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...trying to deal with the controls and fighting system was such a pain in the ass that I almost put down the controller

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Dragon Ball Z

Sagas

Review by: Joe Cav

1-2 Player Anime based game

Company: Atari

Version: US

System: Compared the PS2 and NGC versions (also on Xbox)

Rated: PG-13 (Violence)

EXTERNAL EXAM

Goku was a child of the Saiyan race sent to earth to destroy it, but because due to a fall on his head as a child his Saiyan programming was erased allowing him to become Earth’s greatest champion! He’s faced the strongest fighters on the planet, battled countless foes and even beaten the entire Red Ribbon army on is own, but when his son Gohan is kidnapped by a new Saiyan whose power surpasses his own, Goku knows the real battle has just begun!

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: Let’s start off with the inexistent of camera control! Because you have no control over the camera at all, it’s all too common to lose track of your enemy and get blindsided or find yourself staring at the inside of a rock or building. Movement over destructible objects is slowed and glitchy, as is movement around invisible walls. For some reason, Goku can pound his fists into rocks and bushes all day and not make a dent, but shoot a ki blast instead and they’re dust? I also experienced some slight lag on numerous occasions while fighting bosses.

AUDIO: While I will confess that DBZ has never been known for impressive musical scores (Rock the dragon anyone?) Sagas doesn’t have much more than about seven lifeless tracks that do little to envelope you in the gameplay. I actually had to mute the game while I was typing my review due to the fact that the repetitive nature of the mundane level music was driving me insane! I did enjoy the sound effects and voice acting, as they did actually make the game feel more like an extension of the show, but while they were well done, they would sometimes overlap or cut out entirely if I tried and do too many things in succession.

CONTROLS: I picked up my controller and right out of the gate I ran face first into a brick wall. Well, not much of a brick wall as an invisible wall. See, I had just started to run around and enjoy Saga’s seemingly open environment when I found myself slowed to a glitch-tastic snail’s pace whenever I journeyed too far from the open meadow. I also figured out in these first several seconds that controlling your character is about as fluid as wadding through pudding. Movement is clunky and awkward. Combine that with invisible walls will slow your movement on contact and you’ve got a very annoying problem on your hands. Fighting falls even further down Saga’s slope of poor design. The Combo system only takes advantage of two buttons for 6 different combos of punching and kicking. The only reason you buy a new combo is for a minor increase in damage since there is no other strategy involved in picking one over another. Also, they’re all the same couple of rehashed moves anyway so there’s not much to look at.

EXTRAS: By beating the game in any difficulty you unlock “Pendulum mode” which lets you replay levels from the game as other characters. The roster includes multiple versions of Goku, Gohan, Trunks, Vegeta, Piccolo, as well as Yamcha, Tien, Krillin, Bardok, and Broly. As you beat levels in the game, you can view the intro cut scenes from the conquered levels under the “Extras” menu.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: The cinema in Sagas consists of narrated clips from DBZ setting up the storyline for the next level. The prologue to the single player mode is made up of some nicely redone scenes from Dragonball and Dragonball Z, while the rest clips are straight from the show. The regular clips might have been nicer if they weren’t remixed like a bad AMV. The clips are rushed and thrown together with multiple picture in picture effects that end up looking pretty stupid. In any case, more redone scenes or something more original would have been a nice touch.

BEST PLAYER: Broly is by far the strongest warrior in the game; even if he’s so massive that many times he has trouble landing blows on vertically challenged foes. One or two of his punches is enough to take out most generic baddies and his energy attacks are most enjoyable to execute.

CHEAT CODE YOU NEED: I couldn’t find any cheats for Sagas.

CHEAT CODE YOU WANT: I want a cheat that gets rid of all the invisible walls, lets me fly as high as I freaking want to, changes the controls so they don’t fell so blocky and unresponsive, and…Hell, I want to play a better game!!

FAN SERVICE: Well it is a DBZ game…Really, that’s about it. Characters, clips from the show, attacks, sound effects, the whole nine yards. Riveting right?

FINAL EXAM

If you’re surprised that I’m reviewing DBZ Sagas after I’ve already reviewed Budokai 2 and Budokai 3 you must really not pay attention to whom writes these things! As a fan of Dragonball Z, I was more than happy to check out this intriguing title and all the destructive chaos locked within. I mean c’mon, a free-roaming DBZ game with plenty to destroy? How could I say no!

Whoosh! Hear that sound? That’s the sound of a game being rushed to the market!

Yeah, this game had no place being released as early as it was. Dragonball Z Sagas is a title that was obviously rushed and thrown together over no more than a couple of months, and it shows. Everything about it plays like a jigsaw puzzle with about 38 pieces missing, you can finish it but you’re clearly not done.

As is, the game doesn’t have one impressive bone in its body. It’s a below average mish mash of broken promises and disappointments, much like my last relationship! (But really, no hard feelings!) Nothing in Sagas is a deep or even remotely new concept. Most levels consist of running around blowing up rocks and baddies while searching for items to purchase upgrades. This isn’t a problem if the game is also FUN to play. Personally, I was ready to put Sagas to bed after playing through the first level. When it wasn’t frustrating or repetitive, it was boring!

Dragonball Z: Sagas takes a step in a new direction by being the first recent DBZ console game not to be a fighter. Sagas places you in a 3rd person view and lets you play out the DBZ storyline by yourself or with a friend. The game is a pretty standard formula of beat up baddies, collect items, upgrade, fight boss, then rinse and repeat. All while running around open environments and blowing up considerable chunks of them…or so I had hoped…

Flying in this game is a downright joke. To fly you must jump and then press the jump again in mid air allowing you to float. Want to ascend into the heavens? Too bad! There is absolutely NO way to fly any higher than you currently are, unless you jump from a higher ground and then hover. This leads to an excruciatingly annoying game of “Hey! Let’s jump from elevation to another so we can get those freaking items at the top of the map!” Would it really have been so hard to let Goku and his buddies move vertically?! Flying is also a good demonstration how smart the AI is. Try flying when an enemy wants to attack you with melee attacks? Chances are they’ll run around on the ground after you helpless to stop your airborne mocking, sometimes in large groups!

Another HUGE flaw in Sagas is the way you become Super Saiyan. Basically, you have to punch and kick the hell out of your opponent (often doing little to NO damage) to raise a bar. Stop attacking or get knocked over and the bar starts to decrease. Actually become Super Saiyan, and the bar decreases. Once it hits rock bottom, you power down and must go back to punching and kicking in all futility trying to reach the pinnacle of the Saiyan race once again.

Sagas offer the ability for two players to play its main game mode. You’d assume this would make the game have some emphasis on mutual teamwork, but it ends up giving you more of the opposite, mutual frustration. It turns out, not only will the game stop you from straying from the map and stop you from advancing when there are more baddies to kill with more invisible wall, but also the game makes ANOTHER invisible wall to keep both players on the screen at the same time. Not that your enemies can’t go off screen and blindside you with energy attacks while you yell at your friend to run in the right direction! Also, if you’re going to include a two-player mode co-op with optional friendly fire, why not just give us a multiplayer battle mode as well?

Beginning the game and trying to deal with the controls and fighting system was such a pain in the ass that I almost put down the controller and walked away right there. The lack of fluid movement combined with a piss poor targeting system is the perfect formula for a frustration fueled swear fest! Only after I purchased several upgrades (Teleport is a MUST) could I even describe them as “bearable”.

My other big beef is that the bosses take forever to beat! Not because they’re intelligent or even that powerful, because none of your attacks can do jack for damage! You can fire off Kame-hame-ha waves all day, but your opponents will merely teleport away until you do FINALLY land a hit for a painfully LOW amount of damage! This leaves you to chase them around doing the same combo over and over again until you either win or lose interest entirely.

What pisses me off most about Sagas is that despite its apparent premature release, I feel like I’ve been lied to. Like my $50 entertainment purchase was actually just a con to milk every last cent off a cash cow of a franchise. Sagas promised me I could “Go everywhere” and once there I would encounter “Destructible environments that can be smashed apart”. Apparently “Everywhere” means “Everywhere that doesn’t have an invisible wall,” which ends up being nowhere that’s not a brief straight line of a level. And the “Destructible environments?” Well most of the game isn’t actually destructible…but that rock is! So is that telephone booth!

I did play Sagas on both the GCN and the PS2, and while there weren’t any major differences there are a few things worth noting. The GCN version had more vibrant colors than the PS2 version and a slightly smoother frame rate. I was also a little more partial to playing Sagas on my GCN due to button setup and my personal controller preference, but I’m more partial to not playing it altogether so that doesn’t account for much.

So let’s review: The gameplay is bad, the graphics are unimpressive, the music drove me insane and the game promised plenty of things it never brought to the table! Do I really need to keep going? I could honestly fill up two more pages with every other reason I can think of that I hated playing this game, but I think you get the picture. It’s just too bad this is the first DBZ game for Xbox owners, because this turd is bad enough to anger me into making crude comments about where the developers can go shove their “Dragonballs”. Stay as far away from this one as possible! If want a good DBZ game, stick to Budokai 3.

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