Dragon Ball Xenoverse (PC)

It’s a bit difficult to pigeonhole Dragon Ball Xenoverse into a specific genre. It’s essentially a 3rd person fighting game with MMORPG trappings. If you’re one of the lucky few who managed to experience the short-lived Dragonball Online MMO, Xenoverse is basically that game wrapped around an updated iteration of the Budokai Tenkaichi series.

Gameplay

The game starts by dropping you in the middle of various fights between Goku and the franchise’s main villains – from Freiza to Cell, to Buu – but these are not full fights but a mere sampling of the gameplay you can expect when you get to the meat and bones of the game. It’s a trick that RPGs use regularly (re: start you off with a high leveled, fully-geared character and a strong boss monster before taking everything away and forcing you to fight rats.)

There’s no tutorial yet in this intro, but it’s easy to get a basic idea of the controls since there’s prompts appearing when you push buttons. Long time players of the Budokai Tenkaichi series might be familiar with the control schemes: you have two buttons for attacks, one for ki blast, and another for mobility. Then you have a key for lock-on, one for blocking, and trigger combinations that give you access to special and ultimate attacks.

Dragonball Z: Shin Budokai 2 (PSP)

Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball Z franchise no longer require an introduction, so we’ll go straight to the introduction of Dragonball Z: Shin Budokai 2 (Dragonball Z: Shin Budokai Another Road in some regions) for the Playstation Portable.

As the title implies, Shin Budokai 2 is actually the second in a series of “Budokai”-style DBZ games on the PSP, but there’s no sense in reviewing the first one, because there’s nothing in it that isn’t included in Shin Budokai 2, which also included a ton of new content and several minor tweaks to the gameplay.

If you’ve played the Budokai games on the PS2, you’ll find Shin Budokai to be familiar ground. It’s basically a more streamlined version – combat is faster and controls are simpler. It’s easy to describe Shin Budokai as “Budokai-lite,” but it would be an unfair description because the PSP fighters brought a number of improvements to the table.

Dragonball Z Tenkaichi Tag Team (PSP)

Dragonball Z Tenkaichi Tag Team is basically Budokai Tenkaichi 3 in portable form, with one major change: as the title implies, it now features true tag team action wherein 4 players can fight in the arena at the same time. BT3 only has 1 vs. 1, with the ability to switch to different characters.

Graphics-wise, they chose to forego cel-shading and just went with the traditional textured polygons, which sadly made the game look rough and less anime-like, especially when compared to the other series of Dragonball games on the PSP, the Shin Budokai series. It still looks good so it’s not a dealbreaker. It just feels like a step down visually.

Gameplay remains largely the same. You fly around a large stage and have the option to use ki blasts, gigantic beams, or melee the heck out of your opponents. All of the combat features that you would expect from a Dragonball game are there – in-game transformations, beam struggles, teleports, meteo attacks, etc. You won’t miss anything if you’re approaching this game straight from Budokai Tenkaichi 3. However, there’s one minor change that kind of breaks combat a bit: your opponent can now move while you’re in the middle of launching a super attack.

Dragonball Advanced Adventure (GBA)

Dragonball Advanced Adventure is a 2D side-scrolling action game for the Gameboy Advance that is based on the exploits of the series’ protagonist, Son Goku, when he was still a young boy. It follows the events since the start of the anime all the way to Goku’s first defeat of King Piccolo – along the way he’ll meet Bulma, Krillin, Oolong, Yamcha, Tienshinhan, Puar, Hermit Turtle – and fight against the Red Ribbon Army, Pilaf, and the aforementioned Piccolo.

Advanced Adventure is easily one of the best games you’ll find on the Gameboy Advance (it’s probably right up there with Astro Boy: Omega Factor) even if you don’t like anime games. Both presentation and execution are top notch, and it’s got extra game content up the wazoo.

Visually, Dragonball Advanced Adventure takes its cue from the anime, and does a good job with it, at least as far as the Gameboy Hardware can offer. The colors are bright and crisp, and the sprites are well-detailed. The sounds are well-done, with the intro theme perfectly mimic-ing the show’s intro, while the voices are spot-on for the characters.

Gameplay, as mentioned above, is 2D sidescrolling action. Goku can walk, run, block, jump, and punch, but also has access to a variety of special attacks such as his trademark Kame Hame Wave and his power pole, which has the power to extend all the way to the moon if the user wills it, but only manages to reach across the screen for this game. Advanced Adventure also has shades of MetroidVania, as paths can branch and some destinations can be reached through different paths. However, the player is not required to stick to one path and those who have no patience for exploration can take the shortest path – the game knows that it’s a beat ‘em up and doesn’t try to force you into playing a different game, except for those stages where you have to play a SHMUP.

The enemies in the game are varied, but not varied enough to not require palette swaps. Thankfully, the pace moves fast enough and you are not forced to kill enemies except in some cases, so if you find yourself getting bored hitting the same dog-guy over and over, you can choose to jump over his head and skip the fight. Or heck, you can bust out one of the two screen-filling supermoves to clear everything.