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Budokai is Better; an average port

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This review was written by my son, James Shea.

Yet another fighting game representing the Dragon Ball Z series, Super Dragon Ball Z does little to distinguish itself from its fellow DBZ games.

The game is mostly similar to other games in the DBZ universe. Based on an arcade game, the style of the game very much reflects this origin. There are 18 characters (five of whom need to be unlocked) representing most of the main characters in Dragon Ball Z. Each character differs slightly in terms of their four stats (attack, throw, ki - or energy - and "action"). The characters themselves do not differ drastically, though many have unique gimmicks (such as Trunks' sword, or Piccolo's stretching arms). Even their energy attacks are mostly generic, except for one or two signature attacks per character. In this regard, it is more similar to regular fighting games than other Dragon Ball Z games. Besides the standard attacking and blocking, the characters can also jump - holding down the button makes you levitate. This is better executed than some other DBZ games, namely the first Budokai, but on the whole air fighting is difficult to pull off.

There are 7 stages, each with several of the features familiar to DBZ fans - breakable objects and the ability to go to new parts of the stage by smashing through walls and floors. These locales are nothing special for the most part, and are the same ones used in every other DBZ game.

Unlockable items in the game are "wished" using the 7 Dragon Balls, which are collected in story mode. Everything from new moves to stat upgrades to new characters and levels to even a few extras like new outfits and game data is unlocked with the Dragon Balls, meaning that they must be collected every time you want to unlock something.

The graphics have a neat, cel-shaded quality that is done a little better than the cel shading in the other DBZ fighting games; this is perhaps the only advantage the game holds. The backgrounds, however, are mostly terrible. The audio is standard, using the same voice actors that have been in every single DBZ game, movie, and tv show episode since it came to the US.

Most of the features in this game are done more thoroughly, and better, in Dragon Ball Z: Budokai and its sequels. As an arcade game, this might have been all right, but it really didn't need to be ported like this.

Rating: 6/10.

My Last PS2 Game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You know since there are next generation consoles coming out (which one of them is already out), I just wanted to see which game I wanted to make my last PS2 game, and I saw that Atari is coming out with another DBZ game and I just felt like making this my last game because Dragon Ball Z is something I liked since I was 13 and DragonBallZ has always been the best classic Anime around and now with the PS3, The Nintendo Wii coming out in November, and the system that is already out the XBOX 360, this was the best choice I have made since I am a huge DBZ fan. I give Super Dragon Ball Z (my last PS2 game) a 4 out of 5.

omg this game sucked so bad zero zero zero stars

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game sucked so badly its not even funny, the grahpic was terrible, the gameplay was terrible, not alot of characters, this was a pieace of s..., that needed to be flushed down the toilet but good thing i rented this game from block buster but wow this was horrible not even fun the graphic was so badly meesed up it was like a crocadile at a pieace of paper and spat it back out thats how bad it was, budokai1 was better then this pieace of ho ha this was the worst game i evered played.

it's been done to death!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: August 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

nothing new or special. it really is quite the same as the other dbz games, my son played it 2-3 times, was disappointed and bored.

"Super" DBZ? What were they thinking?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I just don't get it. The DBZ games have been hit and miss for as long as they've been made, even in Japan on the Super Famicom, and that disappointing tradition continued into the Sony Playstation and the PS2 as game developers continued to display loudly that they have no idea what fans see in DBZ and aren't desperate enough to ask. That's the only possible reason why so much DBZ stuff is trash.
Still, up until Budokai Tenkaichi, it at least seemed like they were TRYING to get it right. Budokai 1 and 2 were mediocre at best, and Budokai 3 was good, but not perfect. Tenkaichi improved the flying engine no end, destroyed the fighting mechanics of the game and messily murdered the character variety by including umteen million characters that all have the exact same special moves.
This game is new, but it's still worse than either of those games, both of which I was already quite disappointed with, on a DBZ power level scale. Budokai 3 used experience gaining to enable character modifications in the game itself, and if those modifications were nowhere near as extreme as they were in the series, they were still better than in Tenkaichi, which tried to do the same thing with "item fusions." DBZ has (if you've ever watched the show or read the manga) had very little to do with items.
No, DBZ is an anime and manga about characters who've pushed the strength, speed and endurance of their bodies to cosmic levels over the course of a few decades (as it's measured in the manga) using weights, training equipment, complex exercises and martial arts. At this level, they find themselves with the speed to seemingly teleport from place to place, and commanding bio-energies than give them the power to fly and destroy entire planets. As you might imagine, some of their fights are pretty spectacular.
But the real meat of the DBZ storyline isn't about the fighting, but rather, about characters trembling in fear of one another's strength, or training desperately for those last few ounces of power needed to defeat a particular foe. That's why I consider Budokai 3 to be a fighting game success, but a DBZ failure. The changes in power level over the course of the game were toned down from the anime to make the matches more even, and possibly limit play time. It was, after all, a fighting game, not an RPG.
That's really the big problem with this game as well. It's a fighting game, not an RPG. It does contain experience points (as well as a meter labeled "BP") but neither really seems to do much aside from unlocking a few new special moves for each character. In DBZ (the anime,) Frieza (with a power level of 500+ thousand) fought Nail (with a power level of 42 thousand.) Naturally, Nail's strongest attacks did no damage at all, and Frieza's strength was so monstrous that he crippled Nail in just a few blows.
But in Super DBZ, a character with a power level in the millions has only a slight advantage over a character with a power level of only 6 thousand, or even lower. Yes, I would like to see that changed, although the only way to really do it would be by making DBZ into an actual RPG.
The concept is so enticing, in fact, of DBZ actually achieving its potential as a video game that I went to the trouble once of writing up design specs for how I'd design it, but I won't do that here.
Aside from that primary gripe of mine, there are also lesser gripes I have with this game. Compared with other DBZ games, this game is pathetically small. The flight engine is toned down from Tenkaichi, and there are fewer characters and fewer moves and transformations than in any other PS2 DBZ game as far as I can tell. As I said, small.
So when so many other, better, bigger DBZ games have already been released, what hole did they expect this game to fill? Certainly, it didn't fix the central problem that all other DBZ games have had up to this point, and it detracted from many other aspects of those games. What a disappointment. I'm glad I always Rent Before Buying. This game is my perfect justification in that respect.

Super Awesome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

At first, I was skeptical about the new system of fighting for Super Dragonball Z, but after playing it for 5 minutes, I was hooked. I love the new variations between all of the characters, the Street Fighter type fighting really makes this a new soon-to-be classic. They really revamped the franchise with this title.

not the best,ive seen much better,but ive also seen worse

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

ok,this game is better than sagas,a lot better,not quite on par with budokai 2 or 3 but about as good as budokai 1 i would say.the character list is very poor there are like maybe 20 people.but they do give you king picolo and chi chi who have never been available before to my knowledge on any other dbz game.one good thing is that they give vegeta a black outfit for once,ive always wanted to see that.

now for the good...
u unlock most anything by collecting the dragonballz and wishing for it which is pretty easy,u set it on original mode beat 7 ppl and and u make a wish at the dragon summoning mode.
now,the controls,there not really that hard to learn but real hard to master i still cant get a galick gun off just whenever i want too i get it maybe every other time at best.

the in between...
the graphics,while not bad,arnt that good either.they kinda of well comic book cartoon looking.

and at last the bad...
frieza is very hard to beat,hes next to last in original mode,but the hardest to beat,cell isnt as hard and he is last.moves are kinda hard too do,like super saiyan ive never seen anything wrong with pushing the r1 and r2 buttons to do it,on hear i cant ever do it,and even one u do get it right i swear is lasts no more than 15 seconds and it wears off.
but it is fun to play,and u really dont even need super saiyan that much anyway

Super Dragonball Z......

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While Super Dragonball Z is a worthy game to add to your DBZ game collection and is a blast to play, don't come into it expecting it to have that hyperkinetic flash and energy of other DBZ games(like the Budokai series)or it being a serious technical fighter(like Tekken, Dead or Alive, or Virtua Fighter) because it isn't either one. What it is, however, is a traditional fighting game that feels old school yet new school all at the same time.

Watching the intro to Super Dragonball Z, you can tell a new take is being made on the DBZ universe. Upon playing the game, you realize that a more serious approach has been taken to the battles between our beloved characters from the classic anime series. Characters(18 in all) are placed in free-roaming, destructible sandbox levels(kinda like those in Power Stone)to battle it out. In my honest opinion, I think this form of engine better suits DBZ. It adds alot more strategically to the game. Course, it's good to see Atari having developers come out with new ways to play DBZ. If you want to get the most out of the game, though, you'll first want to create your own character card. There- you'll pick a character from one of the 18 presented, give it a custom name, and choose from a few sets of color palettes. Every time you finish a fight, you're awarded battle points. Getting enough battle points will give you access to a skill tree, where you can customize certain character properties and assign new moves to your character. Playing through the original arcade mode, as well as the survival mode, can get you Dragon Balls. Once you collect all seven Dragon Balls on your character card, you can summon the dragon Shenron, who will grant you a wish, which can range from giving you an additional color palette for your character to unlocking a whole new character. This addition is more than enough reason to keep coming back & playing.

The two biggest gripes I have with Super Dragonball Z is the character list to choose from for battle is just too small and there isn't any story to speak of, just fighting.

Beyond that, Super Dragonball Z does make a good first impression. I hope this isn't the last we see of it.

A solid and unique Dragonball Z gaming experience

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: July 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Super Dragonball Z (2006.) A Dragonball Z fighting game for the Playstation Two.

INTRODUCTION:
Over the years, Akira Toriyama's Dragonball Z anime series has been one of the most popular ones out there. And when it arrived in America, the popularity only skyrocketed. As such, it's not surprising that there are plenty of video games based on the series. Unfortunately, these have been a hit miss affair. For every Budokai, there's a Sagas to drag the series' video game reputation back down into the gutter. In 2006, Super Dragonball Z, a new fighting game, was released. This game employed the creation talents tof Noritaka Funamizu, producer of the classic Street Fighter II. How does his experiment with this series work? Read on for my review of Super Dragonball Z.

OVERVIEW:
Super Dragonball Z was released in July of 2006. The game features one and two player options, numerous characters, stages, customizable character mode, and a ton of unlockables. In addition, the game features a unique, newly-designed combat engine.

REVIEW:
To sum it up - this game impressed me. Hell, it even impressed a lot of the critics/reviewers/magazines/etc. that normally hate anything that bares the Dragonball Z name! It's a unique gaming experience, and despite some obvious shortcomings, one of the best games to come about in this series in a long time.

THE GOOD:
The most obvious good thing about this game is a new fighting engine. The engine is the brainchild of Street Fighter II producer Noritaka Funamizu - and he does for Dragonball games the same thing he did for Street Fighter - makes it good. The new fighting engine is simple to learn but difficult to master, making it an ideal one to use in a game. The commands are simple - jump, strong attack, weak attack, dash, dash attack, and so forth. You can traverse the foreground and background as well, giving the game a two-and-a-half dimension feel. Environments you can play on are diverse and only add to the excitement. They are interactive settings, and you can use the terrain to your advantage. In addition to numerous stages and characters you can choose from, there are a number of unlockable ones as well. Only adding to the fun is the customization mode. You can pick a fighter and build their experience points, and choose their moves and such as you gain experience. The game even features some characters not normally playable in Dragonbal Z games - including Chi Chi! The cel-shaded graphics are excellent as usual. It's definitely the best Dragonball Z game since the third Budokai.

THE BAD:
No Dragonball Z game is perfect, and this is no exception. The small character roster is my biggest complaint. I'm all for including lesser known and appreciated characters like Chi Chi, but to include them at the expense of fan favorites like Broly is unforgivable. You really only get the principle cast, sadly. The game is generally focused around the Cell era, and as such, that's where most of the characters come from, meaning you miss out on some of your favorites from other eras, like Captain Ginyu and Dabura. The fighting engine also takes some getting used to. I LIKE this fighting engine, no questions asked, but it's confusing at first and has its frustrating moments. Personally, I think the company should have made another Budokai game or something that used the Street Fighter II engine - NOT something in between. You'll also find yourself wishing there were more gameplay modes, content, and customization options. Fortunately, the good DOES outweigh the bad here.

OVERALL:
Overall this is a good Dragonball Z game - something there aren't enough of on the market today. If you're a fan of the series and want one that actuall does justice to the legendary anime series, Super Dragonball Z is just what you need. It's one of the best fighters based on the series. I strongly recommend it!

EDITION NOTES:
This game is a recent release, and as such you shouldn't have any trouble finding it in a major electronics retailer.

Review Page: 1 

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