Dragon Ball Z has had a ton of fighting games over the years of varying degrees of quality, but none have ever made us more excited than Dragon Ball FighterZ

First off, let’s talk about the combat system of the game. As this is an Arc System Works title, the controls are very similar to those of Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Persona 4 Arena. It’s a four button combat system, with light, medium, and heavy attacks, and then the fourth button being mapped to projectiles.

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As is the recent trend in fighting games, newcomers can mash the light attack button for a quick and easy combo, but doing so will only get you so far as you’ll be missing out on the big damage to be had when you combine normal attacks, launchers, special moves, and super moves. But unique to Dragon Ball FighterZ is the addition of a homing attack, that allows players to quickly dash towards their opponent with the touch of a button to either initiate a combo, or pursue them after a launcher for an air combo. Needless to say, air combos are going to be a huge part of the gameplay in Dragon Ball FighterZ.

And of course you’ve got your super meter, which governs your usage of super moves and other special abilities. It can be charged in the standard fighting game fashion of simply beating an opponent up or getting beat up yourself, but it can also be charged in the true Dragon Ball Z way of screaming at the top of your lungs. You’ve also got Dragon Rushes, which are essentially throws and can get through a blocking enemy’s guard, push blocks to put some distance between you and an aggressive enemy, and a neat teleportation maneuver that costs one super bar, but teleports you behind an enemy for a quick cross up.

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As far as characters go, the developers have been mostly quiet with regards to who we can expect to see populate the roster, but for now, we’ve got seven confirmed characters: Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Majin Buu, and the recently announced Future Trunks. As for how they play, Goku and Cell feel like the most well rounded, not particularly excelling or faltering in any areas. Gohan and Vegeta are straight-up aggressive rush down characters that excel at getting in your face with dizzying speed, and Frieza’s especially good from a distance with a bunch of long range attacks, including unblockable destructo discs. Then there’s Buu, who’s a comparatively slow-moving powerhouse.

Dragon Ball FighterZ also has a comeback mechanic very similar to X-Factor from Marvel vs Capcom 3 in the form of the Sparking Blast. Players can only use Sparking Blast once per match, and popping it will give a character an immediate boost in power in addition to regeneration of all of their blue life. It can be used in combos as a way to extend them and increase their damage, or it can be used defensively to get out of a bad situation.

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It’s also worth mentioning that this is perhaps the most true to the source material Dragon Ball video game that there has ever been. Even going beyond just the look of the game, which is stunning in its attention to detail, just about every maneuver, stance, taunt, and pose is taken straight from the source material.

Next up, taking a page out of Marvel vs Capcom’s book, Dragon Ball FighterZ is 3-on-3 fighting with all of the depth and complexities that go along with it. Assists can be called down with a press of the left trigger and bumper, tags can be done by holding the buttons down, and you can even do delayed hyper combos by inputting the command of your teammate’s super and pressing the assist button during the active character’s super. As you would imagine, any character that has been tagged out will slowly regenerate their health, making it important to manage your characters’ health bars, while also taking care not to to recklessly tag in when your opponent is able to punish it.

Basically, this will all seem super familiar to anyone who’s played any of the Marvel vs Capcom games, but so far, it seems like Dragon Ball FighterZ is doing a great job of adapting the 3v3 style and putting a Dragon Ball Z spin on it.

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If you watch the show, you probably know that any arena that Dragon Ball Z characters fight in, typically look dramatically different by the time that fight’s over. True to its roots, the same holds true for Dragon Ball FighterZ. Using a super move to finish off an opponent on Planet Namek, for instance, and you’ll soon find yourself fighting in the fiery rubble. Oh also, when you knock away those small energy blasts, they can be knocked into the background and destroy stuff. Awesome.

And that’s about everything we know at the moment about Dragon Ball FighterZ. The game is currently set to be released in early 2018, and a closed beta will hit at the end of summer.