Review: Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit (360)

Gamestyle has a mixed relationship with Dragon Ball Z. When it was first shown on Cartoon Network here in the UK, it was quite enjoyable. It was new, flashy (to the point of epilepsy) and most of all, violent... or as violent as a Saturday morning/weekday afternoon cartoon can be. As time went on it grew boring, as it was just the same plot recycled constantly with 30 episodes before each fight began. Basically it boiled down to a case of too much 'plot' not enough action, which presents a bit of a problem for the Z Chronicles story mode in this latest video game outing. Still a lack of plot never stopped anyone enjoying blasting their mate's face off with a fireball in Street Fighter 2, so how does Burst Limit stack up as a simple fighting game?

The driving force behind the new game seems to be making it so everyone can jump in and start launching their favourite attacks without having to learn complex combos, or sit there charging it up for five episodes, and it is somewhat successful. After going through the tutorial, or just by bashing buttons, you'll be shooting people with laser beams, doing decent damage with combos and possibly transforming in to a Super Saiyan. Once you’ve got the basics down pat, you'll storm through the first three sagas of the anime/manga story controlling all of the game's 21 heroes and villains, complete with odd cutscenes that don't make any sense unless you already know the story. What's more is that, with the multiplayer, your mate can join in and be just as competent as you within a few minutes. This is all wrapped up in impressive graphics with decent music and sound.

Things start to unravel a bit when you're fighting, and then for no apparent reason you’ll see one of the many, many in-fight cutscenes. There are two types, the first of which is rather confusing. You will land a certain attack and blast your opponent backwards, only for the camera to shift to them flying in to the screen, then your character will teleport behind them, launch them in to the sky, then teleport above them and land a downward fist into their skull. You’ll have absolutely no idea why this has happened, or why you’re suddenly battling in space.

The second type is the game's newest feature, Drama Pieces. In the Z Chronicles mode, these are automatically selected for you, but in most other modes. you can select up to three at a time. What these do is activate when certain criteria are met, at which point an unskippable cutscene will play that will affect the fight in some way. Some of these see support characters come out of nowhere and launch attacks at your opponent or dodge their attacks. Others will have your character say something along the lines of “I must succeed!/I am a proud warrior!/Darn it!” followed by them powering up in some way. The problem with the Drama Pieces are that they interrupt the fights, can’t be skipped, and aside from a couple which can increase a character's health, have barely any effect on the gameplay whatsoever. Vegeta's defence went down? So why is he still blocking everything? Goku's ki increased? It recharges automatically anyway. They’re in there to make the game feel like the anime, but if you wanted to watch the anime, you'd buy the DVDs.

As with pretty much every other fighting game out there, Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit has a few other modes. Aside from standard single and multiplayer, it has three different parts to its Trial Mode. Survival tasks you with defeating 100 opponents, with part of your health restored after each fight, while in Time Attack mode you have to defeat 10 opponents as fast as possible. Finally there is Battle Point mode where you score points by using different moves on your opponents, rather than the ones that work. Honestly though, after playing through the Z Chronicles for a couple of days, you’ll be sick of the single-player aspect of the game. The game also features online multiplayer, but this is plagued with lag like every other online fighting game ever to have existed.

Quite frankly, even long time Dragon Ball Z fans will get limited fun out of this. Burst Limit isn’t necessarily bad and can be quite fun at first, but you’ll get bored of it after a few days because of the above mentioned issues and go back to playing something else.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Garry Webber