Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle is one of the longest-lasting gacha games around. Originally released globally for iOS and Android in 2015, the game has been downloaded over 350 million times and is still growing in terms of player numbers.
It’s a deceptively simple game that has a bunch of mechanics under the hood that makes it a lot more complex than what is presented. It is still quite a polarizing game because of its gameplay mechanics and its appeal to certain demographics and fans.
So is Dokkan Battle worth your time in 2024? Yes, Dokkan Battle is still a great gacha to play even after all this time. It’s stood as one of the most popular gacha games even for people that don’t know about the Dragon Ball universe. It gets constant updates for content and characters that will keep players continuing to strive for that ideal team or deck. However, for the players that might want a bit faster-paced gameplay, it can be tough to get into at first.
Is Dokkan Battle a Good Fit For You?
Dokkan Battle is a game that is very easy to digest and doesn’t require a guide for every mode of the game. Also, it avoids making the player feel overwhelmed with stuff to do when they log in so there’s no need to mindlessly grind away. Therefore, it’s easy to return to the game, even after a long break time.
Although the game is still fun to watch and play, it is showing its age in some aspects compared to some newer gachas coming out. For players trying to see if it’s worth their time to dive into the game, see the table below!
| What Players Might Like About Dokkan Battle | What Might Put Players Off About Dokkan Battle |
|---|---|
| -The animation has taken a step up over the past few years. Lots of effort is put into the super attacks and abilities. It’s a visual feast for the eyes. -Half the fun is putting together a team of your favorite characters and seeing how they synergize with each other. For example, every character has a category that they belong to – picking characters that fit within that category is essential to gain bonuses and buffs. -No dead multi-pulls. Every 10 pull contains an SSR-type character. Some are of course better than others but nowadays, almost every SSR has a place in a team. The game is quite generous with Dragonstones (currency used to pull) and there’s always an event to gain more. -Playing the game makes you feel really good. Even despite not having the right or optimal characters, putting together a team that works is a super satisfying feeling. -Very little “required” grinding – other than for maybe the pulling currencies. Therefore, it doesn’t require a lot of time from the player. Making it an ideal side game. You can still do most of the content in the game without grinding like hell. | -Some older characters, sprites, and content in the game are starting to show some age. Some sprites are visibly lower quality. However, the game is slowly starting to update the visual quality of past characters and content. -In the beginning, the game mechanics are too simple as most players can’t look past the bubble popping gameplay. The game is also turn-based which many new players might not be expecting. Therefore, the beginning of Dokkan Battle can be a little bit slow for some players. -The game is hub-based similar to many other gachas. You access the story, events, and other challenges through the main menu of the game. It’s a lot of button clicking at times. -Pity mechanic (guaranteed one of the banner characters) is a lot slower to gather than other games. However, it does carry over from banner to banner – just collect the tokens. -It is more of a PvE game where players build teams and tackle boss challenges with varying stages. There isn’t any proper direct PVP like in Dragon Ball Legends. So players looking for a more PVP game, won’t find it in Dokkan Battle. -Lack of co-op gameplay and interactions between other players in the game. Although the game allows you to use your friend’s characters and has some sort of pseudo-PVP modes, the game doesn’t have a meaningful multiplayer mode. No real co-op either. So for players wanting to play with their friends directly, Dokkan Battle doesn’t have it at this time. Though, rumors are that they are developing it and it’s coming soon, maybe. |
Can You Catch Up With Older Veteran Dokkan Battle Players?
Veteran Dokkan players might have some more flashy units but to catch up these days is extremely easy. The game is always giving away great units to help new players and the currency is easy enough to gather to save until you find a character that will benefit your team.
Eventually, your teams and characters will get to a point where you’re able to complete most of the content fairly easily and you’ll be like the rest of us – just gathering stones for the next character and for the next event to tackle!
To be honest, the game is a nice change of pace for a lot of people that play gachas – there are some gachas that take up too much time to progress and some that don’t. Dokkan Battle is part of the latter. Therefore, having a game like Dokkan Battle is a fun change as I can play the game less seriously compared to other games.
Is Dokkan Battle Free To Play Friendly?
The longer the game is up for service, the more f2p (free-to-play friendly) Dokkan Battle becomes. It’s generous with all of its currencies and frequently provides with free-to-play players ways of obtaining the characters they need for their teams. All of the content can be completed with the f2p characters that the game provides – just look on youtube, in all the content that has ever come out in the game, someone always creates a f2p team that can complete it.
Even the most coveted LR rarity characters, free players can obtain and build up. It’s even rewarding building and maxing out older characters because they’re also continually updating older characters to bring them up to the power level of the current characters. As a result, even though there might be a slight power-creep that goes on in Dokkan Battle – the game doesn’t require you to always pull the newest characters to complete content and older characters keep being rebalanced.
How Are The Dokkan Battle Events and Community?
The Dokkan Battle community is always growing because the game keeps getting better. However, I think the developers or company can do a better job at connecting with their viewers at a more frequent time frame. Usually, developer events or streams about the game are only during game anniversaries or birthdays (which is maybe a couple of times per year).
When you compare this with other gacha games these days – there’s at least a stream for every new patch that gets put out or a weekly stream to keep the players abreast of things that are going on with the game. It keeps players more engaged with the game. Unfortunately, Dokkan Battle doesn’t do this and players have to wait for the bigger events and patches to see the things that developers are planning.
What is the Endgame in Dokkan Battle?
The end-game in Dokkan Battle is a lot of boss gauntlets and similar type challenges. They’re a lot of fun, especially to test out teams that you’ve maybe theory-crafted or saw online. Even if you beat it once for the rewards, it’s fun to keep trying other teams to see the most optimal character setups and team combinations.
There are always new modes that Dokkan Battle introduces from time to time, however, it’s really more of the same. Boss challenges that get harder and harder and maybe sometimes place restrictions on the teams you can use. However, the formula is tried and true and the game still remains fun to this day.
It can be repetitive after a while but again, the game isn’t forcing you to keep playing, or else you’ll fall behind. Just take a break, wait for the next new character that you’re hyped about and try to build a team around them to toss into the boss challenges. That’s the core of the game-play loop that’s quite effective for Dokkan.
DBZ: Dokkan Battle Verdict
Dokkan Battle is a game that makes you feel powerful playing it, even if you really haven’t put in that much time into it. Some players might knock the mechanics of the game but Dokkan hides its simplicity well – so if you’re looking to try out Dokkan Battle, try to get past the slow beginnings of the game and towards the mid to late game. It’s a lot more fun when you have more characters and teams to try out.
The game gets frequent updates, so there is a long future left for the game. How many more Goku, and Vegeta cards can they make? Probably infinity. Come at me you super vegetables.