This Ain't Your Daddy's Budokai: Choosing A Team In Dragon Ball FighterZ

So, now that you’ve decided on your controller, you need to find out who you’re actually controlling in Dragon Ball FighterZ. The initial cast of characters can be daunting, especially if you’re unfamiliar with them. That being said, there’s generally three ways of selecting your character of choice.

The first, is of course, “Pick a Top-Tier”

Now, this is classic fighting game community material, given to us by the legendary Sanford Kelly, but it only serves as comedy as far as I’m concerned. Picking a character because they’re good in the community’s eyes only serves to harm you in the long run. You may have differing opinions of how strong a particular character is in a game than the rest of the community, and thus are not picking a character that is perceived to be strong. Top player Fuudo explains that his approach to fighting games is to choose the character he feels is strong, so “he’ll be strong with a strong character.” While his trademark Street Fighter IV character Fei Long was seen as very strong in the Arcade Edition update, he was considered to be weakened in later iterations, but Fuudo was still successful. It’s my guess that over time, Fuudo learned Fei Long inside and out and was able to succeed despite the character being weaker. This immediately gets into the next way to select a character - picking your favorites.

Selecting characters I’m personally invested in is my preferred path to finding a character, and I’m not alone. A thread on r/dragonballfighterz received 109 comments from people who are, more or less, picking their favorite characters. “I have always picked characters in games based on their personalities and aesthetics,” one user said. “Even if they are low tier or don't synergize well, making it work and winning with your favorite team/character is really satisfying.”

My struggles with finding the right character in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Street Fighter V sort of fall under this. I’m a Ryu loyalist, and it takes a lot for me to admit that I won’t be able to use my favorite fighting game character in a game he’s in - and it breaks my heart. Luckily, I grew up playing a ton of the Mega Man X series of games and loved Zero, and figured I would try him out. I fell in love with the character and continue to use him on my main team (we’ll get to his tag team partner a bit later in the article.)

In Dragon Ball FighterZ, I’m looking at Goku/Cell/Trunks, or Goku/Cell/Adult Gohan. Goku is the only fictional character I love as much as Ryu, so being able to use him in a game is a dream come true, especially with my recent struggles with Ryu. Cell is my favorite villain of the series, and his moveset seems to mesh with my strengths as a player, which is an added bonus. Trunks and Adult Gohan are other characters I love, and I think they’re strong anchor characters, which is another added bonus. My friend Xavier “Omni_Free” Lassiter is similarly happy with his three characters.

“Piccolo has always been one of my favorites since DB,” he said. “I like that he's heavy on mixups and has some long range, plus he's good on a DHC (delayed hyper combo) and his Special Beam Cannon can be charged to do more damage, and his QCF ki blast can become a grab and pull the opponent in. Fat Majin Buu was the first villain that I truly enjoyed watching other players use. He's more of a big body that can also do mix-ups. Lastly, Beerus was kind of cool in Battle of the Gods (a Dragon Ball Z movie released in 2013.) I like his playstyle and his assist.”

The last way to decide who you should play is based on your personal playstyle. There are characters who illicit many different play styles, in fighting games - zoners, rushdown, grapplers, and strong neutral characters, to name a few. The same can be said for Dragon Ball FighterZ and its diverse cast. I again reached out to Dan “SYN|Jaegar” McMahon for his preferred characters, and he mentioned his interest in Android 21. “I’m interested in using Android 21 to build meter,” he said. “I’ve even picked up Susano’o in BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma to prep for using her.” Another friend of mine said he was choosing Goku Black, Hit, and Beerus, due to their play style and synergy.

Like I mentioned earlier, I needed a partner for Zero in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and as I looked through the roster, I noticed Sigma, one of the villains of the Mega Man franchise. He looked cool and is one of the only characters with good voice acting, so I gave him a shot. He quickly became my favorite character to use in the game. He has moves that I enjoy using and his combos are not only aesthetically pleasing, but fun to perform. Sometimes, we forget video games are designed to be fun, so it’s important to pick a character you’re having fun using, and the same goes for Dragon Ball FighterZ. Don’t worry if your character is perceived to be weak - if you enjoy using them, then use them! Just be ready to put in the work.

Now that we’ve finally chosen our characters, we have to go into the lab and practice.