DRAGON BALL LEGENDS

Review by eFreeware

Plenty of Dragon Ball games on phones lean on tapping through menus or watching cutscenes play themselves. If you want the fights to feel like fights, with dodges, counters and combos you time yourself, the choice narrows quickly. DRAGON BALL LEGENDS is Bandai Namco Entertainment's attempt at exactly that, and it has been pulling in players since May 2018.

The pitch is straightforward enough: build a squad from a large roster of heroes and villains, take them into real-time 3D battles, and follow an original story starring a Saiyan named Shallot. It is free to download, there are no ads, and it holds a 4.4 average across more than two million ratings. The install count sits above 50 million, which tells you the game has found a wide audience rather than a small niche.

What I find interesting is where the game puts its effort. Rather than re-telling the anime beat for beat, it mixes recognizable characters with a new protagonist drawn by Akira Toriyama, and it treats the roster itself as the long-term project. That combination is the reason to pay attention, and also the reason to think about whether the format suits you before you start.

Fights you steer rather than watch

Combat is split between direct control and card play. Battles play out in real time, with dodging, counters, and ability cards that chain into combos. Sitting still is not really an option, because the timing of a dodge or a counter shapes the exchange as much as the cards you hold.

The card layer is what keeps each match from becoming a pure reflex test. Your hand determines which moves are available, so you are deciding when to spend a strong attack and when to hold it. The developer describes the controls as intuitive, and that framing makes sense for a game that has to work with a thumb on a screen while still rewarding players who learn the timing.

The team-based Rising Rush attack adds a second layer. During a battle you fill Dragon Ball slots, and once they are complete your squad can fire off a combined strike. It gives matches a build-up and a payoff, and it ties the fighting to the roster you have assembled rather than treating each character as an isolated unit.

Building a squad from a very large roster

There are more than 400 fighters to find and train, spanning Goku and his various forms, Vegeta, Trunks, Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin, Frieza, Cell, Majin Buu, Broly, Beerus, Whis and Bulma. Characters are drawn from across the anime series, so the roster reaches into DBZ, DBGT and DBS rather than sticking to one era.

Collecting is only half of it. Training matters too, which means the game asks for a longer commitment than a quick arcade brawler would. I would expect the appeal here to be the slow work of turning a mixed group into a team that covers different situations, and that is a different pleasure from simply winning a single fight.

The presentation supports that collecting instinct. Characters and stages are rendered in 3D, with animation work built around modern versions of familiar special moves, and the original anime cast provides the voice acting. For anyone who grew up with the series, hearing those performances attached to recognizable attacks is a large part of the draw.

A new Saiyan, and the sagas you already know

The story mode is not a retread. You play as Shallot, a character created for the game and designed by manga creator Akira Toriyama, and the adventure puts him alongside Goku and the rest of the cast. It is a genuine attempt at an original thread rather than a recap with new art.

Alongside that, the game revisits sagas from the anime, so there is a familiar path through events you may already know well. Having both options is a sensible arrangement: newcomers get a story that does not assume years of background, while long-time fans get the moments they came for.

The two halves feed each other. Progress through the story and the sagas gives you reasons to keep developing your roster, and the roster in turn is what you bring to the player-versus-player side. It is a loop built around the idea that there is always another character to raise.

Live duels, casual and ranked

Player-versus-player is one-on-one and takes place live against opponents from around the world. There are casual battles if you want to play against friends or rivals without much at stake, and there are Rating Matches where you earn points and rewards for competing. The two tracks let you choose between low-pressure matches and a more serious ladder.

Because the fights are live, the card system and the real-time dodging carry over into a setting where a human opponent is reacting to you. That is a different experience from working through story content, where the pacing is more predictable, and it is where the combat design gets its hardest test.

The ranked side also gives the roster work a competitive purpose. A team you have trained for story missions is the same team you take into Rating Matches, so the effort you put into collecting and developing fighters has somewhere to go beyond the next chapter.

What the free download actually includes

The game is free to download and does not carry ads, which is worth noting given how common ad interruptions are in mobile action games. There are in-app purchases, and some of them are random-item purchases, so some spending works like a draw rather than a direct purchase of a specific character.

The developer's own note says that some items can enhance gameplay and speed up progress, and that these purchases can be disabled in your device settings. That is a useful detail if you would rather keep the game's economy out of reach, particularly for a younger player.

A paid monthly subscription called the LEGENDS Pass also hands out perks and boosts. It renews automatically from the purchase date. If you try it, the renewal date is the thing to keep an eye on.

The player this roster is built for

This is a game for someone who wants a Dragon Ball collection as much as a Dragon Ball fight. If the idea of gathering hundreds of characters, training them and assembling a team appeals to you, the structure gives that instinct plenty of room. The original Shallot storyline and the anime voice cast add reasons to care about the characters beyond their stats.

It also suits players who want real-time duels against other people rather than scripted encounters. The combination of dodging, countering and card-based attacks asks for attention during a match, and the ranked ladder gives that skill somewhere to be measured.

The narrower side is the commitment. Training a large roster and competing in Rating Matches is a long-term project, and the presence of random-item purchases and a monthly subscription means the game expects some players to spend over time. Someone looking for a short, self-contained experience will find the scale here works against them.

A long-term project for Dragon Ball fans

DRAGON BALL LEGENDS has lasted since 2018 for a reason: it offers a combat system with genuine input, a roster large enough to keep collecting interesting, and a live competitive mode that gives the team building a point. The original story around Shallot, backed by the anime cast, gives it more personality than a straightforward adaptation would have.

The free download with no ads keeps the entry point low, but the random-item purchases and the auto-renewing LEGENDS Pass mean the long game involves money for anyone who wants to move quickly. That is the trade you are making, and it is better to know it before you invest months in a squad.

I would suggest it to Dragon Ball fans who enjoy collecting and training characters and who want to test their teams against other players. If you are after quick, disposable matches with no roster to manage, the scale of what this game asks for will feel like more than you signed up for.

What's new in version 6.29.1

【Issues Fixed】 - Fixed various bugs