After a long, four month wait, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot DLC 1 is finally here, but it has been met with mixed reception. Although the general consensus is that the Beerus boss fight is rather fun and enjoyable, the general lack of anything else to do other than that has left many feeling unfulfilled. That said, a lot of this problem doesn’t actually stem from the DLC, but from the way the game handles content like the time machine and villainous enemies. The one simple fix that Kakarot could make to revitalize its players and give them something other than Beerus to use Super Saiyan God on is to address its level scaling problem.
For those that don’t know, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot was a huge hit among the fanbase from the moment it was announced. Although many were skeptical about yet another game adapting the story of Dragon Ball Z, it quickly became apparent that Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot would do so with the utmost care that the nostalgic story deserved. And while Bandai Namco and CyberConnect2’s swing was good, their follow through was less than satisfactory. After beating the game, there was very little left to do other than wait for the DLC. Unfortunately, the DLC didn’t fix that problem.
Level Scaling in DBZ: Kakarot
Once the player beats the story, there are still some challenges left for them to face down. The most notable of these challenges is Mira, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s secret boss, which requires the player to do some grinding in order to be powerful enough to take him down. After that, though, there are very few challenges remaining since very little scales with the player’s level. That said, random encounters out in the field actually do scale with level, so there is actually some precedent for this already in the game.
If the player grinds to reach the maximum level in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, level 250, then enemies they encounter in the overworld will also be set to level 240 or above. This is nice because it provides the player with more of a challenge than if everything stayed under level 100, but these enemies are still so weak that they are often just one-shot by the player. What Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot needs to do is allow tougher enemies, such as villainous foes, Mira, Bonyu, and others to scale to the player’s level, tailoring those different types of challenges to the player’s progress.
Level Scaling in DBZ: Kakarot’s Time Machine
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s biggest paradox lies within its time machine mechanics. The time machine in theory is a wonderful idea and was a highly requested feature since launch, allowing players to return to previous parts of the story in order to finish sub-stories, play time locked characters such as Teen Gohan, experience great moments again, and more. That said, there are some major problems with the way that it was implemented, and the recent update changing Kakarot’s time machine has only made things worse.
The time machine does let players travel back in time and fight old foes again, but it doesn’t scale the player’s level down or the enemies’ levels up. This means that if the player is level 100 but wishes to fight Raditz again, doing so will see a level 100 Goku more than likely one shot the Saiyan. As one could imagine, this isn’t very fun and gets old very quickly, making the time machine almost null and void for those players that have already completed all the sub-stories from the main game.
To make matters worse, for some reason the time machine restricts transformations available to characters, that is, all characters except Goku and Vegeta since the recent update. Already this restriction made no sense because players were going to outclass their foes based on level alone, but now allowing only Goku and Vegeta to do it so that Super Saiyan God can be used in the time machine just feels inconsistent. That’s not to mention the fact that a Super Saiyan God player will easily one shot anything that the time machine has to offer, even Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s final boss, Kid Buu.
DBZ: Kakarot DLC 2 Changes
Since DLC 2 is also a boss battle episode like DLC 1, it is more likely than not that it will pit Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot players against Golden Frieza, (very) loosely mirroring the events of Resurrection F. The pattern will likely be the same, with a training with Whis segment followed by unlocking the Super Saiyan Blue form and finishing with a boss battle against Frieza at whatever the new level cap is. Still, it is vital that Bandai Namco makes these changes before DLC 2 comes out rather than alongside it or even after it.
If these kinds of changes aren’t made soon, then fans will simply lose interest in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. This first Kakarot DLC had a lot riding on it, and given its mixed reception, Bandai Namco is going to need to do something to keep fans invested. Allowing the level scaling of more powerful enemies like Frieza, Cell, and Buu, as well as revamping their fights to put them more on the difficulty scale of the Beerus boss battle would do wonder to give players something to come back to.
For the time being, fans will just need to entertain themselves with the DLC content, and should focus on reaching Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s max level, earning the Super Saiyan God transformation, and taking down the God of Destruction Beerus in one on one combat. With any luck, Bandai Namco and CyberConnect2 will roll out another update soon that will address some of this game’s biggest flaws and make changes that will keep the loyal fanbase coming back for more.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
