Dragon Ball Heroes Ultimate Mission 3ds

[Sullivan Maurer]

DragonBall Heroes is an extremely popular arcade game, being the number 1 digital card game in the market, running for over 12 years straight, and distributing over 1.2 billion cards as of October 2022.[1] It made over 5 billion yen per year starting from 2011, surpassing the total of 40 billion yen. There are more than 7000 individual cards and 1,820,000 players. The 3DS versions of the game, Ultimate Mission 1 and 2, sold over 700k copies in total.[2]

On November 17, 2016, the game received an update. The graphics of the game received a slight enhancement, the number of cards available for a team was increased to 7, and support-type characters such as giant characters who are playable without their base/smaller forms were added to the game. The game was renamed to Super Dragon Ball Heroes, which was also used as the name of the first set of missions released for the updated game. In early Fall of 2018, Super Dragon Ball Heroes introduced a new series, the Universe Mission, which updated the Battle U.I. During the Spring of 2020, Super Dragon Ball Heroes introduced a new series, the Big Bang Mission, as the game was approaching its 10th anniversary. This update is an upgrade to the game that improves the battle system and the graphics. In March 2022, the Ultra God Mission was brought about, bringing with it new mechanics, a change to the Battle U.I., and smoother transitions. On July 29, 2023, a new series, Meteor Mission, was announced.[3]

A test run with the arcade machines translated to English was ran during the Dragon Ball North American Tour 2018 but didn't see an English run during the Dragon Ball World Adventure the following year. The arcade machines would later be ported over to other parts of Asia in 2020 (i.e., Taiwan & Hong Kong) in hopes of a playable market there. That same year, the machines had to be divided by borders to practice social distancing due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as well as delaying certain missions that were planned for an earlier release.

On May 9, 2024, it was announced that Dragon Ball Heroes would cease operations with the release of the upcoming carddass game, Dragon Ball Super Divers. However, in an interview with Victory Uchida, there will be plans for a separate "Heroes Mode" that will allow players to use their cards and their avatar while still migrating to the new arcade game.[4]

Starting from the God Missions, Dragon Ball Heroes began implementing story arcs that followed a consistent narrative. So far, there have been nine overarching original story arcs: the Dark Demon Realm Saga, Dark Empire Saga, Prison Planet Saga, Dark King Mechikabura Saga, Universal Conflict Saga, Universe Creation Saga, New Space-Time War Saga, Supreme Kai of Time Saga, and Demon Invader Saga.

Happening within and alongside the Dark Demon Realm Saga are the God of Destruction Beerus Saga, Golden Frieza Saga, King Piccolo Saga, Baby Hatchiyack Saga, Universe 6 Saga, Ultimate Hirudegarn Saga and "Future" Trunks Saga. Happening alongside the Dark Empire Saga are the Super Bardock Saga, Modern-Day Mayhem Saga. Universe Survival Saga and Surviving City Life. Happening alongside the Prison Planet Saga, Universal Conflict Saga and Dark King Mechikabura Saga are the end of the Universe Survival Saga, Android 21 Saga and Dragon Ball Super: Broly, as well as a series of "Ages" focusing on a specific character or series.

There are general themes for each set of cards. The game offers missions to complete based on the themes from each set. Many of the characters have complete alternate skins determined by the character card used, for example Yamcha can appear with his teenage look or his Majin Buu Saga outfit.

Typically each set introduces a new theme and includes cards from the previous theme. The first set of cards features the Red Ribbon Androids, while the second set features the Red Ribbon Androids and the Galaxy Soldiers, the third set features the Galaxy Soldiers and Majin Buu, the fourth set features Majin Buu and the Frieza Force, the fifth set features the Frieza Force and Slug's Demon Clan, the sixth set features Lord Slug's clan and Super Buu, the seventh set features Super Buu and Broly, and the eighth set features Broly and Tapion.

The player can use an avatar as playable character, for which they can determine the name. Different races are playable, each divided in three classes: Hero Type, Elite Type (unlocked at Level 8 or higher), and Berserker Type (unlocked at Level 12 or higher).

A series of short trailers featuring new animation have been released to promote the game. Each one offers a very short, roughly one-minute, standalone plot with Beat, the main promotional character, featured as a protagonist in these commercials. The Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Dark Demon Realm Mission! and Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Universe Mission!! manga series draw heavy inspiration from these trailers for their adaptations of the game's story.

Dragon Ball Heroes uses a turn-based card battle system in five rounds or less, which offers 5 on 5 battles with only one health bar for a team of characters. The cards featuring characters from the Dragon Ball franchise are given specific powers and abilities that allow for unique and strategic combat experiences.

The player has to move the cards on the game board. Depending on the conditions of the match, up to five cards can be placed on the machine's game mat and are then moved on the playing field in an attempt to gain an advantage against the opponent. Characters further back on the field receive less damage than those in the front, but they also deal less damage as well. During both the attack and defense phases of battle, timing meters will appear on the screen and force the player into a mini-game to determine the amount of damage dealt. The goal is to press the button on the machine with precise timing to fill the timing meter gauge more than the opponent in order to gain the advantage in the exchange and perform either an effective attack or defense depending on the phase. Special attacks can only be performed if the advantage is gained during the attack phase. Special team attacks called Ultimate Units can also be performed.

During a battle, the player use cards which allow him to transform, fuse, enhance their special attack, throw a huge energy ball, do a Kamehameha, brainwash the opponent, do a double or triple team attack, aiming at opponent, do a Z attack or summon other characters (even the giants ones), or summon a supportive robot or other avatars to help by either offensive or defensive ways.

Dragon Ball Heroes has received generally mixed to positive reviews, with official reports saying that it's the Number 1 digital card game in all of Japan.[5] The series has attained a near-cult following as much of the characters, stories, games and spinoffs have recieved widespread and/or mainstream acclaim. Despite the massive positivity, the game's lack of overseas promotional work, aside from several cameo appearances in other media and even World Mission, has been brought into question countless times by fans.

Dom kicked off his games writing career first as a production assistant at Future, then as Production Editor for Official PlayStation Magazine UK. He became Editor at Nintendo Life in December 2017 before pivoting into a career in marketing.

Its decent enough for me as a dragon ball fan and a somewhat turn base ish jrpg. i put over 70 hours (or 60 i forgot) what i think is the last boss is kicking my buttocks and i haven't touch the other features around the game yet.

Shallow? Really?

I found the potential for deck combos quite deep actually.

90% of the actual strategy happens during deck building, granted, but it offers quite a lot of depth on that end and a surprising amount of play styles given the relative length (or lack thereof) of the individual matches.

Definitely enjoying it. I felt a little lost right off the bat and felt like I was missing some nuances, but that was because I got some ridiculously complicated cards from the gacha that I tried to use right away.

I was super interested in this game initially. But then I did my research and found the gameplay doesn't measure up. Shame considering this is what Xenoverse was based off... What makes it even worse is that this is coming at a time where Xenoverse 2 and FighterZ are already prevalent in the DB community. And then we have that new game on the horizon that we may just see at E3 this year. I can't see many people willingly picking this game up when they have much better to choose from. Cool concept though - if Yugioh didn't already claim that market.

@Wavey84 Interesting. I found DBS Broly to be top 3 DB movies from the entire franchise, and while they messed up quite a few things during the ToP arc, it was overall pretty good and I loved UI. For now, I like the direction it's heading.

On topic tho: I disagree it being shallow as there's a lot of creativity in deck building and team formations. It leaves room for a lot of different play styles and there's no real "best" deck as everything has counters and many missions require different approaches than only 1 deck. It has well-thought out mechanics, cards and abilities which keep the game fresh and give you freedom to use your favorite cards and characters. If you're unsure about this game wait for the Demo to drop which is hopefully soon (it has been announced already iirc). But for me, who was hesitant to buy first I'd say it's an incredibly deep and fun game with a lot of content that's definitely worth your money. Personally i'd give it a 9/10.

@LetsGoSwitch This summer Legacy of the Duelist 2 comes out for Switch. I've logged some many hours on LotD 1 it's not even funny. But this has been a really fun game to bide my time till it comes out. I have to say the story mode has been great and Super Sayian Rose' Goku Black is crushing it for me.

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