Limited (Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit)

I've been a Dragon Ball Z fan for roughly eleven years; ever since it first showed up on Toonami. I've watched every episode, and every movie. I pretty much memorized everything about them. I've played almost every single Dragon Ball Z game. Now, while I haven't liked everything about the series, the movies, and the games, I'm still a fan. It's also still respected and watched in Japan as well, which confuses me as to how I come across bad DBZ games as well.


Weirdest game of leapfrog I've ever seen.

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is a 2-D/3-D fighting game developed by Japanese company Dimps. They made the first 3 Dragon Ball Z: Budokai titles for the Playstation 2, and also worked on the Sonic Advance games for the GBA and the Sonic Rush games for the Nintendo DS. They've also developed plenty of other titles and, with all this experience under their belt, I was perplexed at how Burst Limit could've possibly been bad. Then I remembered that these guys were also co-developing Street Fighter IV. So, it becomes obvious that the game must've been a rushed title, right? Right?


Trunks didn't agree with Recoome's suggestion to use Jazz Hands in their cheerleading tournament.

To understand my confusion, you must understand what it is that I loathed about Burst Limit. You won't hate it off the bat though. It impressed me a bit too. Sure the menu was bland and lazily done with not-so-good art, but I could live through that if the rest of the game was good. As you get into the meat and potatoes of the game, you'll notice how very amazing some of the graphics are. They could use some extra polish and get some of the colors canonically correct, but this is still fine. The characters are decently detailed, but their auras, a visual representation of their ki or energy, are foggy and flame-like, when they were a bit more rigid and detailed in the series and in other DBZ titles. But if you've played the old games, you'll notice that a LOT of the character fighting animations come straight from the old Budokai games for the PS2. I shrugged it off, thinking to myself "Eh, if it isn't broken, don't fix it." but then you'll notice that the game also reuses its own animations over and over again for cutscenes. This wouldn't be a problem if it were generic, but one of the character animations ends with one of the fighters entering Son Goku's fighting pose, so, every time the animation is used, whether is be hero or villain, they will enter that SAME fighting pose at the end of it. I know it sounds like bitching about a small thing right now, but it's grating to fans who could recognize these things.


The auras in the show were never THIS obnoxious.

You'll be playing through about 2/3rds of all of Dragon Ball Z, and included are two very rushed "movie" storylines too. They're more original content than something actually from the movies. You'll be able to do all of the Story Mode in about a day, and it barely covers anything. Anyone who never watched DBZ or even heard of it, will be left confused and scared as they try to put all the pieces of the plot together. There is no excuse for creating a game that only the fans will understand. And with the shortened game comes a very small list of characters too. There are only twenty one characters. I remember reading somewhere that Dimps only had 21 characters in order to make the game balanced out, but that statement is a flat-out lie, particularly when Brolly is introduced.


Balanced my ass.

The fighting really hasn't changed from the Budokai games on the PS2, but some of it has been reused from the Playstation Portable titles as well; this could be interpreted as either good or bad because it means there is less of a learning curve, but that also means that almost half the game has been copied from previous titles, showing a sort of laziness. They DID introduce one thing though, and that is the Drama Piece system, and it's one of the worst things I've ever had to experience in a fighting game. The Drama Piece system was Dimps' lazy way of not having to flesh out the story of Dragon Ball Z AND not have to introduce character customization. To describe this terrible system, basically, it interrupts the middle of a fight with an unskippable cutscene and it usually results in one of the fighters getting a power-up or extra health or recieve damage. You can never turn them off either, except for in Versus Mode. And, again, these rehash other cutscene animations over and over again. Again, this sounds like whining, but it isn't when you have an Ultimate Move interrupted by some random cutscene, only to emerge with no energy and have received damage while your enemy received random power-ups. It doesn't add any challenge either. It's the same as if I were to rip the controllers out of two people playing a game, punch one of them in the face, and reward the other one with a slice of delicious cake.


This is probably the greenest screenshot anyone has ever taken.

Let's change the subject to something more enjoyable for a moment though. This game has one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a game in a long time. There is something for everyone in it. Some of music is light jazz, some of it is piano, some of it sounds like classical japanese instrumental, and some of it sounds like rock; there is a lot of likeable music in all of this though. Some of it fits scenes, some of it doesn't, but it's all new and different. The voicework is also really good, for both japanese and english. While the characters' mouth movements are set for japanese dialog, the english translation tries it's best. It's also the first Dragon Ball Z dub that gets everything canonically correct. Kaioken IS Kaioken instead of Kay-o-ken, and Goku finally calls himself Son Goku for the first time by Sean Schemmel. It's sad that my ears get such pleasure while the rest of me is left angry and full of rage.



When it comes to multiplayer, I'm left disappointed again. There is one-on-one online fighting, but, in order to get absolutely no lag, you need a T1 connection or something. My broadband DSL obviously wasn't up to snuff considering I had two seconds of lag between my commands and what was showing up in the game. But I know, if I researched it hard enough, I'd find that, somewhere, it was Dimps' fault.


Am I lagging or moving really fast?

There are two extra modes, Survival and Time Trial, but I didn't really pay that much attention to them, as all they granted me were achievements. And speaking of achievements, if you want them all, you're going to have to devote a lot of time to the game and play through parts of Story Mode again and again and again. When I finally lost interest in Burst Limit, it gave me a gamerscore of about 500-something. Because of it's length, I'd recommend Burst Limit for rental only. There are a lot of slings and arrows that produce no outrageous fortune, even for fans. But don't despair. There is always Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for the Playstation 2 and Wii. And, for that, it will probably be the last good Dragon Ball Z game for a long time.


This will be YOUR face after playing this game...probably.