Gizmogs

Rating : 90 The Ultimate Dragon Ball Z game! The power levels go to NINE THOUSAND!

Dragon Ball Z : Burst Limit for Xbox 360 was Kamehameha anime blast.

The Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z has seen it's fair number of fighting video games since the 16-bit Nintendo Super Famicom days on just about every video game platform out there. The long running super-powered martial art manga about super-badass aliens with super-spiky hair is the brain child of legendary comic artist Akira Toriyama. If it looks familiar the same guy designed graphics and characters for Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon. The long running comic spawned an even long running animated series that is popular and universally well regarded in Japan. Modern anime series like Naruto and Bleach are trendy flashes the pan compare to the lasting staying power of Dragon Ball Z. It is an epic drawn out melodrama with lots of manly dudes with spiky magical glowing hair that will spend several episodes locked in gigantic battles that consist of hyper fast punches, flying around at lightning speed and massive energy blasts that pretty much anyone in the series can do. It is on a scale of a Wagner opera but with influences of the Chinese literature tail The Journey to the West. The motivations and epic drama of these super egos are narrated in a scale that puts Mexican soap operas to shame. If you are unaccustomed to the series it might make as much sense as a Mexican soap opera untranslated even if you watch the english dubbed version of Dragon Ball Z. The Dragon Ball comic series started in 1984 and lasted to 1997. The reason why I am going on about the series is that you have to keep it in mind while judging this game.

The Namco and Bandai affiliated development studio Dimps has developed many 3d fighting games but this is the first high-definition Dragon Ball Z for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The company Dimps is a codeveloper of Street Fighter IV with Capcom so there is a good chance that the shaded anime technology that went into this game is also going into Street Fighter IV. Trust me that is a very good thing.

Update : Looks like there is some serious dough in publishing Dragon Ball Z games.

The makers of this game have a loving respect for Dragon Ball Z and they put an inordinate level of detail from the series into the graphics, characters, music and animation into the game. It is a 3d hyper kinetic fighting game that recaps and recreates battles from the series, but in 3d cel-shaded fluid animated high definition treatment that ended up looking more eye-popping and visually awesome than the original hand drawn animated series. They set out the make the ultimate Dragon Ball Z game and they knew that the Otaku were going to be going over it with a microscope to make sure it is faithful to the series. Their dedication to the original source might adversely affect the games enjoyment to gamers that have never seen Dragon Ball Z before.

If you are interested in this game I suggest you rent a DVD the animated series to get ready for it. The game is an interactive recap of all the epic fights. There are dramatic cut scenes with dialog mid fight that sort of breaks them up into mini-chapters accompanied with power ups.

The story switches to the bad guys for some fights and there are tons of costumes, characters, chapters and other unlockable content goodies that are unveiled by playing the main story.

The high-definition character graphics are the best looking cel-shaded on the Xbox 360/PS3. The motion blur and special energy effects were especially tasty.

The play control was very tight. Timing and reflexes are essential in combat in this game. I am very glad that I did the tutorial before jumping right into the game. The controls use every single button on he Xbox 360 pad and are more complex than most 3d fighting games. The combat is well done but but repeats often, most of the characters play pretty much the same. Flying around and teleporting behind your enemies while they try to get you with an energy burst are the real key here. There is Xbox Live game play but it seamed that there was more lag than other fighting games.

This game has lots of dialog in both English and Japanese by most of the original voice actors.

The background and skies look nice but there are essentially flat. It would have been better to have some destructible environments but it's fun knocking your opponent so high that you have to fly after them.

They set out to make the ultimate Dragon Ball Z fighting game and they succeeded for better or worse. If you don't like Dragon Ball then your going to hate this game. It is one of the most impressive anime games I've ever seen but it is so hard core otaku that only the neo-Akihabara nerds will appreciate it to the fullest. If you love Dragon Ball Z that you should fly on a magical sky cloud to the store to get a copy of this game (you would also be the only one to understand that reference).