Dragonball Z is perhaps the perfect anime to be converted into a fighting game – with the series devoted to almost nothing but powering up and having epic fights with more and more powerful villains, it lends itself to the genre perfectly. The two main series’ that I have enjoyed are DBZ: Budokai, and DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi on the PS2. Budokai featured a simple side-on view and lush graphics, the third installment with the biggest range of characters and plenty of moves and transformations. Budokai Tenkaichi opted for a camera behind the character, in a free-roaming environment that perhaps allows the most accurate emulation of DBZ fights as they are shown in the anime. Tenkaichi 3 boasted the largest roster of all, featuring over 150 characters. Although I preferred Budokai’s battle system, I enjoyed Tenkaichi and it’s large roster was a great selling point.

Last year saw the release of Dragonball Z: Burst Limit, a current-gen DBZ fighter in the vein of Budokai. Having loved the previous installments and looking at a prospective “Budokai 4″, the game featured great visuals and an enjoyable battle system. However, although the engine was there, for some reason the developers failed to continue the ever-growing rosters of the DBZ fighters and instead only cover as far as the Cell saga in the plot – whereas the previous games had covered the entirety of Dragonball Z, GT and even more “what if?” scenarios. This limiting of the plot (and its resulting cast) resulted in the game having an awfully small roster – only 21 characters, well over 100 less than the mind-numbingly large roster of BT3. Now, while I understand that some of the characters in the bigger rosters weren’t major characters, the endpoint of Burst Limit meant that it didn’t even include characters such as Buu (in his various forms), Dr Gero, and many of the higher level transformations. Although the engine was there, compared to Budokai 3, Burst Limit felt like little more than the bare bones of an excellent game.

However, recently a new Dragonball Z title has been released, this time in the vein of Budokai Tenkaichi – ‘Dragon Ball: Raging Blast’, on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The title snuck under my radar and I didn’t even notice it’s existence until recently – but upon downloading the demo, I put on my reviewer’s hat (metaphorically) and prepared myself for the worst. After Burst Limit, I had a sneaking suspicion that this title would follow suit and become an enhanced Tenkaichi engine, whilst removing much of the content…

Upon booting the demo, I found that the only option available was Versus, and the characters I could try were Goku, Piccolo and Raditz, although I was pleased to notice a large roster screen. I selected Goku, and my battle against Piccolo began. The game has a similar visual style to the previous titles, opting for a style of cel-shading that gives an anime-like style to a 3D game – an improvement from the past games, the graphics are clean and look good, fitting the Dragonball Z style very well.

Although I have played much Budokai Tenkaichi, Raging Blast has a whole new control set, and disappointingly the demo does a very bad job at explaining the layout. After fiddling with the buttons for a while whilst Piccolo proceeded to attack me, I eventually resorted to looking the controls up online. This was a bad mark for the demo, but the full game includes an in-depth tutorial so it shouldn’t be this way in the real thing. Once I had learned the controls I could give the game an adequate testing.

As with Budokai Tekaichi, Raging Blast allows you to move in all directions, including taking to the air for some super-powered brawls. Basic attacks are performed with the Square button to chain hand-to-hand combos, while the Triangle button is used for firing quick Ki blasts, or to perform smash (guard-breaking) attacks up close. Circle allows you to perform special moves such as ‘instant transmission’ to avoid or counter attacks, while the X button can be used to dash.

In order to perform the special attacks such as Goku’s signature Kamehameha, you require a set amount of Ki energy – this was one reason I failed to perform any moves without knowing the control scheme, as I was unaware that holding the Down button on the D-pad allows you to charge Ki energy in the classic DBZ way. Doing so fills up your gauge, and then it can be used to perform all manner of special attacks. In a new twist to the gameplay, these specials are activated by using the Right Analogue stick – flicking it upward allows you to perform the first (Kamehameha in Goku’s case), left, right, or down to perform the others; such as Raditz’ “Fools Must Die”, and Piccolo’s “Special Beam Cannon”. This works very nicely and is easy to pick up, flowing well with the rest of the gameplay. There are also a number of special moves that give passive boosts such as raising attack power (i.e. Goku’s Kaioken). Lastly, pressing R3 when your Ki is full allows you to perform the characters ultimate move, such as the Spirit Bomb, which are to be as expected – cinematic and deadly.

As I would hope, it is possible to transform into higher forms, such as Super Saiyan for Goku. To do so, you have to hold R2 to bring up a menu of available transformations (in the demo, only Goku’s SS1 form was available), and press the corresponding face button (Square in this case) for a quick cinematic that shows the transformation. Upon doing so, the character becomes more powerful, and has access to a new moveset complete with more impressive moves, such as “Angry Kamehameha”. It’s also possible to choose which form to start the fight in, which I find pleasing.

It all flows together very nicely, with a mixture of fast paced combat and cinematic moves – ranging from quick energy blasts, to impressive moves with characters being juggled around the arena and blasted with gigantic energy balls. The characters seem to be true to their original counterparts, and although the transformation and general limits to each character may make some fighters better than others, I found that Raditz was able to beat SS Goku without too much hassle, so it doesnt seem too unbalanced.

Although the game’s roster doesnt look to be anywhere quite so impressive as that of BT3, it doesn’t look to be disappointing as Burst Limit was. The game covers the series beyond the Majin Buu saga, and also has some extra scenarios made just for the game. Although some more obscure characters may be missing, most of the core characters are in the mix – Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks, Cell, Frieza, Buu and Broly are among the more popular fighters, and there are also a decent amount of the less common cast such as Chiaotzu, Dodoria and Bardock thrown in as well. Although I’ll miss characters like Janemba and Cooler, there’s a good range of characters to enjoy, including various Super Saiyan forms (up to SS3), four versions of Vegeta, villain transformations such as Perfect Cell and Super Saiyan Broly, and a couple of fusions including Gotenks and Vegito.

As I said, the game looks great with its anime-like style, but I also noticed a lot of attention to detail – as well as the graphics, there were a lot of nice touches – in the arena shown in the demo, the sky went to a moody grey later in the battle, making my Ultra attack look even more impressive. As characters get beaten up, their clothes can tear and wear – its touches like this that make it that little bit more enjoyable. Characters also have access to alternate costumes, some of which can be unlocked, and they include more than just re-colours – for instance, Piccolo has access to his plain purple gear, or his cape/turban combo seen in other episodes.

All in all, I was fairly impressed with Dragon Ball: Raging Blast. Although it’s not the ultimate “Better than all the previous DBZ fighters in every aspect” that I dream of, it’s certainly looking to be a solid title that’s far from the disappointment I had with Burst Limit. It has a solid roster and checks all of the main boxes with a few nice features, and it looks and plays really well. I must admit I hope to see even more improvement upon the series in future (hopefully they’ll do a Raging Blast 2 in the future), but until that time it seems a solid title to be the first great DBZ title of this console generation.

-Leon