Review | Dragon Ball Z: Raging Blast 2

Aside from Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z is probably the most widely recognised anime series outside Japan. The adventures of Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and the rest of the grossly overpowered gang have been immortalised in almost 300 episodes, dozens of movies and a plethora of video games. But the series itself ended in 1996, and each game since then has essentially been telling the same dated story over and over. While the latest offering, Raging Blast 2, offers some entertainment, it amounts to nothing new.

As a pure fighting game, Raging Blast 2 is about what you might expect. One button handles melee attacks and one energy blasts. Special attacks are activated by pushing the right analog stick in a certain direction and a super attack by clicking the stick. Similar to previous titles, specials and energy attacks require ki which you need to charge. Beyond the simple moves, there are also dodges, teleporting moves, grabs, and defensive counters which all have several variations depending on the situation. Any battle can also move from the ground to the air at a moments notice, so there are controls for that as well.

There’s a lot to pick through, but most will find themselves sticking to the simpler moves. Complex attack and defence is difficult to pull off and often it will be easier to just button mash through many fights. There are no deep combinations to unearth in this game either, so while there are a lot of moves it never comes close to the fighting quality of a game like Street Fighter or Tekken. One addition to the system from the previous game is the raging soul system, which allows your character to give up super attacks to boost the power of their melee hits. It’s a nice way to make punches count for a little more but since the over-the-top supers are a major draw card it might not get used all that much.

Fighting can still be fun, due largely to the sheer ridiculousness of the source material. Flying at supersonic speeds around a giant 3D arena, punching your opponent through a skyscraper and teleporting behind him to unleash an energy blast so huge it would crack open the planet is something you can really only experience in the Dragon Ball Universe. Sadly, even this wears thin after only a few battles. While there is a massive selection of characters available to play with, a lot of them control exactly the same way. There is even less incentive to play through when you realise to unlock half of them you have to play through various rounds repeatedly.

There are various different modes available, including a standard versus mode, a world tournament, online matches and something called Galaxy Mode. The latter is what passes for a story mode in Raging Blast 2, although almost all the story has been stripped out. Players pick a character and go through a series of key battles from their history. These are plucked from the ether with little more than a few lines of dialogue before the punching starts, meaning that fans will be disappointed there isn’t more of the story they love and newcomers will often just be confused. This is one of the game’s biggest flaws, failing to tap into the melodrama the series is known for.

Aesthetically, Raging Blast 2 is spot on. The cel-shaded visuals have long surpassed those of the anime itself and every character looks just like they should and movement is fluid. The characters are all voiced by the same actors from the show, who must surely be tiring of saying the same basic lines for the last two decades. Visually, the biggest disappointment is the environments. Locations are the usual areas taken from the game, but most are pretty dull to look at and compete in. Added to that is the ever present invisible wall that keeps you contained in what look like open maps, killing any suspension of disbelief. The other major issue is the camera, which often loses sight of your opponent completely, usually when they move above or below you. Since this happens almost all the time, it’s a problem that really grates your nerves.

Raging Blast 2 offers a lot of content for fans of the series, with a plethora of characters to unlock and even a remake of a Dragon Ball anime on the disc. But even a load of secret costumes, special moves, music, voice samples and a universe encyclopedia can’t hide the fact that this is a tiny update on a game that was only a minor update on games before that. With shallow and unsatisfying combat and an almost complete lack of story mode, it would be hard for even a serious fan to bother spending the money on this game. Plus there are plenty of other Dragon Ball games to choose from that are exactly like this one, and many are better.