These Early Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Development Shots Look Phenomenal

Ricky Frech April 1, 2020 3:34 PM EST

Early Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot development shots show off the clean, manga-inspired art direction CyberConnect2 originally tried out.

Earlier this year, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot released to mixed reviews. However, the commercial reception was a little rosier, proving the franchise still has major, worldwide selling power. A lot of that comes down to how great the source material is. Even with “boring” gameplay, you can get pretty far on pure nostalgia. DBZ: Kakarot has that in spades, especially if you’re mainly a fan of the anime. Visually, the game looks almost exactly like classic anime episodes. However, as shown in a new article from CGWold.JP, that wasn’t always the case. Check out the first style the team tried out below.

As you can see, the old style adheres more closely to Akira Toriyama’s manga. As a still shot, it’s absolutely beautiful. It also stands out from most of the other DBZ video games like Dragon Ball FighterZ which looks just like the anime. Unfortunately, the team found that once in motion, the style just didn’t work well for a video game. Testing proved that many players felt a large “feeling of discomfort”. And so, they replaced it with more of anime-like fusion.

Obviously, it’s hard to imagine the game doing better simply with a different art style. And it’s not like the game sold poorly anyways. However, fans of the manga likely would’ve been over the moon had this original style been used in the final product. That style is just so clean and iconic. You have to hope someone figures out how to make it look good in motion for a future video game.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. If you’d like a look at even more screens featuring the original style, please check out the gallery below. It features several great-looking shots of the game in action.