Super DBH Continued - The “Xenoverse Effect” plus New Scans and a Super Saiyan Blue Cast
Hey everyone! Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that my last post on this subject did get quite a decent amount of attention from you all. Yeah, I actually wasn’t sure who’d be interested in actually seeing me talk about this, but I’d like to thank you nonetheless for taking the time to read my thoughts on this update that Dragon Ball Heroes made not too long ago. I’m now making a continuation of that post being as we now have more promotional images for the upcoming season, Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Universe Mission released.
By the way, I’m kinda glad I’m subbed to DBZanto on YouTube. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have noticed his video where I found these images until much later on. So yeah, go give him a look on YouTube, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed with his content. But yeah, as I looked at his video, I noticed people mention something in the comments, which I felt was worthy of talking about in today’s post too: the “Xenoverse Effect”. So you guys will be seeing me mention that soon enough.
OK, last time, I mentioned how I caught up on the latest scans in regards to Dragon Ball-related media, and how I pointed out that the female Saiyan avatar, Note’s upcoming Super Saiyan Blue design seemed to lack what her original Super Saiyan form had. With the latest images, we now know what all the other races and avatar characters are going to look like as well. Lo and behold, the females and (surprisingly) one of the males all seem to fall under this strange design choice for Super Saiyan Blue. Let’s start off with the males for a change of pace.
In the middle, we have Beat who represents the Hero type attribute. On the right is Basaku who represents the Berserker type attribute. Finally, on the left is Erito who represents the Elite type attribute. As you can see, Beat and Basaku seem to have a fitting appearance toward their Super Saiyan Blue forms. But Erito, on the other hand, seems to stick out like a sore thumb which honestly surprised me quite a bit. Naturally, when it comes to the male Saiyan avatars, the designers for this game have managed to keep their physical looks fitting to the race they represent. Even Erito with his Android 17-inspired hair seemed to pull it off fairly well.
So why, all of a sudden, does he now seem to fall under a somewhat flawed design choice that also affects the female characters? Before we check out what Note and the girls have going on, here’s a quick comparison between Super Saiyan Blue as you currently see it, and his original Super Saiyan look.
Yeah, this is a pretty notable difference, am I right? By the way, I’m sorry that I could not find a decent image to put next to this new design, but I felt the image of him as a Super Saiyan, from the wiki was good enough and does its part in helping you see what he looks like.
Like I said, even with Erito having a physical design reminiscent of Android 17, I felt he pulled off his Saiyan representation fairly well for what it is. And that especially goes for his Super Saiyan forms as well. But for some reason, he seems to fall under what people are calling the “Xenoverse Effect”, which I can see why they’d bring such up. But for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, allow me to give an explanation as brief but helpful as I can make it be.
What is the Xenoverse Effect?
For those who haven’t been able to play the games Dragon Ball Xenoverse or its sequel, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, these were games that game developer Dimps have been responsible for making alongside Dragon Ball Heroes too, with the second game still getting much attention, and a sixth DLC pack soon to come.
Xenoverse essentially stands as a console/PC video game that carries the legacy of the MMORPG game, Dragon Ball Online, which some fans may have heard of. Akira Toriyama had been responsible for helping create many characters, designs, or even assisting in the story and other aspects of this game. Fans may also recognize the game for having its own timeline of events after the End of Z period, not including Dragon Ball GT.
Now, one of the races playable in this game is, of course, the Saiyans. And due to their iconic impact on the main series, as well as the inclusion of their transformations, it’s not hard to find plenty of Saiyan Time Patrollers in the Xenoverse games. But there does lie a small issue in the game that you might have heard people talk about, whether on YouTube or other places on the internet or maybe even real life if you have a friend who also likes the series.
As it turns out, Dimps made Super Saiyan appear to change your character’s hair color and eye color, but it remains the same shape as it would in your normal state. And the same is seemingly going to apply for Super Saiyan Blue as well.
While Dragon Ball Xenoverse wasn’t the first game to include character customization, any previous games that had custom characters before it, like Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi or Dragon Ball Online were not made by Dimps. I can indeed confirm this as I did my research. So Dimps and supposedly Bandai Namco are pretty much the ones responsible for this gripe that players may tend to bring up about this game. Seeing as how Super Saiyan Blue, which will become available to Saiyans in the upcoming DLC pack 6 will follow this design issue too, part of me isn’t too surprised to see this “Xenoverse Effect” fall into Heroes, but it does make me raise my eyebrows all the same.
Now that you know what the “Xenoverse Effect” is, I guess it’s time for me to show the three Saiyans girls from last time, now donning their new class upgrades for this season.
So we have Note, who I talked about more of in my last post in the middle, representing the Hero type. On the right is Forte, representing the Berserker type. Last but not least is Viola on the left, representing the Elite type. At this point, I don’t think I need to bring up what we’re supposed to see coming from Viola and Forte, but I can gladly make another comparison pic for these two if you guys want me to.
That being said, it surprises me to see that the only character that really shows some sort of change is Beat of all things. Even though I said Basaku’s hair is fitting, it doesn’t change the fact that he too would naturally have his hair change shape, even by the slightest amount when turning Super Saiyan.
So why is Dimps doing this, you might ask? The best and easiest answer I can think of is that they’re simply following the “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” method. But when they did this for Super Saiyan God, it wasn’t so bad, being as the form doesn’t change too much of your overall looks. You still look close enough to the untransformed appearance, but with some adjustments in hair and eye color, and the beefy characters have their muscle tone thin out a tad bit.
Super Saiyan Blue is a different beast to handle. It may be a basic recolor in design to the Super Saiyan form, yeah. That doesn’t change how dumb it can be to see even less effort being put into something simple as that. Not to mention that Dimps has given all these six Saiyan avatars a Super Saiyan hairdo that does look substantially different to what they looked like before.
Now, it’s not to say that they can’t change this. Chances are there is still an opportunity to convince them to fix this, even if the first mission is released. After all, Heroes is always getting updates, yeah? What’s the harm in changing one simple thing for the sake of consistency? Of course, Xenoverse seemingly refused to do that, so who knows what Dimps might do in response to this?
But at the end of the day, I did want to bring light to this. Sure, it’s nothing compared to fans arguing about the anime’s reveal to Jiren’s backstory, or people talking about how strange the new “Mastered Ultra Instinct” is with the sudden addition of white/silver hair. I just think that when you see a character that represents the player or represents the image of a spin-off that has become very popular in Japan to keep going for almost 8 years get an upgrade or form that comes from something we have seen before (or even something canon for that matter), yet it looks less than what it should be regardless of how stupidly simple it really is, I guess it’s only natural to think that perhaps they need to spend just a little more time to fix it. That’s all.
So let me know what you guys think if you want to explain your thoughts on the topic, and until next time!
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