What is Dragon Ball Heroes?

As I was writing my Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission review I noticed that it was becoming a bit too long for my taste, and yours as well I assume. So, I decided to cut this review in half and on this part I will explain what is Dragon Ball Heroes and its gameplay.


Let’s start then!

WHAT IS DRAGON BALL HEROES:

Dragon Ball Heroes is a card game for the Arcades that was released on Japan in 2010, players would buy packs of physical cards and then use them on the Arcades. Each card corresponds to a certain character from the Dragon Ball Universe that we all know like Goku or Vegeta, however, this game offers a ton of fan service! Because of this, you can expect to find cards of Super Saiyan 3 Bardock, Super Saiyan 4 Brolly, and even Adult Gotenks! I can’t stress enough how much fun it is to create a deck full of characters that otherwise would only exist in our imagination.


However, if this concept might not be for everyone so let’s hope the gameplay is!

GAMEPLAY

The goal of any match is to deplete your opponent’s HP. You start by registering, a team of 7 cards and selecting a Module that will activate a skill in one of the 5 rounds of the match. Each player takes turns at the simultaneously and you can choose to place your cards in four different areas where the blues one corresponds to the support area and the yellow/red to the attack area. 


Each card has a certain amount of Stamina that can be spent to contribute to your team’s Power Level, which determines whose team’s attacks first. The further you place a card on the Atack area the more Stamina is used which results on a higher Power Level. At this Phase, you should be careful not to deplete your card’s Stamina completely, if your opponent attacks first your card might get stunned and unable to attack for a turn. To replenish your Stamina all you have to is send your card to the support area.

When you’re attacking you’ll notice a couple of Quick Time Events and the most prevalent is the Charge Impact, win it to deal more damage and activate your Special Attack or to defend against the other team and negate their specials.


To use special attacks you’ll need Hero Energy which is gained by reaching a threshold of 3000 Power Level, meaning if you’re able to get 9000 Power Level in a turn you’ll gain 3 Hero Energy. There are other ways of getting it though, such as having a card with an Auto Skill that gives 1 or 2 Hero Energy or using a Capsule before a match starts.


However, getting energy blindly will get you nowhere, it’s important to know your cards and how much energy they need to activate their Special Skills. But, some Cards have skills that don’t require energy at all instead, they activate automatically, in a certain round, or if you place them in a certain area.

One last thing you should know is that each card falls into a type. The Hero Types are well-balanced and have a great defense, Elite Types use Ki-Blasts that can deplete your opponent’s defense, Berserk Types have lower defenses but a much greater attack and the Special Types are mainly used as supports and you can only have one per deck.


While attacking with a card of the same type they may join in a Co-op Attack and if you hit a perfect in the Charge Impact certain abilities will activate. A Hero Co-op attack will increase your Attack Power and raise your Hero Energy, an Elite will recover Stamina, and a Berserk will destroy your opponent’s Hero Energy.

And that’s pretty much the basics! It might seem confusing but once you start playing it gets easier to understand since the game itself has a very good tutorial!