Retelling the stories of Dragon Ball Z is not the only thing long-time fans will find a familiar callback in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. There’s a mechanic in the game known as Soul Emblems, which are little round medals featuring one of the many characters in this anime franchise.
These characters range from the likes of Goku and Frieza, but there are deeper cuts such as Bora, Upa, and even Doctor Slump. There’s more to these emblems than nostalgia, however. They can be used together for passive bonuses in the Community Board if you know how to use them.
Earning Soul Emblems
Earning these shiny trinkets is the easy part. Soul Emblems can only be rewarded at the end of missions, be it the main story or side story. The same applies to Soul Emblems that have been added through DLC, such as Whis and Beerus. The screen with flash the emblem, or in some cases emblems, after you have earned them and show you a quick stats screen. Each Emblem is handed out for a specific quest, remember that going forward. If you miss the side story that grants a Soul Emblem, you will not be able to gain that Soul Emblem until you unlock the time machine after the main story. There will be only one moment to get the Emblem, and you can miss the non-story ones if you aren’t diligent.
Emblem Stats
All Soul Emblems have a series of 7 stats:
- Z Warrior
- Cooking
- Training
- Development
- God
- Adult
- Adventuring
Each character with a Soul Emblem will have stats that reflect the character’s personality. Characters such as Krillin or Vegeta, for example, will have good stats for Z Warrior, while characters like Dr. Brief will start with good Development stats. However, you will continuously earn items you can give as gifts to the Soul Emblems, which will raise their friendship and stats. Higher friendships will earn you extra items and, in some cases, will unlock terms in the Z Encyclopedia. Each Emblem will also have a maximum number it can reach for each stat, but later gifts can raise these ceilings as well.
This is where you can have some fun if you’d like and give whatever stats you want to these beloved characters. Say you want the evil wizard Babidi to be a master cook? Or let Chiaotzu be the mightiest of the Gods? If you have the gifts, you can easily change the highest stat preference of most Emblems. This is encouraged by the game itself, as when a Soul Emblem has high stats in multiple categories, it will raise a rank. Most Emblems start as a simple bronze, indicated by a light bronze ring around the edge. Silver Emblems are next with a thicker silver outline and 2 stars at the top. Gold Emblems have an even thicker golden edge and 3 stars at the top. Emblems earned much later in the game will sometimes start by default as silver or gold, such as the villains you can revive with the Dragon Balls.
Despite the clear reward for mixing things up, there are exactly 7 Soul Emblems you should always have a direct focus on when it comes to their main stat:
- Goku
- Chi-Chi
- King Kai
- Bulma
- Mister Popo
- Master Roshi
- Yajirobe
These 7 are in the center of the related Community Boards and unlock each Board when they are earned. Because of that, you shouldn’t waste gifts on them, there’s no other Board you can place them in, so you’d be wasting the gift. With all of that out of the way, the next question is what exactly the Community Boards are.
The Community Board is where you can place your Soul Emblems together, with the goal being to rank up as many Community points as you can. As you gain points, each Community will go up a rank, which all max out at 10. For each rank you gain, you’ll earn a passive bonus for the game. These bonuses can range from higher attack damage, more Ki for your Ki attacks, extra HP, and even things such as a lower amount of materials needed for building vehicles and better results from cooking.
To gain more points, place an Emblem on the Board and start giving that Emblem gifts related to the Board. Each point in the chosen stat will be converted into a Community Point. This makes mixing and matching more than just fun for those who have a soft spot for fanfiction, as you may find some Boards have too few spots for the characters you’d associate and some Boards have far more than you’d imagine. Take Z Warrior and Cooking as examples — there are not enough spaces on the Z Warrior Board for every character normally called a Z Warrior, while Cooking has tons of spaces when only a handful of characters would usually be considered cooks by the fandom.
Also, pay attention to the Confirm Bonuses each Soul Emblem has. When you place certain Soul Emblems together, you will gain extra points for the specific Community Board they are on. Some are as simple as Goku and Gohan, but you will discover plenty of unique ones, such as a Confirm Bonus called Mystical Adventure, which you gain by having Arale and Mercenary Tao next to each other. You can see each Soul Emblems list of Bonuses in the Gift screen, and it will tell you which Emblems to use as long as you’ve already earned each Emblem. You also hear a few voice lines as an extra reward, just in case you need another reason to test out the Bonuses.
The Emblems and Boards can let to a lot of fanservice for long-time fans, and the in-game effects can be nothing to sneeze at.
