"Fans of DBZ will be VERY pleased. Anyone else: fun beat 'em up."

Story

This game follows basically every single season of the anime/manga of Dragon Ball Z. It even throws in a couple of very interesting "What if?" stories. Fans of DBZ will be pleased with the actual story (duh), but newcomers may be a little confused from some things that the developers completely threw out from the anime/manga. My biggest complaint is that, even though the game requires you to beat a villain (sometimes very easily), a cut scene will show your whole team thrown around the ground and bruised with not a scratch on the villain.

The actual story is very good, though. Shows great character development. But I think at least a simple background knowledge would definitely help you understand what's going on.

8/10

Graphics

For a PS2 game, the graphics are good, but not mind-blowingly impressive. But since this is the Wii version, the graphics are pretty mediocre. The cel-shading leads to some interesting style, but it's nothing we've never seen before and very simple to do on Wii.

6/10

Sound

OK, everything makes pretty nice sounds. The sounds are placed correctly and don't sound bad at all. The voice acting is done very well. If they're not the real voice actors, they do a very good imitation. And them music is catchy and upbeat, helping to keep up with the game and everything. Not bad at all, but very basic.

7/10

Gameplay

This game is very fun. It takes a behind 3rd person view of your character. A is a simple attack string. B will throw some sort of energy thing at your opponent (it varies depending on the character). You can press B in conjunction with A to open some more attack combinations. C will let you jump or fly. Z is used for charging your Ki gauge (used for special attacks). And your "Blast Shock" gauge thingy fills automatically.

The Ki gauge allows for Blast attacks (such as Goku's Kamehameha and Vegeta's Gallick Gun). They can be done in one of 6 ways. You can cursor out in one of four ways (up, down, left, right) and then cursor back in, move the Wiimote back and forward (for things such as Kamehameha), or wave the Nunchuk twice and move the Wiimote forward (for Rush attacks). It is much better than some crazy button combination, and moves pretty quickly (unless you want to wait, which is also a possibility). Moves use between 2 and 4 Ki gauges, which you have 5 of. MAX Power attacks usually use 4 or 5.

Blast Shocks (the numbers vary between characters) allow for certain things such as going into MAX Power mode (opens a third powerful Blast attack), transformations, paralysis moves, and quick Ki charges. they recharge automatically.

Also, there are tag battles. The scheme is simple enough. Press 2 when the tag gauge is filled if you want to change characters. But, also, certain characters, if tagged, can fuse. So if you are Goku tagged with Vegeta, you can transform into SSJ4 Gogeta. Or, you can just transform into Super Saiyan or something. It's better, but uses a Blast Shock or two. And oyu can always go back to normal if you want.

8/10

Presentation

My major beef with the game: the steep learning curve. It took a while to figure out what the hell I was doing. There is a training mode, but it is so tedious and boring and doesn't help with everything. Like the radar thingy in the corner. It shows some symbols sometimes. Later, I figured out that those represent your Blast moves. (there are three lines of these symbols, and each line has a certain number of symbols depending on what you have to do with the attack). It's a lot easier to just jump right in and play the game, which would still take osme time to do.

Multiplayer is fun. BUT, if you have only have one Wiimote, you will have to use a GameCube controller. You could get beat pretty bad because you won't know what the hell to do. B on the Wiimote has been changed to Y on the GCN controller. What is that? It doesn't have ANY instructions for GameCube controllers. Not even simple things. So have fun with that, pressing buttons like mad just to punch.

This is a nice, long game. The story is about 60 hours or so, IIRC, with three difficulty levels. Pretty long, although repetitive. But then there's all these modes, like versus, tournament, and all that junk. Opens up even more replay value.

One more thing. The overworld is strange. You fly around going from place to place. Holding Z will dash, but shaking the Nunchuk dashes while fighting. Makes no sense. The only reason you would need to go somewhere that isn't part of the story is to train. And that training is used to level up your equipped "Z-items." Z-items just give your character a boost in HP, defense, attack, etc. You can equip a few, but there are items that allow more slots.

And then there are all the characters. There's about 120 (that's including transformations and stuff, unfortunately). So it's fun unlocking all the characters.

8/10

Final Score: 8/10

Rent or buy? Rent. If it's that long and good, why rent? Well, a sequel is in the making for the same system, as a matter of fact. It will add about 30 more characters and some more modes and stuff. Plus, it will have online. So rent THIS game, because it's out now and it's fun. It's a fun game, and I expect nothing less from the next one.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/07