Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Impressions

by Sam Fletcher - 2008/05/15 4:52pm

To put it bluntly, the Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit demo is very hit and miss.

For those of you who don’t know Dragon Ball Z, it’s about a group of warriors and their quest to protect the Earth. These warriors have the ability to manipulate Kai, a force that grants them superhuman strength and speed. The warriors can manipulate the Kai into concentrated waves and beams, which they use to attack the enemy with.

The demo allows you to play 2 fights from the Sayain Saga, the first placing you as Goku against Raditz, and the second Yamcha against 4 Saibaimen.

The first thing you notice when you start a fight is the graphics. They are stunning. To capture the feel of the anime in a such a way is a feat in itself, you have never seen a game based on an anime that looks this good, that’s a guarantee. The effects that acompany them are equally as stunning, with visuals flairs that delight the eyes.

Each fight opens with a short cut scene, which puts him into context. It appears Dimps have managed to obtain the original English voice artists, or at least people who sound very similar. The only problem is these voice actors aren’t very great. The way the read the already poor English translation, is almost cringe inducing, so hopefully in the full version we can switch it over to the original Japanese voice actors. Or not, depending on your taste.

The gameplay itself returns to the Dragon Ball Z Budokai formula, as seen on the PS2 games. Anyone who’s played these games will feel right at home when playing this as a lot of the mechanics have stayed the same. Although a lot have changed too. The speed of the battle is a lot faster than previous games, capturing the speed of the anime nicely. However, the problem here is that it quickly turns into a button mashing situation, where hitting the attack buttons as fast as you can will perform a several hit combo. There isn’t much in terms of combos; in fact it seems there’s only two or three per character.



During fights, by performing a specific action, the player can trigger Drama Moments, where a scene from the anime is played out in front of the player’s eyes. While these look great, they break up the action a lot, which can put you off. These can be major combo breakers, where you pull off a big move and the game interupts for a second of dialouge, which cancels your move. Characters seem to have special traits to make them varied; however the demo doesn’t explain how these work so for the time being they’re just for show. There also doesn’t appear to be any limit to the amount of Kai you can use, or the game doesn’t do a great job of displaying this if there is.

After you’ve finished a battle the game ranks your performance based on how many dramatic moments you unlocked, and general damage dealt/time taken formula.

The biggest drawback with the demo is that it doesn’t help the player in anyway. After a screen with the buttons, it throws the player into a battle and you’re expected to learn the rest there. Theresa lot of gauges on the screen, but they don’t appear to represent anything and the game doesn’t tell you what they’re for.

The difficulty is far too easy, all it boild down to bashing buttons faster, and the playr will always be able to do that faster than the A.I. Hopefully in the full version there will be a tutorial for newcomers, and the difficulty is tweaked a bit to make it more challenging for the player.

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit seems to be a “for the fans” game. If you loved the anime, then you’ll love this, but if you don’t know the anime very well or have no clue at all, then this is probably a game you should avoid.



Be prepared for a full review when the game’s released, but until then, play the demo and formulate your own opinions. Stay tuned.