Dragon Ball FighterZ and the Joy of Fighting

The world is full of wonders and beauty, hallmarks and lighthouses in a landscape that gets shrouded in shadow by the minute, and yet some still shine bright. The feeling of grass pushed by the wind frolicking against your fingers, the slight rain after a sunny day, almost as if the sky let out a bit of its sadness when it’s finally time to lay in bed, the chirping of birds and the scurrying lizards running on the stone of the sidewalk.

All of this, all of this perpetual, all-encompassing beauty, found whichever way you look, and some motherfuckers out there prefer to log on FighterZ and play as goddamn Hit FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I’m not good at fighting games. Like, any of them. Zero. None. I try, I really try, but I’m bound to suck, or more aptly put, to quickly forget any of the stuff that’d make me good. Ask me to memorize combo routes for a whole character instead of making shit up on the sport and you’ll get me vomiting blood on the controller probably not really. I’ve put a totally combined 300 hours to Smash Ultimate, a game with a much, MUCH lower skill ceiling and entry bar when put against other stuff I’ve tried along the many years, and if you told me to play at a novice-level local I’d probably end up [like this.](https://files.catbox.moe/19wmxy.png)

I am not a good fighting game player, I have never been. And still, I’m in love with them.

And I’m obsessed with Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Amongst my friends and even my gf, when it comes to FGs, I’m what is commonly referred to as a ‘’dirty cheap-ass fucking degenerate rage baiter ahh troll son of a gun that deserves to be put on parole at minimum’’. I like my cheap tricks, I like my funny little and big guys that seemingly win accidentally, because I win accidentally. I like to pull things out of my ass (DON’T TAKE OUT OF CONTEXT), I enjoy being the conniving trickster, the joke that trips itself to victory because nobody else knows better. I like my Faust, I like my King K.Rools and my Mr. Game and Watchs, I like my Zangiefs and my Qs, and I specially like my Kumas. I may not be good, but I can pretend I know what I’m doing.

How could I not love this beautifully ugly salmon weilder!

Dragon Ball FighterZ is a game where characters can make (this) and (this) (<--- This one’s a Shitter link, apologies for that), a game where every single character has auto combos that can lead into the whole arena breaking, a game with supers so massive they can install kill you if you do them raw, a game where you can summon a fucking dragon and get double spark so you can combo the whole enemy’s team and fuck his/her/their significant other(s) while you are at it. This is a game the latest patch has fully cemented the absolute insanity that was always present since 2017, a game where combos can reach the 100-hit mark or drop at 4 because they were blue (dabadee dabada).

And despite all that, despite its grandiloquence and bat-shit insanity and action, it’s this the game that grounds me, that looks me in the eyes and whispers to my ear to ‘’sit down and learn’’. Everyone has the same bullshit, the same tricks, the tomfoolery, all in their own specially way. Ya think you are special for picking Majin Buu? Tough shit brother, eat dirt and perish. It forces me to think, but even more importantly, it makes me want to learn. Desperately, by any means necessary. And I fail, and I fall, and I eat dirt, but I keep coming back, the whole game is upside down again and I feel like everything I knew went to the drain but now I can control Buu’s pirouette to do mix-ups and Roshi is even more fun and that alone makes want to keep. Coming. BACK.

In a world of Gokus and Vegetas, be more like Chiaotzu. Kinda useless, but no matter how much he gets blown up or self destructs, he awlays gets back up. Truly inspiring...

No game makes me feel the way DBFZ does. Zero. None. ArcSys showed they were masters of kinetic thrill and selling the impact of their animations from the moment every dev that makes, made or will make up the team came out the womb, a masterwork that extends beyond mechanical realization and taps into constant pleasure with every hit, even the ones you are receiving. No, not Hit, but fuck it, him too, who am I kidding. Any of the character’s L5 has more weight and satisfaction than other entire games, even as the enemy juggles you and destroys you in full 4K 3ms ping on rollback, some part of you can’t stop itself from going ‘’DAMN that’s so cool’’. In some way, you are always interiorizing, learning from the spectacle, knowing what a whiff is by sheer pain of that lack if impact, routes that surpass the shit that Goku and Cell were doing on the anime somehow. In fact, it may be kinda surprising how much I’ve glossed over the whole Dragon Ball aspect, a property I hold so dearly and respect to no end, and it is important. To a fan, tapping into the real power of playing as these insane goobers and goobettes beyond the limitations of an arena fighters only elevates it further, but even to a non fan, an outsider to the property, that lack of knowledge doesn’t stop it from identifying outstanding systems and animations. I’d know, I made sure to show this game to every person I’ve known. Friends of mine have never SEEN DB and adore this thing to bits. It’s ENCHANTING.

The phrase ‘’if everyone’s special nobody will be’’ found dead on an alleyway; every has some bullshit, some more than others, certainly (UI Goku rearranged my organs so that probably means something) , but essentially, everyone’s on the same power level. And still, none are even coming close to being like each other. Goku with Blue Hair doing shit Goku Blonde could never dream of and vice versa, it’s fucking awesome. Everyone’s special, and learning them feels special, surpassing them feels special, improving feels special.

I am not good at fighting games, and I such at DBFZ, but suck a bit less than yesterday, everyone does. It’s a perfect hub that interjects some of the most complex and deep learning curves of the genre with the primal desire to make your guy hit the other guy REALLY strong, and it’s DAMN good at it.

Absolute artistry, a perfect experience, even tho it’s a fucking mess. But if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be DBFZ, now would it?

The story is ASS tho HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT the things one must do to unlock Android 21 just to end up sucking at using her. Like many things in this world, it was all worth it for the raw level 3— who said that.

Originally uploaded to Backloggd on October 16th, 2025, the first semi-simultaneous Backloggd-DeemonCove write up! Still getting familiarized with HTML and post making, but expect a lot of older reviews from there to be uploaded onto here for archival purposes soon.

Thank you so much for reaching this point.