Super Dragon Ball Z

Written by James Dauer  on June 23, 2006

Final Glimpse: Who would have thought- a fighting game featuring Dragon Ball characters! How original!

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Having played through the whole slew of Dragon Ball Z Budokai titles, I have to wonder if there is anything more. The games were well rounded, sure, but let's be honest- Budokai tended to be an exercise in blocking and shooting. While one could get better through practice, a feeble button masher could still always come along and clobber the bejeezes out of any pro, and look great while doing it. Perhaps it was this accessibility that made the games as popular as they were. But pulling off such large flashy moves always left little since of accomplishment- something that is uncommon to more technical fighters like the Street Fighter or The King of Fighters series. Well, for those of you who enjoy good technical fighters, I tell you there is some exciting news. Atari is teaming up with Japanese developer Crafts & Meister (which includes Street Fighter creator Noritaka Funamizu) to port over a technical DBZ fighter that has made it's way through arcades all over Japan.

Super DBZ will feature 18 playable fighters ranging from popular folks like Goku, to the less obvious characters like Chi Chi (for the uninitiated, she's Goku's wife). Each character has his or her own specific skill sets and styles of fighting, much like any technical fighter. A few RPG elements are thrown into the mix as well giving players the ability to strengthen their most played characters as well as assign a handful of moves not normally associated with that character. For instance, if one wanted to play as Krillin with the Wolf Fang fist, this would be possible in the game.

The stages themselves are also more detailed. While there are only seven stages, each one features interactive and destructive environments. Send a player careening into a car, and you can expect a good explosion or kick your opponent into a building to cause a little unsolicited remodeling. Some of the stages even feature multiple tiers, which is becoming quite common these days.

The controls appear to be spot on, being much more intuitive for fighting game players. They have finally added a much needed jump ability to the game. Players can now go from a simple jump to a full-blown flight, which is something this gamer is more than pleased about. Special moves are performed in the same manner as any of the Capcom or SNK fighters, i.e., fireballs can be thrown with quarter circles and so on. The game is definitely made for competition style fighting.