Every Great Legend Should Be Laid To Rest!

November 19, 2009 in PS3, XBOX 360

This article was just going to be a review on the Game title Dragonball Z Raging Blast’, but as I sat here playing the game for hours and writing down my thoughts, it became more than that. So I decided to change the topic and title. Firstly lets get the confusion out the way because I know when people read this they’re going to think I’m just another anime, dbz fanboy. But really and truly I’m just here to tell it like it is. I love anime, but I’m also a real hardcore gamer and if I wasn’t any of these, I wouldn’t speak on this subject, Straight.

 Boy… I probably wouldn’t even have a website up. So this is how I truly feel about Dragonball Z Raging Blast and the Dragonball Z franchise that I once knew.

I remember back in 1998 when Dragonball Z first aired on Cartoon Networks Toonami. After watching countless promo adverts it was finally here. As soon as the black screen faded out into a wide shot of Shenron (The eternal dragon of the 7 Dragonballs) and the steady guitar rift brought in the a combination of a heavy metal guitar and base drum beats followed by the vocalist giving out an unusual battle cry before screaming DRAGON-BALL-Z!. I was officially hooked; from that day on I watched every single episode, from saiyan to buu saga, I watched every movie and played all the games I could get my hands on at the time, from Super Nintendo games DBZ ‘Legend of the Super Saiyan’ and ‘Hyper Dimension’ to DBZ ‘Ultimate battle 22’ and ‘Final Bout’ on the PS1, at the time all good games.

A few years past and then along came the Budokai series on both PS2 and Gamecube and even PSP. Budokai 3 in my opinion being the best one out of all of them. It also gained significantly higher ratings than its predecessors and was praised for being one of the few games that had well done cel-shiding and special effects, as well as its improved gameplay which is expected for a third game. Budokai Tenkaichi again with the third being the best one, which included special features such as day and night stages features that related to Dragonball Storyline, replay modes, disc-fusion etc. But also had its problems with lagging Wi-Fi, and a general consensus that the story mode was overwhelmingly long, complex button system than boiled down to 2 buttons. Then you had Burst Limit which had all the qualities of Budokai 3 but improve fighting system and better graphics but only went up to the cell saga. There have been more games but some of them aren’t even mensioning. 

Now we come to raging blast. From the overly cheesy title I thought the game was a joke, but I didn’t judge the game by its cover, I rented it. As I loaded the game it presented me with a weak game intro one that did not live up to the DBZ legacy. But, I continued to the main menu, which was quite user friendly it flowed but there were so many options that the phrase ‘spoilt for choice’ seemed a bit of an understatement. There are masses of content, menus and sub-menus within this game that I would say; only a DBZ fans would care about. The average gamer would be put off completely by the constant stream of information simply because they wouldn’t know where to start or what it meant if they had no knowledge of DBZ.

 They reduced the roster from Tenkaich’s 161 playable characters round to about 70. THANK GOD! The fighting system has everything from combos to counter to super moves. It basically looked and played like an evolved version of Tenkaichi 3, very fast passed with animations doing well to mimic the movement from the anime, but the camera just couldn’t keep up. There were times when I was fighting and I couldn’t even see my character on the screen. It took a while to figure out what the health and ki bar was all about as well. Then after hours of playing the game a pattern revealed itself. I found myself and at times the AI playing hide and seek after delivering a devastating blow that sent one of us flying giving the opponent time to  charge enough ki energy execute a super move; (kamehameha) a blast so strong it take up most of the energy bar. The ‘what if’ scenarios within the story mode brought a breathe of fresh air to the game but was soon over shadowed by the games repetitive gameplay.

In my opinion this isn’t a game that you would find your favourite character, master them, and then battle it out to prove superiority over other players. No,no, no this game right here is for the fans to re-live their favourite dbz episode.

To conclude, by looking at the titles when it comes to anime games, the DBZ franchise has had some of the best titles equipped with character rosters and game modes that surpass any other anime game. Burst limit although very short in terms of story and a reduced character roster than all the previous DBZ games, was the best out off all of them, as it also carries the same qualities and balance in gameplay as Budokai 3. But I do believe that Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm on the PS3 does compete with this game graphically and gameplay wise.

It’s clear that the DBZ franchise has been milked dry and has reached saturation a long time ago. I stopped buying them after Tenkaichi 1 came out because it was such a change from the budokai fighting system which I thought was perfect for the franchise. But ever since Budokai 1, there has been a new game year after year like an EA sports game. DBZ: BT3 had a ridiculous roster of 161 characters. And all I can ask is WHY? If anyone knew who the strongest characters where from the series it was clear in all these games that they were that characters to pick and the others were cannon fodder with the same generic fighting style shared between them. Fare enough developers need to make their money because at the end of the day this is a business after-all, but if your going put another game under the same franchise why not at least make a better game than the previous one. And stop feeding the die hard DBZ fans crap and taking their money, better yet listen to them.

Adding to the topic of the franchise you have movie’s such a DBZ Evolution, which really takes the biscuit by not even sticking to the Storyline. With this game I don’t think I wouldn’t even recommend it to a fan, even though it stays true to the anime story. I believe that all great legends need to be laid to rest and even as a fan of DBZ I can honestly say that it’s has reached that time. But I know as long as whoever owns the franchise, there will always be another crap movie boring game next year.