For those unaware, after beating the main story of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Bulma builds a time machine like the one Future Trunks used in order to allow him to visit the main cast in their timeline. Currently, this is mostly a gimmick to allow Future Trunks to be playable during the post game content, but its features should expand soon. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot just updated to version 1.04, and many fans expected to see these new features added on to Bulma’s time machine, but instead only received bug fixes and quality of life changes.
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Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Version 1.04 Patch
Many of these quality of life changes and bug fixes were direly needed, so this is not to say that fans are disappointed with what they’ve received, rather that they are disappointed with what they didn’t receive. One of the most exciting changes was the improvement of load times. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot had somewhat abnormally long load times, especially for a game in which gathering dragon balls or doing certain sub-stories is entirely about switching back and forth between areas on the world map. The reduced load times are definitely noticeable, and a drastic and welcome fix to one of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s biggest problems.
Beyond that, many of the progress-halting bugs were addressed as well. Certain players were experiencing issues in which characters would not appear, making some main and sub stories impossible to complete. Usually, this was the result of the character being present on the field as a villainous enemy or awkwardness with specific save and load times. Thankfully, though, this has been addressed. There was also a minor change for Xbox One players, making it so the game does not skip the intro cinematic and go straight to the title screen.
While these changes are nice, there are surprisingly a lot of other bugs still to be found in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. Many players hoping to reach the maximum level of 250 have discovered that the special training with Bonyu is the best way to do so, but have experienced numerous crashes, fatal errors, and glitches while grinding. One such glitch causes the character to float higher into the air after each battle, eventually rocketing them out of bounds, while others simply cause the game to shut down, voiding any progress made since the last auto save. Hopefully these glitches and more will be fixed soon.
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Where is the time machine?
While these changes are certainly welcome, it can’t be avoided that most fans are disappointed about the exclusion of the time machine in this most recent update. When Bandai Namco announced that a free update would include new sub-stories and add features to the time machine, many assumed that this would happen in the next update. However, given that the time machine is completely absent from version 1.04, that is obviously not the case. For the time being, the time machine will offer nothing but the ability to play Future Trunks again.
Once these features are included, players will have the opportunity to venture back to previous sections of the story, allowing them to do many things. The ability to access certain time locked sub-stories and perhaps play as certain characters again would certainly be a welcome addition to the game. One of the main complaints has been that there’s not much to do after beating Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, not providing too much longevity or replayability. The time machine could fix a lot of these problems, and could be an avenue into other stories as well.
There has been much speculation about whether or not Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot will venture into the territory of other Dragon Ball stories, such as Dragon Ball Z movies, Dragon Ball Super, or Dragon Ball: GT. Although Dragon Ball Super seems like the most likely candidate, introducing the time machine could actually provide a method of exploring the story of non-canon Dragon Ball stories. There have already been rumors and leaks detailing the possibility of a Broly in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and the inclusion of certain characters opens up the possibility for other things.
Particularly Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s secret boss, Mira, really points towards the possibility of including Dragon Ball: GT content. In Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Mira fuses with one of Toki-Toki’s eggs and gains a form which highly resembles Super Saiyan 4. It is revealed later when this egg hatches that the entire Dragon Ball: GT timeline lived inside of it. After defeating Mira in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Towa says that they will go to a different timeline to gather more energy, so it would be interesting if new original content in line with this was introduced.
The changes brought forth in this update are hopefully the first of many additions and fixes to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. Even in its present state, most fans praise the game for being an incredible experience full of nostalgia, new information, and enjoyable gameplay, and it stands to reason that it can only get better as patches roll out and more and more features are added. Although players did not get the time machine this time, this update was somewhat of a surprise, and certainly doesn’t void the time machine announcement. For now, players will simply have to wait.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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