Check out the fighting styles of Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse!

Ready for a brand new Dragon Ball Z game? Dragon Ball Xenoverse is making its way to you, and now's a better time than ever to brush up on your fighting styles. Xenoverse may not be releasing until next year, but that just means there's plenty of time to get acquainted with the ins and outs of combat. Prima Games has your back with this Combat System Breakdown. You'll be fighting like a Super Saiyan in no time.

Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse - Combat System Breakdown

Dragon Ball Z fans familiar with the Budokai series of games will have a jump on the competition when DBZ Xenoverse releases next year. While the new game isn't exactly like the Budokai fighting games, it's closer to that series than any others. You'll duke it out against human and computer-controlled opponents through story missions, in one-on-one battles and in World Tournaments. Combat takes up a bulk of the game, and it's important to get a grasp on the fighting mechanics as quickly as possible.

The controls are fairly straightforward. You've got buttons for Normal Attack, Heavy Attack, Jump, Ki Blast, block, fly down, lock-on to a target and dash. If you hold down R2 (on the PS3 and PS4), it brings up secondary menu that changes the main face buttons into your four Special Moves, while holding down L2 and L2 changes that menu to your four Ultimate Attacks. You can also use the directional pad to bring up your scouter to read an opponent's power level, but doesn't directly relate to the fighting mechanics.

There are two gauges near the portrait of your character. The top gauge is your Ki Gauge, which governs your use of Ultimate Attacks. The bottom gauge is the Guard Gauge, which controls how often you can teleport (i.e. move so fast they appear to be teleporting) away to avoid attacks, or block powerful Ultimate Attacks. You start each match with no Ki Gauge, and a full Guard Gauge. As you attack an opponent, your Ki Gauge builds, and as you block attacks or teleport, your Guard Gauge is depleted.

Click here to continue reading!