This game style is most often used with horror, using it to match the tone and style of a powerful and dangerous enemy tearing through a group of random people. The fear and desperation it derives.

Asymmetrical multiplayer has become increasingly popular in the last few years, pitting multiple weaker players against one stronger player on a quest to survive.

A Dozen franchises have tried it.  Friday the 13th, Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Predator, Killer Klowns from outer space, and another popular franchise have tried it.

Now you can add Dragon Ball to the list.

Dragon Ball is known for massive battles between incredibly super-powered beings, firing beams of energy that could destroy mountains, with the stakes being the destruction of even the entire planet.

In this game you play not as Goku, or Vegeta, or Trunks, but as one of the random powerless civilians that have to try and survive this world-ending threat. One of your own design actually, you create them.

7 survivors, one raider.

The survivors have to hide, and activate a super time machine to banish the Raider, and the Raider

The map is segmented into 6 pieces. The central area X, and around it, making a circle, five other areas labeled A through E. 

The Survivors’ goal is to find a key and insert it in each area, once all 5 are inserted, a device will spawn in area X, the survivors need to activate it to activate the super time machine. If the super time machine is activated, the Raider is banished back to their home time and the survivors survive. This takes time though, and the Raider’s goal is to destroy it.

If enough survivors are killed, an emergency time machine will spawn, and a survivor can get in it and attempt to fly away. Other survivors can try and jump on it to hitch a ride on it, clinging on for dear life. Barely escaping with their lives if the raider doesn’t destroy the time machine.

The raider’s goal is to prevent that, ideally with violence.

There is one other factor. Hidden throughout the map are the seven Dragon balls. If either team is able to get all seven, they can summon the dragon Shenron and are granted a wish, such as powering up their team (or themself) or health recovery.

The reader starts out weak, but by defeating survivors (and finding civilians, and absorbing them.) they will level up and get stronger. Downing a survivor allows you to preform a special finisher that increases the progress to the next level. Another survivor can revive them, but if you down a survivor twice, they are just finished, and are out of the game.

There are three raiders currently, Freiza, Cell and Buu.

Freiza shifts through his four forms, starting in his hover chair before finishing at his famous final form. He can finish people from a distance and summon minions to assist him, and has a unique wish that makes him fully immortal.

Cell starts as his harmless larvae form, but as absorbs people he grows through his evolutions before hitting his perfect form. And he can directly eat people to increase his level.

Buu starts as Spopovich, and needs to release buu from his prison. Before you take control of Buu himself.

Buu also has a unique trait where right before his final form he absorbs everyone inside him, like he did to most of the cast near the end of his arc, and the survivors have to face him in a much smaller area, within him, and try to escape, returning to the larger map, but also allowing Buu to reach his final form. 

The survivors do have one weapon against the Raider. They can find energy around the map, and if they have enough of it, they can temporarily channel the abilities of an actual Dragon Ball character, granting your character the power to temporarily go toe to toe with the Raider, (and dressing them like the character) either to stall their attention or to get yourself out of tight spot. It only lasts for a short while, and taking damage drains its power, it is a short reprieve, it’s possible to wear down the raider’s health and defeat them, but it either takes sustained attrition or a coordinated team effort, it’s not something done easily.

The game shines in its presentation and style. It feels like a DBZ episode. As the raider levels up, they are given the option to simply destroy an entire section of the map. The screen shakes and the sky darkens, and if you’re in that section the screen turns a deep red. Before the entire section explodes, turning it into a pit of lava and exposed mantle. This just makes the objective in the area no longer count, so it’s not going to trap the survivors who haven’t gotten the key there. It’s just to reduce the space the survivors have to run to, and hopefully, take out one or two loose survivors. And as more and more of the map is destroyed, the sky turns more and more red, and the air starts to get thick with ash and embers.

When a raider is near, the music swells and your character starts to run and cower in overdramatic fear, mirroring the animations from the show.

The biggest issue is the lack of a dedicated raider queue. In games of this nature, the smaller team often suffers from longer waits, simply by the nature of having less need for them. But most games give you the option to choose to wait longer to guarantee the smaller team. Breakers currently uses a priority system, the more matches you play as a survivor, the higher priority you have for being the raider. But that means you have to play survivor to play raider. It would vastly improve with the option to wait for a slot as a raider. 

The game follows a standard progression system where playing as a character grants XP that can be used to upgrade their abilities. The only potential hiccup is the usage of a sort of Gacha system in the main hub. You can use a variety of different currencies (some earned, one paid) to roll for new summons. But at least at launch, it doesn’t seem particularly unfair, grindy, or unbalanced, that, of course, may change, but so far seems fine.

Besides that, and some early balancing issues, the game is very well made.

It is clearly made with a lot of love and respect for the Dragon Ball franchise. And is a very unique take on the asymmetrical multiplayer format. In between the traditional hide-and-run style ones of Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, and the more combat-focused ones of Evil Dead: The Game and Predator: Hunting Grounds.

It honestly is most similar to the game Evolve, with the evolving raider and the large map, and the ability to kill the raider with teamwork, but manages to avoid the trappings that evolve unfortunately was saddled with. Dragon Ball: The Breakers is much more balanced, and it’s very difficult for the survivors to early on corner and kill the unleveled enemy. 

But if you enjoy Dragon Ball or Asymmetrical games at all, it’s definitely worth checking out.

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