Arc System Works made this game with a lot of love, even though they're known for making the Guilty Gear series, they branch out and make games in the genre with love and respect outside of their own IP. Watching the influx of fighting game players after the popularity of the Dragon Ball series getting a modern fighting game has been a breath of fresh air in the genre.

Mechanically, the game is solid and has depth. I know this from playing this and dozens of other fighting games. In fact much of this game seems to be designed with the intention of being easy to learn. The auto combo system will allow new players to focus on the rock-paper-scissors aspects (attack, grab, block) that make fighting games what they are without having to put in dozens of hours learning the muscle memory of the combos up front. But there is a deeply rewarding combo system that allows you to control important factors like ending a combo in a corner for a mix up, or instead getting more hits in to build meter, or focusing on ending with a special move that swaps in a character and lets you recover health.

The continued addition of new content behind a paywall is normally not something I like to see. But considering how heavily discounted you can find this game for (Today it's up to 85% off on Steam sale) and that this developer puts love into every character released and mostly done a fantastic job balancing and responding to community feedback, I am willing to consider this an exception to the rule.

I am also willing to admit my review might be affected by not overly caring about the story mode. Story modes have never been the primary draw in my opinion and this one is probably only just decent. The real fun for me is surprisingly in the many other game modes and even largely in the training mode. (It's an excellent training mode as well)

Dragon Ball FighterZ is by far the best looking Dragon Ball game we have ever gotten.