Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu

"An embarassment to franchise titles everywhere? Yup."

The short review-
This is clearly one of the poorest games I have played yet, anime or not.

The long review-

Graphics- 8/10
The graphics are actually quite good for this game. The sprites are lifelike and have a reasonable resemblance to the anime characters they're based off of. The unfortunate part about this, though, is that the characters have few movement sprites, so the action looks far from fluid. The major blame with this rests with the hardware the game runs from, though. GBA games like Street Fighter Alpha 3 suffer the same fate.

Sound- 4/10
Tinny music, as can be expected from the GBA. The worst part about this, though, is that the music sounds uninspired and is entirely forgettable. Like the dubbed version of Dragon Ball Z, the music in this game is solely there to break up the monotony of the fighting and little else. Plenty of other GBA games have been entirely able to cope with sound limitations and have come out sounding great, so I cannot entirely alleviate the blame for the poor sound.

Gameplay- 1/10
"Atrocious" is a good word to use. That, and I just like the sound of the word. Say it with me folks: "This game is awful". The collision detection is weak, the fighting system is uninspired, and it's as if Atari had never actually watched Dragon Ball Z. It's as if fighting games had taking a fast-rewind trip back to 1990, the year before Street Fighter II was released. What depresses me most is that fighting games are going the way of the dinosaur, and here Atari is pumping out another poor game in the fighting genre. Is a gamer who plays this game really going to want to try another fighter? Nope.

Likeness- 2/10
This is my special review category. Does this game bear a likeness to the show Dragon Ball Z? To be frank, no. There is nothing in this game, save the sprites that distinctly makes this a Dragon Ball game. It almost seems as if someone was halfway through creating a new fighter and decided to throw Dragon Ball themes in to pump some extra money from unassuming kids. The game is a monstrosity, in this respect. The ki duels that permeated the other games are entirely watered down. The air battles have become a gimmick also, in that when you take to the air, you now have to push buttons almost at random to win a duel. The "story" mode, if you call it that, simply ends with some scrolling test along with a background gif. I had no motivation to finish the game again, even though I was able to beat it in minutes. Of course, the poor battle system in general didn't help matters either.

My score- 3/10
Play it if you're a completionist. That is, if you've played every DBZ game out there, give it a try. Otherwise, don't pay any money for this monstrosity if you don't have to, and don't let this be an indicator of the general quality of Dragon Ball or anime franchise games. Either way, you're going to come out disappointed. Why did I give it a 3, though? Well, that's because it actually loaded up when I turned the system on. That's three free points right there.

Alternate recommendations-
If you're looking for a spectacular Dragon Ball game on the GBA, look no further than Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors. It makes up for Taiketsu's lack of real aerial fight mechanics. If you're looking for a better game on the current generation of consoles... well, anything is better. Try the Budokai series and move upwards. Lastly, if you're able to get ahold of Jump!! Superstars, then trash this game and grab that.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/06