Dragon Ball Fusions is full of fanservice, but it’s not just that. It’s also a fun, fresh, and addictive game but going further than the main story gets real grindy, real quick. But along the way you’ll find depth and make connections with old favourite characters and new randos alike.

Strange as it may sound, the core gameplay of Fusions is a lot like playing marbles on the playground. Your attacks can bounce enemies around, knocking into each other and rebounding off your party members, and you’re rewarded for booting them out of the circle. Kicking off long, chaotic chains can be immensely satisfying, and due to the variety of different actions you can take (physical attacks, ranged attacks with different aiming patterns, support actions) there’s also strategic depth in positioning and aiming.

Battles became easy for me quickly though, as doing sidequests levelled my stats beyond most encounters. There are still stakes and tension even if you’re not in danger of a party wipe though, and enemies can always surprise you with a more powerful move or by locking you down with tactical aplomb. Swapping out party members then for lower-level ones, as I did in Pokemon, can balance it out while also giving you fresh faces to play with.

Which brings me to the collection aspect. As you play, you amass an ever-growing collection of characters from the series, as well as constantly receiving new special moves that you can weigh up and then apply to them. Of course, depending on who your favourites are you might find that all the desirable characters are locked behind grinding post-game, but I found plenty that appealed to me during the story. The title gimmick of Fusions also plays into this, as many silly new combinations were invented for this game. Filling out the roster (since all encounters are 5-person teams) is a multitude of OCs of different races. They fit in well enough and are all given a hook and brief, amusing, backstory as well as adding loads of new fusion options with each other. Certain of them also play into sidequests throughout the game which helps them feel part of the world.

Your main character too is an OC who you create in the pleasing character creation tool at the start. There are 5 possible races, and although there are perhaps less options for faces and hairstyles than in the likes of Xenoverse, this game lets you be an android, shin-jin, demon, or the generically customisable “alien”. You can change up your look and skillset by—uniquely—fusing with anyone on your entire character list. This would be more fun to play around with if the fusing process wasn’t so tedious with assignment and re-assignment of special moves. Apart from these awkward and lengthy procedures, and some genuinely awful dialogue layout, the rest of the UI is slick and pleasant.

If I’m being long-winded I apologise, but there’s a lot to dig into with this game. I found it very compelling, whether it’s flying around the awesome overworld, finding new characters to recruit and fuse, or seeing what fan-pleasing scenario the game would throw at me next facilitated by the mashup setting. The game draws on every major corner of Dragon Ball, including GT, the movies, Super, and Mira and Towa pop in from the Xeno era too; but it’s an original story involving time rift nonsense and your OC’s rivalry with the adorably dopey new character Pinich. Yes it gets grindy and yes, it could explain some things better and yes, I wish I could skip all the animations. But it is a game with genuinely good and fun ideas that also happens to be a fantastic Dragon Ball game. Plus you can fuse 18 with Arale, or Towa with Gine, or Pan with Bra, Piccolo with Krillin, Trunks with other Trunks… ahem, anyway, I liked it.