One of the charms that attracted people to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot was how it looked, or more accurately, how it presented itself. The game went out of its way to try to recreate every moment of the original anime as faithfully as possible, and while it made some mistakes here and there, it managed to do just that.
In fact, the game prided itself so much on the nostalgic feeling that it generated that it produced a live-action trailer themed around the emotion. Nevertheless, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's graphics hold it back a little. While the game is undoubtedly pretty, it still looks more like a game rather than the interactive anime that it so clearly wants to be.
But according to some new commentary on Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's development, the graphics that the game ended up with are not the ones that its developer, Cyber Connect 2, originally meant for it to have. The game's graphics were supposed to be more faithful to Akira Toriyama's original manga, and some new screenshots show just what that would look like.
While toying around with the game's look during its early stages, Cyber Connect 2 tried out a variety of different styles in an attempt to capture the look of the manga. It then tried to blend these styles with the motion, color, and life granted by an action-RPG video game, but the final result just didn't work. For whatever reason, the gameplay didn't mesh well with the look Cyber Connect 2 wanted.
Thus, the developer took a different approach. Instead of using just the manga for the game's visuals, it threw in the anime too. The result of this fusion led to the look fans see with the title's final product, a look that CC2 also provided screenshots for. They depict the process of breaking down the game's many characters and varients into different stages so that the developer could effectively manage them all.
Whether or not the original look is better than what came with the final product is definitely debatable. But it's hard to deny that it would have been interesting to see how Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot would have turned out it the gameplay meshed well with the manga-like visuals Cyber Connect 2 had prepared. Maybe it'll try to make it work if Bandai Namco brings it back for a Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot sequel.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.