DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT - Goku's Next Journey (DLC)

Goku's Next Journey is a DLC chapter for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, the action-RPG from CyberConnect2 that adapts the Dragon Ball Z saga into an open-world playable experience. If you already own the base game, this content pushes the story past the Buu arc and into territory that edges toward Dragon Ball Super, giving longtime fans a reason to dust off their save files. It is a short, focused package rather than a sprawling expansion, and it lives or dies on whether you care about these characters enough to sit through more cutscenes and combat encounters built around familiar power fantasy beats. The combat in Kakarot has always been its most polarizing feature. It is flashy, it captures the kinetic energy of the anime better than almost any previous Dragon Ball game, but it rarely asks much of you mechanically. Most fights are won by hammering your ki attacks, managing a basic dodge window, and keeping a support party alive in the background. The RPG layer underneath, with its community boards, meal buffs, and Soul Emblems, adds texture but not real depth. In the base game that trade-off works because the spectacle carries you. In a shorter DLC, you feel the shallowness of the build system more acutely. There is no meaningful build variety to speak of across 40-plus hours, and the story content here will not change that calculation. What the DLC does well is emotional pacing for fans. CyberConnect2 clearly loves this source material, and it shows in the attention paid to character expressions, transformation sequences, and the quieter moments between battles. If your primary reason for playing Kakarot was narrative closure on the Z timeline, this content delivers that in a clean, fan-respectful package. The writing does not reinvent anything, but it respects what came before. For a game adaptation working with decades of established lore, that restraint is worth noting. The honest caveat is that this DLC, like the base game, is built almost entirely for Dragon Ball Z fans. If you do not have nostalgia or existing attachment to Goku and company, neither the combat depth nor the RPG mechanics are strong enough to carry you on their own merits. The open-world zones are underpopulated, side quests range from charming to outright filler, and the grind for higher-level content is the kind of padded XP structure I find genuinely hard to defend in 2024. The 93 percent positive Steam rating reflects the audience this was made for, and that audience will likely be satisfied. Everyone else should temper expectations accordingly. Bottom line: if you finished Kakarot and wanted more story, this delivers it without overstaying its welcome. Just do not come in expecting mechanical complexity or a narrative that rewards close reading the way a dedicated RPG would.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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