Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Dragon ball Z: The cash in edition review
First, I want you to picture this, a game where you are free to roam seamlessly as one of the many characters out of the "Dragon ball Z" series, utilizing their many formidable powers and abilities, while playing alongside a good mate throughout EVERY single season, it's a good thought isn't it? This is EXACTLY what Avalanche software's "Dragonball Z: Sagas" does, which makes it even harder to understand how the fuck they managed to screw it up so damn bad.
The gameplay of sagas is without a doubt its worst point, the fighting system in this is so linear it felt like I was playing a wall. Combat consists of a few attack buttons (X light, Y heavy) a ki button (B) and a fly (I think it was A, oh, and it's not really "flying" more like hovering a few feet off the ground). This is usually all you do for the hundreds of bland un inspired monsters populating the repetitive landscapes. You can buy upgrades by getting Z-coins which are scattered around the place but finding them is very tedious and irritating because the camera does everything possible to piss you off and since there is no camera control buttons it leads to a lot of wasted time just trying to see where you want to go or who you want to hit. There is also a problem with the upgrades, you see, as we were playing the old guy said "you need to find 4 Z-coins to purchase the special attack upgrade", this sounds ok, but that's what the move was called "the special attack". Sagas is so uninspired it's a wonder the developers could be buggered making it to begin with.
The sound (while definitely not good) was not an absolute pile of trash like the gameplay. Well, that's what I thought until I heard Piccolo pronounce "Kamay kamay! (I believe it's called)" like "Turkey feeder!". What else can I say, shitty sounds for the ki blasts, some random old bastard off the probably voiced the old master guy and Piccolo yelling "Turkey Feeder!" Every 5 seconds didn't exactly impress me.
The graphics were bland, uninspired and irritating to begin with. Even the more complex and detailed antagonists were horrible and painful to look at. Imagine a giant tree thing that looks more like a desk than the actual monster it's trying to represent. Also, you can easily tell the strength of different enemies by what colour they are. For example, the first guys you attack are green little goblin things, and the next level up they are purple and the next they are blue, etc, etc.
The value is horrible as it takes usually no more than 10 hours to go from start to finish. The co-op adds some replay value, but very little as the only real reason to play with a mate is if you hate them and like seeing them suffer.
The tilt of the game is........... Bad. Enough said.
All in all this in a terrible game which we have given a rating of *Drumroll* 3.2. Remember that I go by the gamespot rating:
10: Perfect
9: superb
8: Great
7: Good
6: Fair
5: Medicore
4: Poor
3: Bad
2: Terrible
1: Abysmal
The gameplay of sagas is without a doubt its worst point, the fighting system in this is so linear it felt like I was playing a wall. Combat consists of a few attack buttons (X light, Y heavy) a ki button (B) and a fly (I think it was A, oh, and it's not really "flying" more like hovering a few feet off the ground). This is usually all you do for the hundreds of bland un inspired monsters populating the repetitive landscapes. You can buy upgrades by getting Z-coins which are scattered around the place but finding them is very tedious and irritating because the camera does everything possible to piss you off and since there is no camera control buttons it leads to a lot of wasted time just trying to see where you want to go or who you want to hit. There is also a problem with the upgrades, you see, as we were playing the old guy said "you need to find 4 Z-coins to purchase the special attack upgrade", this sounds ok, but that's what the move was called "the special attack". Sagas is so uninspired it's a wonder the developers could be buggered making it to begin with.
The sound (while definitely not good) was not an absolute pile of trash like the gameplay. Well, that's what I thought until I heard Piccolo pronounce "Kamay kamay! (I believe it's called)" like "Turkey feeder!". What else can I say, shitty sounds for the ki blasts, some random old bastard off the probably voiced the old master guy and Piccolo yelling "Turkey Feeder!" Every 5 seconds didn't exactly impress me.
The graphics were bland, uninspired and irritating to begin with. Even the more complex and detailed antagonists were horrible and painful to look at. Imagine a giant tree thing that looks more like a desk than the actual monster it's trying to represent. Also, you can easily tell the strength of different enemies by what colour they are. For example, the first guys you attack are green little goblin things, and the next level up they are purple and the next they are blue, etc, etc.
The value is horrible as it takes usually no more than 10 hours to go from start to finish. The co-op adds some replay value, but very little as the only real reason to play with a mate is if you hate them and like seeing them suffer.
The tilt of the game is........... Bad. Enough said.
All in all this in a terrible game which we have given a rating of *Drumroll* 3.2. Remember that I go by the gamespot rating:
10: Perfect
9: superb
8: Great
7: Good
6: Fair
5: Medicore
4: Poor
3: Bad
2: Terrible
1: Abysmal
Andrew Fox said...
This game is rated too highly.
Please make a note of it.
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