularity, the Buu saga was introduced. An evil wizard named Bobbadi is trying to revive Buu, the creation of his father, Bibadi. Like Cell, Buu can also regenerate, but can also absorb people to gain new powers and forms, even if it weakens it. Spopvich is a human who tries to gather energy to revive Buu and its progressive forms are when it loses it’s innocence and starts to become more angry and dangerous.
Broly
Broly is introduced in the films, he is a Saiyan of extreme force and rage. Due to his extreme rage, Broly has become a Legendary Super Saiyan, a form of Saiyan so rare that it is only seen once every 1000 years. Saiyans love to fight, it makes them stronger. Mix this with Broly’s unending rage and even the strongest fighters may be in serious trouble.
Zamasu & Goku Black
Zamasu was the Supreme Kai of Universe 10, who became the god of destruction after killing them. Zamasu then gathers the Dragon Balls to make himself immortal and goes on a killing rampage. At some point Zamasu also travels to another timeline and gets that version of Zamasu to repeat the process, but the Zanasu wishes to swap bodies with Goku and becomes known as Goku Black, as they both go on killing rampages across timelines and Universes with the sole intention of being the only gods alive. Super Saiyan Rosé was never properly explained, but is supposedly the equivalent of Super Saiyan blue, albeit evil. The fused form is a fusion of both characters and is pretty much invincible.
So, there you have it, an extremely brief look at Dragon Ball: The Breakers and its villains.
You can pick up Dragon Ball: The Breakers now
Buy Dragon Ball: The Breakers on PS4
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Are you tempted to give it a try? Let us know in the comments below.