Review: Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit

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Review: Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit
By Sean Booker
Oct 2, 2008 - 13:30

Studios: Dimps
Bandai/Atari
Rating: T
Genre: Fighting
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Players: 1-2 Simultaneous

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is your typical game where the company decided to take a step back and reuse some of their older ideas. After the low success of the Tenkaichi series, Atari decided that maybe the original Budokai style still had some value left. What I mean from this is that instead of using the 3D fighting areas and battle/combat style they had been doing for the last three console games, they went back to 2D fighting in a 3D environment.

Burst Limit is unlike a game such as Street Fighter and more on the Soul Calibur side of things, minus ring outs. It has you fighting your opponent on a 2D plain, but at the same time lets you move in a 3D way (characters can also move sideways) to create yet another 2D plain. This elements of battle and game play is much like the original three Budokai games and, pretty much, mimics the basic idea of them all.

The single player mode takes you through different 'scenes' in the Dragon Ball Z show/movie history and recreates them in a one on one fight. Along with some good looking cut scenes, it makes for a pretty good time. One thing the developers didn't seem to realize though, is that there are people out there who either don't know what Dragon Ball Z is or don't care enough to have watched all one million episodes and don't know the story line. It has you going through each fight in the correct order based off the show, through each of the first three sagas of Dragon Ball Z (yes that's right, it ends after the Cell Saga), but what it doesn't do is tell you what's going on and why each of these things are happening. Unless you have watched the show, you have no idea how and why these characters are beating the crap out of each other. What makes this element worse is the game decides that you can finally get the privilege of knowing these answers after you finish the approximately twenty something fights that make up a saga, by playing a voiceless cut scene. It almost feels like teasing.

Aside from that, Burst Limit doesn't really have many other great flaws. As stated, it revisits it's original roots, but that's what makes it so great. Once you drop the giant 3D arenas, which cause you to have to try and use the environment as more of a weapon than what the show was really about (your fists and energy), you can get back to actually what Dragon Ball Z is about, hitting people really hard. This game should make most fighting genre enthusiasts happy and should please Dragon Ball Z fans all around.

The graphics in this game are very good, and combining that with the monstrous flashing lights that, for people into the games and show will know as energy attacks, you're in for quite a good looking game. Some of the stronger attacks look especially good when shown on these powerful consoles and well surpass the Budokai series. Some of the better light shows will be seen when two powerful attacks collide and the sparks are flying everywhere.

Also this game involves online play, so you can battle with your friends or anyone from either Xbox Live or the Playstation Network. One problem here is there is some lag during the fights if you're not in the same country as your opponent. Lag does affect almost every game but due to this being a fighting game, having your moves delayed, for even a moment, can throw you off completely and cause you to lose. Aside from straight one-on-one fighting online, there isn't much else to do. Though there really couldn't be to much else to put online so, overall, the online component isn't a wonderful feature that will have you coming back to the game.

One of the most interesting features in Burst Limit is it's use of 'in-fight cut scenes' known as "drama pieces." These stop the fight when you meet certain requirements and cause a short, maybe 3 second, sequence. At first these are a cool idea, but then you will begin to notice that they do the same, let's say, dozen scenes over and over and they're not even a little different. The only difference is the character performing it, other than that they just pasted a different body onto the motion path.

Another addition on is the requirements that your ranking per fight is based on. These are things like "perform an ultimate attack" or "finish while destroying the battle field" which, once again, starts off as a cool idea and will make you want to try and meet as many as you can. By meeting enough or these, your overall ranking for that fight will increase. The downside to these is that they never ever change. For every fight you can just do the same thing to meet the same requirements and you will usually get the same ranking. It would have been real nice to see some storyline/character specific requirements thrown in there.

Overall Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit meets the standards you'd want if you're a Dragon Ball Z fan, but will come up as shallow and not worth while for others. Though it does have a lot to do if your wanting to finish every fight and get a good rank on each one of their difficulties. The online play is a must have portion to this game, but wont last long for you and definitely won't have you coming back to this game over and over.

Verdict: Rent It

Rating: 7/10