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Dragon Ball FighterZ Guide - Beginner’s Tips Guide, Character Overview, Story Mode Guide

Here's everything you need to know to master Dragon Ball FighterZ, including a guide to the control scheme for the game, as well as a story mode guide.

Dragon Ball FighterZ, the latest in the long-running fighting game companion to the anime series, is now out worldwide for consoles and PC alike. In this Dragon Ball FighterZ tips guide, we’ll be giving you a general character overview for the game, as well as giving you all the info you need to dominate at the game.

If you need anything else concerning Dragon Ball FighterZ, including a complete review roundup for the game, as well as a list of all the modes and fighters featured in the game, head over to our Dragon Ball FighterZ everything we know guide.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Guide

To start with, we have several additional Dragon Ball FighterZ guides, aimed at helping you with specific areas of the hectic fighting game. You can find them all listed just below:

  • Dragon Ball FighterZ Control Guide
  • Dragon Ball FighterZ Zeni/Z Capsules Guide
  • Dragon Ball FighterZ Super Moves Guide

At the very beginning of Dragon Ball FighterZ, you’ll find yourself in the lobby area, which basically acts as the hub world for the game. Going clockwise around the circular area from where you start, you’ll find the following vendors and challenges awaiting you:

  • Practice Reception - Ity does what it says on the tin, and we’d highly recommend taking some time to get adjusted to the hectic combat of Dragon Ball FighterZ, whether you’re a newcomer or a veteran.
  • Story - This is where you can take on multiple challenges to advance the original story of Dragon Ball FighterZ. If you beat the Android 21 arc of Story Mode, the character will join the roster of playable characters.
  • Shop Reception - This is where you can spend your hard earned Zeni on Z Capsules, which can contain anything from new character skins to Z Stamps.
  • Replay Reception - The Replay Reception offers a playback of your highlights in Dragon Ball FighterZ.
  • Local Battle Reception - This is where you can either take on another player on the same console, or test yourself against the AI.
  • Arcade Reception - The Arcade Reception pits your team of three fighters against multiple gauntlets of other Dragon Ball FighterZ characters.

Make sure to get well acquainted with the lobby area, as it’s going to be your home while playing Dragon Ball FighterZ. There’s a lot to take in when your first boot up the game, especially if you’re a newcomer to the entire Dragon Ball franchise.

Head to the Story area on the left, and you’ll kick off the main story of Dragon Ball FighterZ, which thankfully throws in a tutorial mission at the very beginning, explaining how to play the game. To start, you can see the health bars of you and your opponent’s characters at the top of the screen. Your Ki Gauge is shown by the bar in the bottom of the screen, which fills up with every successful attack you land on your opponent.

In the upper middle area of the screen, you’ll see a timer, which shows how long you’ve got to defeat your opponent. If the timer runs out and both teams are left standing, the one with the most health will be deemed the winner.

If you’re daunted by the range of eccentric, colorful characters on offer in this action-packed brawler, head over to our Dragon Ball FighterZ gateway guide, to help get you up to speed.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Story Mode Guide

To kick off the story mode of Dragon Ball FighterZ (which we’d highly recommend doing before anything else), head over to the Story area on the left side of the lobby. No matter if you’re a Dragon Ball veteran or a newcomer to the long-running series, this game has a brand new, original story, so there’s something to enjoy for everyone.

Once you’ve been set free from the tutorial chapter and you’re out into the full map of the story mode, things get slightly more complex. In each map you find yourself in, you’re allowed a specific number of moves to make your way across the map and reach the boss battle at the very end of the map, advancing the story and moving on to the next map area. However, there are a variety of optional destinations that you might want to visit before the boss fight, but should you run out of moves before you reach the boss, it’ll be game over.

Therefore, you’ve got to carefully plot your way across the maps in Dragon Ball FighterZ’s story mode, leaving yourself enough moves left on the counter to reach the boss battle, which will always be denoted by a purple marker. There are fights with underlings along the way to the final boss of a map, which give you the chance to earn some XP to level up Goku.

Aside from this, there are also green markers above characters who you can battle to rescue, adding them to your roster as you go, with the maximum characters on your roster capping out at 3. There are also characters with blue markers next to them, which denote tutorial missions - a chance to hone your skills and earn some extra Zeni to spend on Z Capsules.

Be warned that should be fail against any of the weaker fighters on the way to a boss fight, you’ll have to start from the very beginning of the map again, albeit with all your moves still available. The boss character will often be a higher level than Goku and his team, so it’s worth taking on lower level underlings on the way to the boss battle, to level yourself up for the fight ahead.