With several spacious overworlds to explore and a bunch of little easter eggs and goodies to uncover, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot basically begs players to stray from the beaten path and just indulge in the Dragon World. But the story doesn’t. Dragon Ball Z is actually quite fast-paced, and leaves little time for breathing room. Toriyama likes moving from beat to beat asap.
That doesn’t exactly lend itself well to a game like Kakarot, so it’s easy to feel “rushed” in the sense of just following the story. But the game is actually designed around that to some extent, and making the most of exploration in Kakarot is really a matter of patience, diligence, and an eye for detail.
10 Walk, Don’t Run
With such large overworlds to explore, it’s only natural that players will want to travel a lot of ground fast. But that’s not exploring, that’s just traversing. Exploration is stopping to take your time and actually analyze what’s in the overworld. Simply put, characters move way too fast to really take in the overworld.
It makes traversal incredibly fun and really captures the speed of Dragon Ball, but make sure to walk if you’re actually looking to explore. To Kakarot’s credit, characters pick up most items just by walking or running over them. Items like D Medals, however, need to be picked up manually.
9 Scan For Ki
Ki is the key to finding everything littered around the overworld. While players with a particularly keen eye will be able to spot some of the more obscure hidden goodies, don’t expect to find everything on sight alone. Kakarot is a lush game full of color, but that makes it difficult to keep track of every little detail on screen.
To get around this, Kakarot allows players to sense for Ki. By focusing, players will enter a “Detective Mode” of sorts that’ll highlight key items on the overworld along with identify certain characters’ Power Levels. The closer to the end of the game Kakarot gets, the more intense certain characters’ auras.
8 Ride Nimbus If You’re Going To Fly
Flying at high-speed is a ton of fun. It scratches an itch all fans of Dragon Ball have had, but it’s not exactly ideal for exploring. As is the case with running, the player character simply moves too fast– even more so when flying as fast as possible. For anyone looking to explore by flying, call Nimbus if you’re playing as Goku.
Nimbus moves at a controlled pace that, while not particularly fast, does allow players the time to actually observe their surroundings. Not just that, Nimbus can comfortably touch the ground while flying. Worth noting, you can actually build vehicles to be summoned after unlocking the R&D department.
7 Barrel Roll Through Z-Orbs
Exploration in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot goes beyond just scouring the overworld for goodies. A lot of the time, players will want to go after Z-Orbs, but some might find themselves struggling to grab all the Z-Orbs in those large ring of orbs. The smaller rings are simple enough, but the large ones are just too big for Goku or anyone else to realistically grab everything by just flying through.
By pressing the uppermost face button while flying at low speed, players will actually do a barrel roll. By doing a barrel roll inside of the larger rings, characters will actually obtain all the Z-Orbs present. This makes the act of gathering Z-Orbs smoother overall.
6 Get Familiar With Fishing And Hunting Spots
Food is an important part of Kakarot’s gameplay loop, which makes sense considering Goku’s love of eating in the series. By finding ingredients, players can cook meals that then reward them with permanent stat boosts. Whip a few meals together and you can even indulge in a full course meal with extra benefits.
Of course, to partake in the art of eating one actually has to find ingredients. Luckily, drops aren’t random. Fishing and hunting spots will always house the same fish & animals. Familiarize yourself with where everything is located and cooking up some of the better courses in the game suddenly becomes quite simple.
5 Always Have Food At The Ready
On that note, don’t not eat. Players who just want to get through the story can play the entire game without cooking a single meal outside of the few mandatory ones. You won’t be any worse for wear for it, but cooking really is a pretty important part of the game. It gives more weight to exploring the overworld and finding goodies.
Plus, it’s just good to have food around. Zeni’s not hard to come by, but who wants to waste money on a Vitamax when you’ve got some fish in your inventory? To say nothing of the gradual stat boosts that would come from using meals as an alternative to conventional healing. Kakarot is easy enough where this is perfectly doable.
4 Fly Through Enemies
Certain maps get really aggressive when it comes to enemy encounters. Tight spaces or just an overabundance of baddies can really sour exploration in some areas. Stopping to fight every few minutes isn’t fun when all you want to do is explore, and characters don’t shut their damn mouth when enemies are nearby.
Thankfully, by crashing into enemies at high-speed, players will circumvent the battle entirely. Not just that, the game will treat the act as if the battle actually happened, rewarding both full experience and Z-Orbs. This is actually a pretty decent way to grind at the lower levels.
3 Exploring Off The Beaten Path Will Net Goodies
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is very generous with its map, detailing just about every single little detail imaginable (up to and including the actual Dragon Balls whenever they’re active.) If that’s not enough, Z-Orbs will often lead players to the most interesting parts of the overworld. But this is really just the surface of exploration in Kakarot.
There are quite a few hidden nooks just hiding off the beaten path. Every single map that has a body of water has dense underwater coves just as big as the actual overworld. It’s kind of crazy to think about and just as hard to explore since players have limited air beneath the waves.
2 The Dragon Balls Recharge Every 20 Minutes Real-Time
Speaking of the Dragon Balls, Kakarot doesn’t give the player too many opportunities to collect the Dragon Balls, but when it does, make sure to take advantage of it. The Dragon Balls don’t work how they do in the canon. In Kakarot, they recharge on a 20-minute timer in-game, real-time. It really changes how wishes are handled.
Naturally, there are a lot of options for wishes. Players can ask for Z-Orbs and Zeni, or outright rival dead characters. Reviving Raditz, Nappa, or the Ginyu Force allow players to challenge them in rematches. It adds a lot of replayability to a game that doesn’t have much in the way of post-game.
1 Intermissions Are Designed Around Exploration
Although Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot doesn’t offer many opportunities to collect the Dragon Balls, it does offer them. Intermissions occur in between every story arc, and they’re essentially Kakarot embracing the sandbox at the core of its design. Intermissions are designed entirely around players exploring and completing side quests.
It’s a time to take a break from the story and really just take in everything Kakarot represents. It’s easy to just breeze past these sections, but they actually offer some fairly interesting insight on the world of Dragon Ball. Plus, it’s just nice to see everyone breathe when Dragon Ball Z so often wraps itself up in conflict.
NEXT: Dragon Ball: 10 Amazing Attacks (That Are Only In The Video Games)
