What’s Not So Good?
Probably the most immediate complaint most people familiar to Dragon Ball Z and the recent Atari games is that Burst Limit it not an especially diverse game. Since it only covers the first few arcs of the Dragon Ball Z story, several characters and places don’t make the cut and leave only a total of 21 fighters and 6 fighting stages (in comparison to the 160 plus fighters and “day and night” stages in Atari’s last console game, Budokai Tenkaichi 3). By that same token, the only character able to reach “Super Saiyan Level 2” is Teen Gohan; again, while transformations generally do not impact the gameplay too hard, this bit may still leave a lingering disappointment for some.
While the majority of the sound and audio feels solid, the further I played through “Z Chronicles” mode the more it seemed like the video and audio during cutscenes were getting more and more out of sync. It only seemed to occur in the later points in the game and only now and then, but it still felt like something that just got missed during the polishing process.
Also, as already mentioned, many of the timing-based moves like “pursuit attacks” and “ultimate attacks” at first feel overly complicated to pull off, and at first it feels almost arbitrary for when they do work. It certainly gets easier to get them working as time goes on, so hopefully people willing to invest some time in the game will not have too much of a concern with this bit.
Keeping with gameplay, there’s another worthwhile thing to mention: the fighters aren’t especially balanced. In most fighting games, there’s a general understanding that some characters are a little faster, others are a little stronger, and in the long run the strengths and weaknesses more or less balance out in-game. This is not so much the case with Burst Limit (or many Dragon Ball Z fighters in general). While some characters like Goku and Cell certainly feel more than adequate to survive in the game, others like Recoome (painfully slow) and Yamcha (painfully weak) just feel extremely outclassed. While handicaps in versus mode can certainly be set to give one person a larger health bar than the other, this is something that just only really works for people either willing to go through the balancing process themselves or wanting to give themselves a disadvantage for bragging rights.
Truly nitpicky otaku may find themselves a little bothered by certain clothing details. For the most part the “Z Chronicles” mode does a good job of modeling the characters and their clothes in a manner befitting the story (such at torn clothes and such). However, others may take issue with straight-up costume errors like Vegeta fighting his first fight of the “Namek Saga” while still wearing his “Saiyan Saga” armour. Again, an ultra, ultra nitpicky thing with which to take issue, but nevertheless, there you have it.
Also, while on the subject of details, players who start putting hours under their belts will probably start to notice the fairly obvious recycling of wireframe animations in the cutscenes and drama pieces. The characters and dialogue will change, but inevitably you’re going to see a lot of someone punching another in the stomach, that person getting a close-up of their stunned face followed by a back-roundhouse kick to the head, sending them tumbling backwards before recovering in a crouched position. It’s completely understandable why they’d do it, but it still comes off as cheap and lazy.
Gameplay-wise, the worst offender is also one of the neatest features of Burst Limit. “Drama pieces”, much like everything else in the game, is unlocked by playing through the “Z Chronicles” mode. As already mentioned, drama pieces in “Z Chronicles” are preset, and it’s up to the player to nail the conditions to unlock them. Unfortunately, the game does absolutely nothing to actually tell you what you need to do to do that; the game doesn’t even tell you the names of undiscovered drama pieces so that you can maybe have a hint for what to do. So for the most part, you’ll play through the story mode and the drama pieces will more or less randomly take place, and you’ll never have a concrete example for when and why they took place when they did. For such a unique gaming concept, drama pieces are just too random and unclear at so many points in the game that a lot of players will probably invest very little care in them.
Other than that, bonus additions to the game like Survival, Time Attack and Battle Point Modes do not really add much to the overall game. They’re not horrible, but they’re just very bland and uninteresting. Compounded to that is a 12-15 second loading time between each fight which – in a mode like Survival Mode – just makes the game drag on for way longer than what a Survival Mode already does.
So The Final Verdict?
Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is not the most innovative game ever, considering it’s the latest in a decade of Atari Dragon Ball Z fighters. It’s also not the greatest fighting game out in the market right now.
But my goodness, is it fun. Considering all the anime-inspired fighting games out there, Dragon Ball Z has had more hits than misses, and Burst Limit is no exception. New gamers will have a fairly easy time getting into the game, and old fans will find more than enough fan service to cater to their watchful eyes. I can see this making for a great party game when friends come over, as even the newest gamer will still be able to throw Kamehamehas around like nobody’s business. Pretty much anyone should be able to have fun with this, even as just a little toy next to the more serious games.
It’s nowhere near perfect, but it’s well above “just adequate”. If you’re a Dragon Ball Z fan or an anime fan at least mostly familiar with the series, give it a rent at the least. The story mode should make for at least 8 or 10 hours in amusement, and the rest should be good for any sudden cravings to get into Z-mode.
And admit it, you’ve all felt that craving at least once or twice before.
