When comparing Dragon Ball FighterZ vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 19th while Dragon Ball FighterZ is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose NieR: Automata is:
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Specs
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Pros
Pro The game looks just like the anime
Character models are recreated faithfully from the show, their expressions and animations all unique and reminiscent of their hand-drawn anime versions. They also have their arsenal of super dashes that surrounds their fighter with their ki aura as they zip forward, the dragon rush that throws out several punches and kicks in speedy succession, as well as super attacks and meteor attacks that recreate each fighter's iconic moves from the show, like Goku's enormous Super Saiyan 3 Kamehameha blast and Vegeta's Final Flash attack.
Pro Combat is easy to learn and difficult to master
The control scheme among combatants is universal enough to work well for players who are new to the fighting genre, while veterans have access to more specialized combos and timings to perfect with individual fighters. Beginners can get away with starting off with auto-combos by pressing the face buttons. Simple button mashing is serviceable for the easy parts of the story and arcade modes. Those looking to improve their play can practice in the tutorial with the combo challenges for every character. Mastering these manual combos takes dedication, but adept use of these moves will undoubtedly pay off for harder story battles and online play.
Pro Healthy roster of characters
With classic characters like Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Frieza, Captain Ginyu, Cell, and several more, as well as a new addition with Android 21, fans of the series will find at least a few of their favorites to play with. More powerful characters are unlockable through completing the story and arcade modes. The voice acting both in English and Japanese for every character are superb, sounding just like their anime versions. Players who aren't familiar with the Dragon Ball Z series are bound to find a few characters that they enjoy through gameplay alone, with each fighter boasting unique visuals with their special and ultimate attacks.
Pro Characters work well together in combat and in cutscenes
The three-on-three battles have you play one character at a time, with the ability to switch in another team member with the press of a button, or bring one in to combo your special attack with their flashy meteor attack. Characters typically work well together for these Ultimate Z Change combos, and it's fun to discover which ones work best for you: if you can master the timing of Android 16's brute force close-range attacks, then you can have another character, like Android 18, come in with an overhead beam for even more damage.
During the story, the banter between characters before battles are a fun way to see different fighters interact with one another. Watching Gotenks try to teach Nappa how to turn into a Super Saiyan as if it's the easiest thing in the world, or Vegeta and Piccolo grudgingly accepting their need to work together is entertaining in a way that makes the slog of the story mode tolerable.
Pro Fast-paced, action-packed combat
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Pro Unique storytelling with a real emotional impact
NieR: Automata's outlook on storytelling is incredibly special. To get the full experience, you have to run multiple playthroughs of the game, each of which offers a new experience and perspective. Your world view of the story events and characters expands drastically as you complete each playthrough, playing on your expectations to help you develop a deeper emotional bond with the protagonists and become invested in their plight.
Things take a real turn on your third playthrough, putting you on an emotional roller coaster all the way to the true ending. The plot twists and knocks on the fourth wall elevate the story to a truly unique place. Getting all the way to the very end can be a religious experience from how much heart and meaning you discover in the symbolism.
Pro It's got a hauntingly beautiful environment
NieR: Automata is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape after Earth has been overrun by hostile machines, and the artists really nailed what that would feel like. Abandoned and overgrown cities litter the landscape along with old refineries, graveyards, and eerie forests. When you add the beautiful soundtrack to the experience, it fills you with a bittersweet mix of loneliness and hope.
Pro Varied genre-spanning gameplay elements
NieR: Automata has different types of gameplay to keep things interesting. From the very start, you're on an on-rails bullet hell section, and then you switch over to the more traditional action RPG style of fast-paced combat. Things change up again not long after with some side-scrolling platforming from a 2D view. Later on in the story, there's a hacking mini-game where you navigate a tiny ship through a short puzzle, with the music changing to a charming retro sound to fit the theme and mood. This is a game that doesn't stay boxed in a single genre.
Pro An incredible amount of content
Outside of the main story, there's plenty of optional content to dive into. The side quests are the best way to get to know the characters and lore of the world, with some of them giving clever and subtle foreshadowing of the game's most critical events. There are also weapons to collect and upgrade, each of which offer nice little tidbits of lore after you get them to max level. And after reaching a certain point in the story, you get access to Chapter Select that lets you go back and replay whatever you want. You can easily spend 60+ hours exploring the world and still have much more to do.
Pro Gorgeous, ethereal soundtrack with amazing vocals
NieR: Automata's music is out of this world. It's so stunning and elegant in a way that nothing else can really live up to. The soundtrack manages to emotionalize the game through music, from the action-packed tracks with hard-hitting wind instruments and percussion, to the softer, somber songs that encapsulate the hauntingly beautiful environments and story moments you encounter. Vocals in the lore's indescribable language makes the music even more memorable, adding to the ethereal quality of the sound. This soundtrack is definitely one that you can go back to again and again without getting sick of it.
Cons
Con Story mode is padded and repetitive
The three arcs in FighterZ's story mode feature campaigns from three different points of view: Goku and his allies, Frieza and the Ginyu Force, and the Androids and their struggles, but the story can be distilled down to the player "linking" with the fighters as well as battling endless numbers of clones.
There are clever knocks on the fourth wall as the characters acknowledge the player who has taken control of their body via linking, and there are also plot reasons for this phenomenon, but the cutscenes waste a lot of time explaining this mechanic to every new fighter who joins the team. The third arc picks up as the cast learns more about Android 21, yet the slog to get to that point is a repetitive series of fights against the clones.
Con Online lobbies are a mess
Unfortunately, the game automatically forces the player to connect to a lobby right from the start. This can sometimes take a while if lobbies are full, or if the connection drops for whatever reason. Sometimes, even after successfully entering a lobby, there will be frustrating disconnects, forcing another round of going through the same loop of trying to connect and possibly dropping back out again. Thankfully, there's an offline lobby for those only looking to do the story or arcade modes.
Con No honor in online matches
This is more of an issue among the playerbase than in the game itself, but don't be surprised if you're about to win a ranked World match and your opponent suddenly "disconnects". When that happens, you will also lose connection to your lobby, forcing you to connect to another one. Disconnects don't count as a loss or a win for either party involved, so there's no penalty that punishes quitters.
Con Limited open world
Even though NieR: Automata is technically an open world game, it doesn't always feel like it. It's more that there's a big open space in the center of the ruined city you explore, with branches that lead off to vastly different environments, like a desert, a village, and a few other places. These locations aren't that spacious, either, and it's a bit of a stretch to even imagine all of these places being so close together in the first place. It's not too much of an issue as long as you find the story and combat engaging enough.
Con Second playthrough can get repetitive
Once you get to Route B, your second playthrough, you may find that too much is the same. There are some big differences, such as the new way you get to see things play out, but a lot of it rehashes Route A, your first playthrough. There's a ton of hacking you have to do as well, which gets pretty boring after repeating it over and over again. But if you stick with it, Route C and onward are absolutely worth the time spent getting to that point.
Con Some boring fetch quests
The pacing gets messed up when you're forced to run certain fetch quests near the start of the game. This is somewhat forgivable after the fun and action-packed introductory level, but the quests themselves are still a drag to play through. Some of the side quests can also boil down to the same thing. Even though these quests give a lot of useful information about the world, they're not all that fulfilling, and you may dread having to repeat them when playing through the game again.
Con Buggy on PC
Some players complain about the game crashing, freezing, their save files mysteriously disappearing, and more. As of June 2018, over a year after the game's initial release, there is still no patch to fix these problems. Not everyone on PC will have these bugs, but it's still quite prevalent. If you continually run into issues, your best bet is to find a mod or play the console versions instead of waiting on an official patch that may never happen.