Out of Dragon Ball's overwhelming catalogue of video games, this is an often overlooked one. What I love about this game is that it does more than just rest on the intellectual property of Dragon Ball.
The gameplay and combat system is relatively unique and introduces new concepts and mechanics not seen at all in other Dragon Ball games and possibly not commonly in fighting games generally.
The game's visual styling is based on the original manga, which is my favourite part of Dragon Ball - and helps portray the cartoonish and silly side of the series which is an important part of it.
The stages feel like living parts of the Dragon Ball world and have interactivity within them. The characters have unique movesets and choreography which you might expect from a fighting game, but you most Dragon Ball games of this era had very little emphasis on this and instead more of a focus on special attacks.
In terms of narrative and story, there really isn't one to speak of - and the game lacks a distinctive setting in terms of the overarching Dragon Ball plot. But, this is commonplace for Dragon Ball spin-off media sadly.
Because of that, the character cast feels a bit random, and does include copies of the same character in a different form or age (a pet peeve of mine). Including Chi-Chi and Videl was a nice touch, particularly in giving them unique and inspired fighting styles.
The last point worth mentioning is the way you can customize your characters through skill trees. Although the implementation is quite grindy, it was fun exploring the options and creating different setups. I particularly enjoyed upgrading Freeza's mechanical attachments.
These sort of creative risks and a focus on the manga are rare to see in Dragon Ball games - and so I hope this isn't the last we see of it.
The gameplay and combat system is relatively unique and introduces new concepts and mechanics not seen at all in other Dragon Ball games and possibly not commonly in fighting games generally.
The game's visual styling is based on the original manga, which is my favourite part of Dragon Ball - and helps portray the cartoonish and silly side of the series which is an important part of it.
The stages feel like living parts of the Dragon Ball world and have interactivity within them. The characters have unique movesets and choreography which you might expect from a fighting game, but you most Dragon Ball games of this era had very little emphasis on this and instead more of a focus on special attacks.
In terms of narrative and story, there really isn't one to speak of - and the game lacks a distinctive setting in terms of the overarching Dragon Ball plot. But, this is commonplace for Dragon Ball spin-off media sadly.
Because of that, the character cast feels a bit random, and does include copies of the same character in a different form or age (a pet peeve of mine). Including Chi-Chi and Videl was a nice touch, particularly in giving them unique and inspired fighting styles.
The last point worth mentioning is the way you can customize your characters through skill trees. Although the implementation is quite grindy, it was fun exploring the options and creating different setups. I particularly enjoyed upgrading Freeza's mechanical attachments.
These sort of creative risks and a focus on the manga are rare to see in Dragon Ball games - and so I hope this isn't the last we see of it.