Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2’s Character Creator Is Comprehensive

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2’s PlayStation 4 closed beta is running until 1am PT on October 11, 2016, with an open beta running from 1am PT on October 14, 2016 until 1am PT on October 17, 2016. While that means you’ll need to pack as many activities as possible into a three day period, I’d put aside at least an hour for character creation. When I began playing the closed beta, I was allowed the opportunity to create one character and, with all the options available, I spent over half an hour making a Majin. (Imagine that!) To help make things a bit easier for you once the beta begins, here are some things to know about character creation. Hopefully, it’ll help you hit the ground running.

After what’s basically an animated infomercial for the Time Patrollers, starring Trunks and the Supreme Kai of Time, character creation in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 begins. You start by picking a species. You can go with a Frieza race individual, Earthling, Majin, Namekian, or Saiyan. For the three races with genders, being a male or female will offer different positive and negative traits.

Since it’s easier to go over this in list form, here’s what you can expect from each character build.

• Earthling: All Earthlings have balanced stats, automatically regenerating Ki, and an attack that rises when maxed. Their Strike Super Attacks are stronger than females, but females have stronger Ki Blast Super Attacks.
• Frieza race: These characters move quickly and has stamina that regenerates as you attack. Their health is low, though, and they get slower the weaker they get.
• Majin: Majins Have high defense, which gets higher when they have max stamina. However, they have a slow stamina recovery. Males have higher health and defense, while females’ breaks are shorter and they have less health.
• Namekian: Namekians have stamina that refills quickly, high health that regenerates when it gets low, and is better at using items, but they have low attack stats.
• Saiyan: Saiyans have a high attack, which rises when their health gets low, but low health. All of their stats rise after they fall and are revived. Males’ melee attacks are stronger and buffs last longer, but have weaker Super Moves. Females have better Ki and Stamina recovery, and can use Z Assists more often, but have lower health than males.

Each Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 race and gender has its own pros and cons, so personal playstyle will be most important when it comes to making a character.

After picking a race and gender, you’re plopped into the most time consuming part of character creation – picking out the fine details. Depending on the type of character you’re making, different options will be available. Like a Majin will have heads/hairs, eyes, pupils, mouths/jaws, and ears as customization options, while every other character will also let you pick out a nose. Likewise, pupils and makeup are conditional customization options, dependent on the sorts of eye and mouth/jaw options you’ve chosen.

This doesn’t mean each character type has the same sorts of options available to all of them. It all depends on race. Earthlings and Saiyans have mostly identical customization options. Males of each species have the same 26 hairstyles, while females have the same 35 hairdos. This also goes for eye, pupil, nose, mouth/jaw, and ear options. Earthling and Saiyan women have 18 kinds of eyes, 8 noses, 15 mouth/jaw options, and 4 different ears. Earthling and Saiyan men have 20 types of eyes, 14 noses, 20 mouths and jaws, and 4 ears. It’s also important to note that incidentals like scars or facial hair will show up under the eye and mouth/jaw categories.

The Majin males and females, Namekians, and members of the Frieza race are a little more unique. Their facial features aren’t exactly ones you would, or even could, see on an Earthling or Saiyan, after all. Majin females have 33 types of “hair,” 16 types of eyes, 16 mouth/jaw options, and 7 ears, while Majin males have 27 kinds of “hair,” 17 eyes, 22 mouth/jaw options, and 9 ears. Their pupil options tend to be far more limited, sometimes even nonexistent, due to their race. Namekians have 23 hair/antennae options, 11 eyes, 14 noses, 28 mouth/jaw options, and 4 ears. Finally, Frieza folks get 15 kinds of eyes, 15 noses, 15 mouth/jaw options, and 7 ears. Put simply, there are plenty of options to mix and match to create a hopefully unique character.

Especially since you can alter the color options as well. For each character, you can adjust the skin tone and eye color, as well as the upper body, lower body, hand, and feet clothing and accessories. Depending on the race and facial features, you may be able to alter their hair and makeup colors. Some races even have multiple skin tones, with Namekians having three options and Frieza races having four. While it isn’t possible to adjust color sliders to go with unique colors for characters, there are 112 colors to choose from in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 palette.

After the arduous and time consuming face and color choices, the last few decisions are rather easy. You pick a voice and name, then a fighting style. The three options are “I like it up close, nice and personal,” “I’ll hang back and blast’em from afar,” and “Close or far, I keep it balanced.” I went with the ranged moveset, which meant I began with Consecutive Energy Blast, Energy Charge, and Energy Shot Super Attacks, a Super Back Jump Evasive Skill, and a Full Power Energy Blast Volley Ultimate Attack.

When the full version of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 launches, you’re going to have plenty of opportunities to make characters and see what does and doesn’t work for you. For this beta, it’s more about testing the waters with a single character to get a feel for this installment. Seeing as how open beta participants only get three days, it probably won’t be possible to see many of the new features. But, you can make the most of the character creator right from the start and see what sort of person you’d like to be.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 will come to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in North America on October 25, 2016. It will come to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in Europe on October 28, 2016, as well as PCs in North America and Europe.