Dragon Ball Z: Sagas

"Dragon Ball Z Sagas, we hardly knew thee..."

This game is poor for many valid reasons. Atari got lazy when pushing this game out to the streets.

Controls

The controls were a valiant effort, but a few things should have been fixed:
1.) Lock on targeting. strafing and dodging is nearly impossible as the camera rotates unexpectedly so you never know if you're going to zip left/right, dash forward, or flip backward. We should have been able to dodge by moving normally (ie. run around the back of your opponent).
2.) Flying. Simply the worst feature in the game since it serves NO purpose other than collecting the Z coins and capsules. Altitude control would have made a BIG difference, but its not like any enemy in the game actually comes to fight you in mid-air. Downright shoddy.
3.) Jumping. It could be argued that jumping serves no purpose either. We KNOW the Z warriors can jump (fly) to insane heights, so whats with this stupid little 'hop' everyone seems to be limited to?

Game Engine

The engine is lacking as well (did ANYONE properly beta test this thing?!):
1.) Vegita's 'horny' dance when missing a jump or walking up a ledge (Mario 64 anyone?). This is inexcusable after a decade of 3-D game environments!
2.) Zoning. Free roaming my foot. This invisible wall crap is an insult. There has to be boundaries somewhere, but most of them are really quite unnecessary. For example, exploring cities... isn't it amazing how you're only attacked on that ONE street? The buildings are already rendered, let us play in the back alleys for crying out loud!
3.) Horrendous camera angles. Why they didn't give you a free roaming camera I DO NOT KNOW. The camera changes so often and at such poor times that you will frequently lose your opponent off screen (disabling teleport), and most likely get blasted shortly after.
4.) Horrible AI - Lock on. Charge your signature Ki attack. Teleport. Fire. Rinse. Repeat. If you're Super Saiyan (or Namek), it takes off a ridiculous amount of damage. Cheap... as... hell.
5.) Super-Saiyan time limit. Why? To add challenge? Give me a break. If Goku fell out of Super Saiyan that often he would have never finished off Freeza. Lame.

Storyline

Storywise, the game doesn't follow logic. In many instances, you will notice heros beating boss charactets that, according to the story, they shouldn't have been able to damage at all. It also becomes quite a stretch to fill out the levels in Sagas with baddies. You'll quickly grow tired of blowing up rocks and engaging in melee combat with subordinates that seem to come from nowhere (especially during story points where there should be no subordinates at all).

Sound

At least here the game is true to the series. The voice acting is accurate, and the SFX are done extremely well. Sometimes during gameplay the one liners get really old, but at least it was a noble attempt to be more like the anime.

Graphics

Very pretty. After you get further in the game, you begin to appreciate the abundance of character models used throughout the game. Goku changes outfits as he should according to the anime storyline. Thank you Atari for staying detail oriented in this respect. Backgrounds are nothing spectacular, but they do fit the anime style of the series. Combos and Ki attacks are done rather well, but I personally would have liked to see a beam trail on the Kamehameha. Ah well... chances are after you've sunken your teeth into this game long enough, you'll be too bored with the shoddy gameplay to enjoy the graphic style anyway.

Replay Value

NONE. Unless you get off on blowing up cars, rocks, rubble, and trees OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, there is no reason to replay the levels again, unless you're a perfectionist and must collect all of the Z Coins and Capsules.

Summary

In summary, you can obtain and play through everything this game has to offer in under five hours. That is absolutely maddening to anyone who shelled out $40-50 for this game. It may be pretty, but there are obvious errors that should have been corrected or removed before the final release.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/05