A movie licened game neither for movie fans or DB fans.
Gameplay - Press Square and Triangle.......you WIN! This game basically hands you the win card. You cannot lose.....ever. Even if you do lose, the game lets you continue until you win. No challenge to be had at all. Each character fights the same way, all that changes are the attacks, but the layouts are the same. Just spamming basically. Theres no technique at all to the combat, nothing like SFIV or any high profile fighting game with actual skill and technique required.
Graphics - Terrible character models. Blocky, pixelated, and bland. The backgrounds all look identical, there's sparse variety, and the fields are all barren. No obstacles or anything to change the gameplay, its all the same field with a different background. It doesnt help that the game has next to no cut scenes at all, but the scenes that are there feature no voice work, or any kind of production value to suck you into the game. Very boring.
Story - Follows the movies storyline, but does a poor job of explaining anything better about the movies confusing plot and story. Piccolo in the game actually says Saiyan, and calls Goku, "Kakarot". Yeah, if your already lost, welcome to the club. I would give it credit for following the movie closely, but it does nothing to clear up the confusion the movie created with its confusing story.
Extras - Outside of the short hour-long story mode, there's the arcade mode, Survival, mission mode, and two player ad-hoc. There's an unlockable gallery of production set photos and unlockable storyboards of the movie, and a soundtrack as well. But to unlock said gallery features, you need to earn "Zenny" by beating the game over and over, and to unlock other features you need to beat missions and challenges. In other words it's cruel and unusual punishment for playing this game.
Final Comments - This game just does not have enough for seasoned fans of the DB series, and for fans of the movie(all 12 of them) it does nothing to expand on its cinematic counterpart. Its roster only has 11 characters in total, which is abysmal for a fighting game based on Dragonball. And the modes are pretty standard stuff for fighting games, and the extras will make you play for minimal content at best. It's fighting system is shallow at best, really simplistic, and not very fun especially with no technique to learn. The learning curve is non-existant. plus since the game allows you to continue when you lose, the challenge just disappears.
If you're a hardcore fan of the series or the movie, and you just have to have this game, i'd say get it. But dont pay $39.99 for it. It's not worth it at all, there's far better games that are worth $40.00. I got for $12.50. No need to pay for overpriced cash-in move licensed material. Overall though, skip it.Read full review
