Broken_Pixel's Reviews : Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit

20 years. It’s been almost 20 years since the Dragon Ball Z anime first aired. It’s hard to believe, I know. In those 20 years it has become a phenomenon, and most probably the most popular manga and anime series around. So, with a phenomenon comes lots of merchandise. From T-shirts to action figures. And of course Video Games. And Dragon Ball Z has had many games. From the NES to the Arcade. The majority of these games are fighters. Some good, some not so good. And the latest game in the series is also a fighter, on the PS3 and XBOX 360 under the name Dragon Ball Z Burst limit. But will it be a leap forward in the series for the next generation?

The story mode in comparison to previous titles, is somewhat underwhelming. Dragon Ball Z is split up into sagas (seasons). There are 5 sagas in the Original Japanese anime, which Burst Limit follows. But only three sagas. The Saiyan Saga, the Freeza Saga and the Cell Saga. So it isn’t in chronological order, in fact it completely misses out the Garlic Junior Saga. Which also means that the character list has been considerably shortened. To be precise, it has gone down from the humungous roster of 161 to a mere 21. Which is very idiotic of the developers. I mean if they can fit 161 characters and masses of stages on to a Wii and PS2 discs, they will be able to easily fit that and more into a Xbox 360 disc and a Blue Ray disc. The previous games had whole worlds you could explore and fly around. Even Budokia 2 had a little world you could walk around, like on Super Mario World. But this game has nothing like that. Instead, you get the Z Chronicles. The Z Chronicles are basically just key battles from the sagas. Which again is very disappointing. The Sagas normally consist of about 10 to 20 fights. Each fight starts with a cut scene and ends with a cut scene, But people new to the series might not know what will be happening , especially at the beginning. The should have done better with the story mode. You feel as if you are being cheated by the developers by their laziness.

The controls work very well, they are simple for newcomers and quite deep for people returning to the franchise. The moves that inflict the most damage are the super an ultimate attacks. Which are the Kamehameha’s ect. They used to be quite complex combos, but now all you have to do is move the analogue stick left or right and press circle for a super attack, and move the analogue stick up and press circle for a ultimate attack, it really is as simple as that. So, here are the controls, the left analogue stick is to move your character around and to do super/ultimate moves. X is block, R2 is a super block, which can block almost anything, but can be broken sometimes, but comes at the cost of Ki. Square and triangle are punch/kick, R1 is transform into Super Saiyan and other transformations, or grab. L1 is Aura Spark or grab. And finally, is L2 is a blow away attack. Which knocks your opponent into the air. As I have said, these work very well, you will be able to pick them up in no time. It feels so natural to string a combo together. Punching you opponent a couple of times, knocking them in the air, the blasting them with a Kamehameha. And the list of combos you can do is pretty extensive. There are loads of them. I don’t know exactly, but well over 20.

So Dragon Ball Z features lightening fast fights. Someone will knock someone in the air, teleport behind them, then try to knock them, but not before the other guy delivers a strong punch to the gut of the him. Then blasts him with a Kamehameha. And Burst Limit manages to capture this perfectly. You will be teleporting, punching, kicking, blocking really fast. You’ll be knocked into the air, then send your opponent a Ki blast for his troubles. It really works well. And mainly it’s just really fun to play.

Unlike the Ultimate Moves. I don’t mean the likes of Spirit Bombs and Special Beam Cannons. I’m talking about, in Aura Spark, if you knock an enemy flying, the press L2 and you got into this sort of cut scene. Where, whoever activated the Ultimate Move is punching the other character. At the bottom of the screen is a bar, with three sections and two colours, red and blue. Let say if you are red, you will have to press all of the buttons to try and get the red into the your third of the bar. If you do, your character will start blocking the punches. But if it outside your third, you will take the punches. I hate the idea, mainly because I got a blister on my thumb because of it. The same sort of thing happened so me a few year back while playing Budokia 3, but it was with the analogue stick. I ripped some of the skin on my hand off. These bit are pointless. If they cant get rid of them, at least change the way you have to do it. I’d prefer a quick time event. But in terms of actual fighting, there isn’t really a massive step forward that you would expect from a the first next gen title. But at the end of the day, it is really fun to play.

So, when the game is game is loaded up you are greeted to a menu, 6 options to go for. There is Z Chronicles, which I have gone through. There is versus mode, where you can either battle against a friend, battle against the CPU, watch a CPU vs. CUP match or go online. The online is pretty basic, you can battle against anyone in the world. Well, that’s not really recommended, as if you face someone far way, or with a bad connection there is some noticeable lag. Which in a fast paced brawler like this, is very annoying. But if you face someone in the country, the fights are practically flawless . You feel as if you playing with someone sitting next to you. There are also leader boards, and that’s it. Not watching fights or tournaments or anything of the kind. Which is a great disappointment. Another example of the developers being lazy.

There is also trials. There are three trails you can do, Survival mode, where you fight up to 100 foes without dieing while the difficulty get slightly higher each battle.. But you wont fight 100 foes because you will get bored after about 20. There is Time Attack where you have to fight enemies in a certain amount of time.
And lastly there is Battle Point, where you have to beat enemies to get points. There is a Tutorial for all you newbie’s out there. Training, like in every fighting game where you...train believe it or not. And there is the bog standard options menu.

The graphics are really something else. They still keep to the style of the anime and manga, as in the previous titles. But they manage to capture the style so much better. During the cut scenes you can see the likeness to the anime instantly. In some ways you think your watching the anime. So the game is basically a 2D fighter with 3D characters shown from the side, like the previous titles. The stages are destructible in a sense. When you execute an Ultimate move, if it is powerful enough the stage will become more baron. Which looks pretty awesome, especially on Namek.

During battle, you get these short cut scenes called ‘Drama Pieces’. Drama Pieces help you in battle. Some can increase your Ki regeneration speed, some can get your partner to help and some can make you stronger. These are very helpful and can sometimes decide the outcome of a match. These look very, very good. But the can not be skipped, which is quite annoying, especially with the longer ones. Now, one of my main gripes with the game is how lazy they have been with the cut scenes. I mean they look fantastic they really do, all of the game looks great. But they use the same scenes quite a lot, just with different characters and different backgrounds. Also during the cut scenes, the talking seems to be out of sync with the actual dialogue.

I am not really sure what to make of this game. On one hand, it seems a bit rushed. They missed out two entire sagas, they have a tiny roster compared to previous games and they could have actually make the story make sense for the people new to the franchise. But on the other hand, the combat is simple but deep, so it easy for new comers and the veterans can string together some really good combos. The graphics are absolutely breathtaking and is generally a decent fighter. It may have it flaws, and it may not be a giant leap forward in the franchise, but it’s a solid fighter. I’ve been trying to hold off saying it for the whole review, but I can’t strain it much longer, IT’S OVER 9000!!!

6/10

Nice review very convincing, not quite convincing enough to stop me loving it

Thanks =D