Things with my main team are going great, but that hasn’t stopped me from further exploring the cast. The game is a ton of fun and I’m greatly enjoying the process of learning everything it has to offer. Today, let’s cover my latest foray into Dragon Ball FighterZ: Android 21, Cell, and Goku Black!

Android 21

A new character created just for this game, Android 21 has an literal insatiable hunger for the best fighters in the world. Once she gets the upper hand, she turns her foe into a cupcake or doughnut before eating them for dessert. When I got to play as her in the story mode, I immediately fell in love with her play style. Her jumping medium attack is a great long-ranged strike, while her jumping heavy kick has a nice round hitbox that makes it great for air-to-air encounters or as an air-to-ground cross-up. On top of that, I’m a big fan of her Hors d’Oeuvre Stab, as I love the way it looks when she drives her opponents into the ground, along with the functional benefits of making it easier to connect with an assist or super.

Most intriguing to her bag of tricks is her Connisseur Cut. Shanking her foe with a short energy beam, she absorbs one of their moves to use herself. I think she’s a fairly solid character before she learns new tricks, but she can be a monster with the right set of additional tools. That said, unlocking her full potential is a lot of work, as you need to heavily adjust your fighting style to incorporate ways of successfully landing the Connisseur Cut, along with a gameplan for how to use every possible move that can be absorbed. Besides that, if you’re looking to absorb a specific move, but your opponent doesn’t have characters that have that move, then you’re out of luck. She might be more work than it’s worth, but for the time being, she’s so much fun to use.

Cell

At this early juncture, many consider Cell to be one of – if not the – strongest character in the game. From his great normal moves to his massive solo combo potential from just about anywhere, Cell can turn a team inside out in no time. Learning him has been a real struggle for me for a number of reasons. One, his combos have a steeper learning curve compared to much of the cast, particularly his stylish corner loop.

More alarming is the way in which his combos translate to online play. Due to the input delay, a lot of his combos that I can hit consistently offline completely fail to work online. I’ve run into this before, as I’ve had to tone down some of my Android 16 combos online because the timing differences make it seemingly impossible to pull off. Unfortunately, the parts for Cell that don’t work online are critical to his combo routes. Cell is an awesome addition to just about any team, but because of the way the game handles input delay, it might ultimately eat him alive online for me.

Goku Black

Wildly popular online, it’s not hard to see why Goku Black can be seen on many teams. He is a very well-rounded character that can excel as a point character or as an anchor. Of the three characters in this stable, Goku Black is the clear star. At some point, when I’m building my optimal team, it will probably feature a shell with Android 16 and Goku Black in it. As cool as his super moves are, and gimmicky as his command grab kamehameha can be, my favourite aspect of his toolset is his jumping heavy. That dolphin kick is such a great air-to-ground tool.

My Game Plan

While my team features two great characters and one pretty good character, I have struggled mightily to formulate much in the way of an approach. Beyond leveraging Cell and Goku’s beam assists as a repellant or combo extender, most of my work right now is still trying to figure out how to play these characters in isolation. I’m still not sure how to best use any of the moves Android 21 can absorb. I can barely function with Cell before I ran into issues with his combos not working online. The only character I have a good grasp on is Goku Black, but because I only use him when my other characters are dead, I could be doing more with leveraging my assists better when he’s on point. At some point, should I choose to stick with this specific trio, I’ll figure something out to make this group sing.

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