What is Dragon Ball Heroes available on?

Dragon Ball has become a massive franchise that has transcended just being a manga and anime series. It has also become a major video game franchise and its video games have so much freedom that they have even started to develop their own unique stories and canon. With fighting games, role-playing games, card games, and many more genres under its belt, Dragon Ball's video game world is incredibly expansive.

A big part of modern Dragon Ball's video game presence is due to Dragon Ball Heroes, a card-based arcade game that is exclusive to Japan. Unlike many Dragon Ball games that frequently rehash stories from the manga and anime, Dragon Ball Heroes provides players with all-new stories that could only be experienced in the game. It also introduces many unique characters as well as implements characters from other Dragon Ball video games, such as Xenoverse.

Dragon Ball Heroes (and its updated version Super Dragon Ball Heroes) is (for the most part) not available outside of Japan, but thanks to the new animated series Super Dragon Ball Heroes, fans can now experience the game's unique storylines without having to play the game. However, because Dragon Ball Heroes is exclusive to Japan, many fans in the west are not exactly aware of where the series is coming from.

Dragon Ball Heroes

Dragon Ball Heroes is one of the most popular arcade games in Japan. The game allows the player to create an original character that embarks on various missions throughout the Dragon Ball universe, fighting both original enemies made for the game and old enemies powered up into new forms. The combat is card-based, as the player collects physical cards that can be read by the machine in order to create a team of five characters to use in battle.

While Dragon Ball Heroes features a lot of characters unique to itself, it also features a lot of characters that have only appeared in other Dragon Ball games. This includes characters like Fu, Towa, and Mira, characters that originated from Dragon Ball Xenoverse and the Asia-only Dragon Ball Online. Other original characters appearing in Dragon Ball Heroes include the Dark King Mechikabura and the ancient Saiyan Cumber. Naturally, classic characters like Goku and Vegeta also appear in Dragon Ball in various forms and transformations.

The Animated Series

Dragon Ball Heroes features many original stories told through the many missions the player must undertake, which are collected into arcs much like the anime does. These arcs are what make up the animated series, and so far four arcs have been fully adapted: the Prison Planet arc, the Universal Conflict arc, the Universe Creation arc, and the New Space-Time War arc. The show features Goku and some of the other Z-Fighters as the main characters, but it also features Future Trunks, as well as alternate universe versions of the cast, who are usually referred to with Xeno (i.e. Xeno Goku, Xeno Pan).

The many stories told in Super Dragon Ball Heroes generally focus on various what-if situations that put together past characters in situations that would normally be impossible. For example, the Prison Planet arc involves two versions of Goku and Vegeta being trapped on the titular Prison Planet by Fu. While looking for Future Trunks, they end up having to fight a strange Saiyan that has incredible strength. In the Universal Conflict arc, the Z-Fighters have to fight an enemy that is jumping through the different Universes and taking control of various old characters.

Is It Worth Watching?

It's important to note that Super Dragon Ball Heroes is non-canon; in other words, none of the events in this series are likely to become a part of the main timeline. This series is mostly for fanservice, especially for western fans who haven't had the chance to play the original game. It has a lot of unique interactions that simply wouldn't be possible in the original series, such as Super Saiyan Blue Goku fighting against Super Saiyan 4 Goku. This provides a lot of possibilities, especially since a lot of the non-canon movie characters like Cooler are all fair game in Super Dragon Ball Heroes.

Naturally, the show is appealing to fans of the game, but many fans in the west don't have that same connection. Still, it is more Dragon Ball content for Dragon Ball fans, which is welcome since the Dragon Ball Super anime has been over for a while now. Even if the events of the series are non-canon, it can still be a lot of fun to experience brand-new stories involving the characters that fans have come to love. While the more hardcore, narrative-focused fans might find Super Dragon Ball Heroes superfluous fanservice, it's still a great way to experience Dragon Ball in a way that is like never before.

NEXT:Why Dragon Ball Super Hasn't Gotten As Much Video Game Attention As DBZ