Back in my childhood days, I remember watching many of awesome anime TV shows, such as Gundam Wing, Ultimate Muscle, Rave Master and Beyblade, when I was kid. One of the show that caught my attention was Dragon Ball Z is a anime TV show which was based on manga by Akira Toriyama and it was sequel to original Dragon Ball. It was first shown at Japan in 80's then it was later released at worldwide in between mid 90's and early 2000's. It was one of the best and most popular anime franchises that blew our mind because it has tons of badass characters, amazing animation style, aggressive fight battles, incredible storyplot and of course Vegeta's best lines ("IT'S OVER 9000" ) that made the series so memorable. The success of the franchise spawns many of merchandise including movies and video games.
The video game series does shares with different kinds of game genres such as Action-Adventure, RPG/Card-Based and Fighting. I'm more interested playing in fighting game genres for Dragon ball franchise, so I decided to pick up Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit for my PS3. Okay then, let's head back to review the game.
Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is a Fighting game for PS3 and X360 was developed by Dimps and published by Bandai (Now called Namco Bandai Games) in JP/EU release or Atari in US release.
I had to admit this game are actually played a lot better than later Dragon Ball games such as Raging blast and Battle of Z. I really enjoyed the fighting style of gameplay which is pretty simple to use and I loved the visuals of characters and environments looked really amazing in whole game. It has three sagas based on anime shows for story mode, 2-player local or online and unlockables features in the game. There are some few mistakes in the game such as unskippable in-game cutscene and lack of backstory in comparison with original anime TV version.
So without go further do, lets start the review.
Presentation
This game follows the three sagas from Dragon Ball Z story. Saiyan saga was based on season 1 of Dragon Ball Z which focuses on Goku's adventures, while season 3 focuses on Frieza saga and season 6 focuses on Cell games saga.
This game does have really cool opening cutscenes at the start, but when starting the story mode it did not mention the story backgrounds from the original anime show. It would have been nice to include the backstory from the originals to know the introduction of the story, but the rest of the storyplot in the game are still quite decent. I really liked the rest of the characters from the show such as Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Cell, and Frieza are still amazing in the game. I loved the in-game stages which has dark and gritty looking places, while others can be posh and colourful that fits the atmospheres of the presentation. I gotta love the look of fighting sequences during the mash button QTE. The part that I did not like is the in-game cutscenes are unskippable after using the drama pieces which is kinda annoying because it's makes you wait longer while you tried to skip the in-game cutscene that is not needed during the battle.
Overall, this game could have been add the backstory and option to skip the in-game cutscene, but still has decent storyplot, badass characters, stage presentation and fighting sequences.
Gameplay
This game has single player story mode called Z chronicles which has over 50 chapters to complete. It also has 2-player modes which you can battle out against opponent through local or online battle, the survival mode where players must fight a wave of opponents until the life bar runs out, the Time Attack Mode, where the player must defeat opponents before a certain amount of time runs out, and the Battle Points Mode, where players must earn battle points in battle. You can also learn moves through trial mode which teaches you how to play the game and practice your moves through training mode.
The fighting gameplay is displayed on 2-D format. It has both character's health bars on top of the screen, while available drama pieces icon are below the health bars. The Ki bars on the bottom of the screen are used for performing special attacks and transformations. The players must take control and battle one of the characters from the Dragon Ball Z series.
The players will have three different attacks. One is rush attack which is quickest moves, while smash attack performs stronger damage attack and Ki attacks are used for shooting blast at the opponent, but you can also hold it down to perform powerful attacks. You can perform different kinds of moves such as super attacks which is stronger Ki moves and the ultimate attacks is even more powerful moves which gives a heaver damage to the opponent. When your Ki gauge is filled up your characters has ability to use transformations allowing characters to transform into powerful form (e.g Goku transformed into Super Saiyan) which increases their abilities. Using aura sparks allowing your characters to use teleport as evade attack moves and ultimate move attack as finishing moves. There are different types of drama pieces such as assist attack which allowing your partner to attack your opponent, the health recovery which increases your health bar and the defence which helps reducing your damages from your opponent.
I say the gameplay plays decently well for the whole game. It is quite simple to use which I finding the fighting style are managed well for the fighting game genres. I really liked the variety of moves where you can perform amazing heavy attacks, really cool Ki moves, and using the transformations and aura sparks are worked really well for in-game battle. The drama pieces are sounds useful, but as I mentioned on presentation part you cannot skip the in-game cutscene after using drama pieces which kinda slows down the battle gameplay, but still it's playable. My favourite part of the game is the fighting sequences where you had to mash the buttons sounds really cool. I really enjoyed the Z chronicles mode with three sagas to experience the Dragon Ball Z universe and I finding the trial mode is seems to be lot easier than most of the fighting games titles. You can also enjoy different kinds of modes such as 2-player battle mode, survival modes, time attack modes and battle points mode which makes the game enjoyable to play.
Overall, I really liked the fighting style controls and excellent game modes.
Graphics
I really liked the 3-D anime style animation which has a same charm as the original anime TV show. The character's design are well detailed and looked more appealing that fits well for their characters appearances. It has stunning level design with colourful environments and gorgeous background settings that looked really incredible for whole stages, and I also liked the visuals effects of dragon ball blast is friggin kick ass.
It actually improves the overall graphics over the previous Dragon Ball Z fighting games which I felt amazed to see any of modern fighting games with quality looking graphics.
Overall, I loved the animation, characters, levels and visuals.
Music and Sounds
I got to admit the opening theme song are very catchy with J-Rock style. It has two different versions of theme song such as "Kiseki no HonÅ yo Moeagare!" and its English counterpart "Fight it Out" were written by Yuriko Mori and Kanon Yamamoto, and was performed by J-Rock singer Hironobu Kageyama, while the composer Kenji Yamamoto did a original soundtrack for this game. I really liked the overall soundtrack because most of the anime shows has the best Japanese theme music.
It has wicked sound effects of the game with well made atmospheric sounds from the original anime show. I also loved the voice acting for most of the characters in both Japanese and English dialogue which is sounds faithful to original.
Overall, it has wonderful soundtrack, wicked sound effects and great voice cast.
Special Features
This game features unlockable characters, stages and modes without requiring DLC which is sounds awesome that all completed content is fully on disk. It did not have trophy support in comparison with X360 version did have the achievements, so it's kinda shame for PS3 players. You can also learn new moves by beating the each chapters of sagas which is nice.
Overall, it has unlockables stuff, but it would have been nice to include trophy support for PS3 version.
Advantages
Decent presentation
Excellent game modes
Impressive gameplay
Excellent graphics
Wonderful soundtrack
Unlockables content
Disadvantages
Unskippable in-game cutscenes after using drama pieces
Lack of backstory compared with original anime version
Lack of trophy support
Final Verdict
Presentation 7/10 - Decent storyplot, badass characters, stage presentation and fighting sequences.
Gameplay 7.5/10 - Impressive fighting style controls and excellent game modes.
Graphics 8/10 - Excellent animation, characters, levels and visuals.
Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - Wonderful soundtrack, wicked sound effects and great voice cast.
Special Features 7/10 - Unlockables!!!
Overall 7.5/10 - It is not by far one of the best fighting game of all time, it is one of the impressive fighting game in the series. Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is one and the only decent DBZ game for seventh generation consoles, unlike the games like Raging Blast and Battle of Z are definitely not good as this game has come to offer. If you're the biggest fans of the DBZ games or someone who's been looking for a quality fighting game then this game is worth buying for your collection.
In my second opinion, I'm definitely gonna try playing another DBZ games like Xenoverse 2 for my PS4, but I'm definitely look forward to see upcoming DBZ game called Dragon Ball Fighter Z in 2018 release.
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