Dragonball Z: Burst Limit Review

Dragonball Z: Burst Limit is the first DragonBall Z game to be developed by Dimps since Dragonball Z: Budoaki 3. The DragonBall Z game series has seen its high and lows, but with Dimps back on the wheel it’s headed in the right direction.

Story

The story goes through the first 3 main sagas of the series. These include the Saiyan, Frieza and Cell Sagas. While we know this well Dimps did a pretty bad job with explaining the story. Considering this is a fighting game story doesn’t really matter but they have cutscenes at the beginning of levels that skip a few segments from the last fight. If your unfamiliar with the series you will be pretty lost. That said it is more coherent than other fighting games. For those who don’t know, Dragonball Z tells the tale of a saiyan (A race of alien warriors) named Goku who has been living on earth his entire life. The Saiyan saga starts with his brother arriving on earth and kidnapping Goku’s son. As I said a lot of the story is lost in this game but at the end of each saga you are given a recap of the story with no voices, just images which helps fill in the gaps.

Gameplay

The gameplay is one of Burst Limits greatest assets. The basic controls, are well basic. Square does a fast attack, Triangle a Smash attack, X guard etc etc. For more advanced players there is a deeper system. To explore this system there is a tutorial. The tutorial has 12 levels and goes through the different moves you can do. Even if your a veteran of fighting games or past DBZ games its worth it to do the tutorial(You get a treat at the end!). They have added some cool things that make the game feel more like the show. Holding down longer on a special technique will charge it up to make it stronger. There is also a special strong punch that will go through the enemy and stun them for a second (You will see this many times in cutscenes and series vets should know what i mean, think white eyes).
The biggest part of the game is the Z chronicles which take you through the story. You fight as many different characters and this will take you about 4 hours to finish it on your first playthrough. From the outset you have access to 3 difficulties, Very Easy, Easy, and Normal. You have to beat all the levels to unlock hard and very hard. and then finish these to unlock Z difficulty. The Z chronicles is broken up into the 3 Sagas that it goes through. The set up here works well and is pretty easy to navigate through.

There is a trial section that has you do challenges. These challenges include time attack fights, and a “fight until you die” tournament. You basically fight up to 100 opponents in a row. This is fine but because of the amount of characters in the game, you will fight each about 4-5 times in the course of the challenge.

Online

Once again here is where the game goes down a bit. The online action has a few issues, well really one issue. This issue is called lagg. Its not lagg in the classic sense but the game is a lot more sluggish online than offline. This will cause some frustration, especially when trying to dodge attacks. This is the only issue with the online system, everything else works extremely well.

Graphics/Audio

Dragonball Z: Burst limit is probably one of the best looking cell shaded games, ever(cell Shaded means cartoon like). The game looks like a HD version of the anime series it is based on. Aside from a lack of animation in the faces, bad lip syncing(For the English voices anyway) and a clear reuse of just about every drama piece animation, the game looks great.
The music is Jrock/pop goodness. The music during cutscenes can really get you pumped for the next fight while the menu music can put you to sleep. Its hit and miss with a lot of songs but its mostly hits. The voice overs for the most part are well done. The main characters such as Goku, Gohan etc are all well done with some not so important characters not so well done.

Conclusion

Dragonball Z:Bust Limit is a great fighting game for casual players and hardcore fans as well. The system is easy yet deep and the graphics and performance of the game bring the anime to life. The horrible story telling in the game alongside the sluggish online play really bring down what a great game this is.

Decent