Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 1st September 2008

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Dragon Ball Z bursts on to the current generation of consoles in Burst Limit.

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Details:

Goto Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Game Page

	Beat 'em Up
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	NAMCO BANDAI
	Atari

12+

Out Now

N/A

Dragon Ball Z games have been released on practically every console possible in recent years so it comes as no real surprise that Namco Bandai have now brought the franchise to current generation of gaming machines.

This first dedicated game for the current consoles follows several of the most popular sagas from the Dragon Ball Z cartoon series rather then just one or coming up with a story just for the game. Many popular sagas are available to play through such as the Saiyan, Frieza and Cell sagas to name but a few. Playing through the games story mode will allow you to unlock various other characters, other game modes and various other items.

Playing through the various different sagas is obviously part and parcel of the games story mode however, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit also features the standard versus, training and tutorial modes. Also included in Burst Limit is a Trial mode which allows you to take part in various different themed challenges such as a “Survival” challenge in which you have to fight as many characters as possible until your health runs out. More challenge games can be unlocked by playing through the games story mode.

Battles are exactly what you would expect from a Dragon Ball Z game, they’re fairly fast paced and allow you to pull off devastating combinations that leave your opponent open to special moves and various special attacks. Special moves in Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit, are unique to each character and include Goku’s Kamehameha and Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon. However, the game also allows you to perform a number of special attacks that are available to all characters. These are pretty easy to pull off with simple button combinations which are given in the games tutorial. However, performing these special moves takes control of your character away from you and switches the game to a cut-scene in which the attack is performed. This gives large segments of fights in the game a rather automatic feel.

Burst Limit introduces two new features to the Dragon Ball Z games, Partner Support and Drama items. Partner Support allows you to pick a partner before a fight and when you get in trouble during a fight they will come and help you out inflicting damage to your opponent, you don’t gain control of your partner as the action is handled by a cut-scene. Drama items too are part and parcel of the games cut-scene system, once activated these improve your fighters abilities allowing you to recover stamina or ki faster, inflict more damage or make you less susceptible to your opponent attacks and so on. New drama items and partners can be unlocked by playing through the games story mode, allowing you to come up with various combinations to aid you during battles.

Whilst drama items and partner support are a pretty good edition the lack of control you have over the use of them is a little annoying as they seemingly activate at random. You could be in the middle of an attack only for a cut-scene to pop up and stop you in mid flow. This also adds to the automatic feel of the game and becomes rather annoying when drama item and partner support activate one after another turning large portion of fights into one long cut-scene.

Sadly Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit offers little challenge, so much so that you can progress rapidly through the game without having to utilise the various special attacks and simply button mash your way through. The lack of challenge on offer from the games AI opponents can be a little tiresome as you fight your way through the various sagas. The challenge does pick up once you reach the boss stage of a saga, however at times it can change so much that the game feels very unbalanced.

Playing online allows you to compete in ranked and unranked matches as well as custom matches in which you can specify the number of rounds for a bout. The game also features both local and worldwide leaderboards. Online play obviously adds life to Burst Limit as you are able to compete against players of equal or greater skill.

Performance wise the game runs flawlessly, not once on either the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions of the game did I encounter any lag or connection problems whilst playing online.

Graphically Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit looks absolutely fantastic, characters have all been faithfully recreated from the TV show and many of the battle arena’s are instantly recognisable from various famous fights from the series. The game moves at a solid pace and no slowdown is experienced even when the games many cut-scenes is initiated. The only downside to the game graphics is the blurring effect on the background that the developers have used to simulate depth but other then that there’s nothing to complain about. Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are pretty indistinguishable from each other with the game looking great on both platforms.

Sound in Burst Limit follows in the footsteps of the games graphics, with authentic sound effects used and voice actors from the hit anime show lending voices to characters in the game. At times it’s almost like watching the show. The games soundtrack has also been taken straight from the show and has been left in its native Japanese form which really adds to the anime styling of the game.

Whilst it may not be the most challenging fighting game available, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is pretty enjoyable to play with its devastating special attacks and fast paced action. The game will especially appeal to fans of the show with how faithful the developers have stayed to the TV series. On the whole a good game, however it’s fair to say it’s mainly aimed at fans of the TV show rather then those of the beat ’em up genre.