'nother year, 'nother Dragon Ball game.
Every console,
but the Vita it seems, must have a Dragon Ball game sometime during its lifetime, and now it's the 3DS' turn, at least outside Japan. It's ArkSys', of Blazblue and Guilty Gear fame, turn with the franchise, after their SuperSonic Warriors release, to develop the latest entry in the 'Butoden' fighting games.
The game offers a
purely offline experience, although Japan got an update with a Training and Online Modes, but seeing how it's been a couple of months since its release... It's safe to say we ain't getting it any time soon. As for the modes, there's Z Story, a 8-part story mode made up of 10 fights each, seven of the eight chapters follows a different 'What if' scenario, the 8th being a loose, and
bland, retelling of the major story arcs of the series. Then there's 'Adventure Mode', which is an all-new what-if story... which is pretty boring. Fights in Adventure Mode have different goals to complete in order to unlock assist characters. Lastly there's 'Extreme World Tournament' which... isn't a Tournament mode at all, but rather another 'story'-type mode, fights are always the same! Lastly there's VS CPU or local Players. It's pretty
barebones, but for a portable fighter I
guess it's alright, although the
absence of a Training Mode is unforgivable.
First lemme get this out of the way: The game falls on the same
pitfall most bad licensed fighters do: It's balanced according to the series, rather than strive for a balanced character roster. This means that, say, Raditz or Kuririn are gonna have a
baaaaaaaaad time against characters like Beerus or Super Saiyan God Goku. It tries to make up for it by having the tired 'Dragon Power' system, allowing you to make a team of up to 3 playable characters, or 1-2 playable characters and up to 4 assist characters, as long as the sum of the 'Dragon power' of your team doesn't exceed 35. You could fight battles one-on-one, but the game encourages using Assist characters, as a matter of fact, certain characters have moves than are uncombo-eable, as far as
I noticed, unless you use assists, which
I think is a
terrible design choice for a fighting game.
Characters play more or less the same when it comes to normals. Y is Weak attack, X Strong attack, A varies depending on the character and B is used for dodging. Holding the L button and pressing Y or X lets you use Ki-consuming special moves, while R is used for dashing/canceling at the cost of some Ki. In a
bizarre twist, ultimate moves are actually combos. Y-Y-Y-Y-X-A is how you use them. Lastly, characters share the same 'combos', while they have different properties, they are all executed the same. Which is to say, X-A is a blast attack, Y-Y-Y-Y-Y knocks back, Y-Y-X is a knock up, etc. To be honest, I felt the mechanics where a bit limited, and some movesets where a bit
uninspired. I did like the fast speed of the overall game, and it does feel
different from all the other ArkSys fighters, which is I complaint I usually have with their games: They all feel the same!
Then we come to the character roster. Dragon Ball fans are so spoiled that they will usually
whine if there's less than 60 characters. Listen, animating 2D sprites is hard, much harder than animating 3D models, so a 2-D fighter having a small character roster is more than understandable. Extreme Butoden features 25 characters, which is
more than what most new 2-D fighters offer. That said, there's plenty of
clones. Goku, Super Saiyan Goku, Super Saiyan God Goku and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku are basically the same character, barring the special moves. And Goku shares some moves with Adult Gohan, with whom he shares a body, as well as Bardok, with whom he shares a head. And what's up with having
four Gokus? And why have Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku if they wouldn't give us playable Gold Frieza or Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Vegeta? Since different forms are basically clones, it makes you
wonder. And what's up with Bardock? Why give him a spot over more important characters like, say, Vegeto, Yamcha or Tien? Basically, I don't have a problem with the size, or even the clones, but rather some of their picks.
The graphics are,
easily, the game's biggest selling point, sprites are
beautiful, and are better animated than even some of ArkSys own Blazblue sprites. If you've followed the Butoden series since the SNES games, you might even notice some
familiar moves, like Piccolo and Teen Gohan's fast speed aerial kicks! And while theres
'only
' 25 playable characters, they made animated sprites for over 100 characters, and they all look amazing.
Alright, so Extreme Butoden is hardly a game to write home about, but,
BUT I think it's a more than decent
foundation for a second game/update. I believe that the game
suffered mostly due to the developer playing it to the 3DS' strengths, which is the reason we got simple, limited combat mechanics. I'd like to see an update for the game, but on home consoles, with the added benefit of real joysticks, and we could get some more characters. It could've also used
real different modes, like a Survival mode or a true Tournament Mode.
5.5 out of 10
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