As a fan of the Dragon Ball Z anime from the ‘90s, I’m attracted to fast action, destructible environments, and colorful beams of light that can blow up planets. Battle of Z has all of that and more, but even a Solar Flare to the face couldn’t blind me to its simplistic fighting and useless AI teammates. Battle of Z’s gorgeous environments and brilliantly modeled cel-shaded characters create the illusion of being a true Super Saiyan, but not much more.
Despite a deceptively tough learning curve, the combat is pretty bare-bones. Every one of the over 70 playable characters can use melee and ranged attacks and do some sort of powerful blast after charging up, all of which makes up 90 percent of the combat. As a result the fighting can feel shallow and repetitive after a while, which is a shame for a game solely based around world-destroying battles. I would have loved to see combo attacks or the ability to counter an opponent’s barrage of punches, but these options simply don’t exist.
After beating certain missions I was awarded cards I could attach to my characters to boost their stats, a nice gimmick that gave me the edge I needed in tough skirmishes. However, because cards can be given to or taken from fighters with no penalty, the mechanic is largely pointless as it was no-brainer to throw as many on myself and my teammates as I could. Even with the option to auto-assign cards to characters, it was tedious to need to constantly switch cards back and forth depending on the fighter and teammates I chose for a particular mission.
The remaining 10 percent of combat involves two moves unique to each character depending on their class, and experimenting with different characters to find ones that suited is one of the best rewards of Battle of Z. For instance, Goku, a melee-focused fighter, has a couple of powerful punches only he can pull off while Gotenks, a Ki blast type, can unleash a barrage of energy missiles. One of my favorite fighters, Kid Buu, can close the gap with either a quick teleport or by stretching his arm several feet to pull opponents in for a melee attack, making him hard to predict. Just as important are support types like Android 18 who can heal allies, though I could hardly depend on AI medics when I went down. More often than not the bots ignored me and continued fighting, leaving me to die a lonely death and wasting a valuable life in our limited pool of retries. That resulted in some pretty infuriating game over screens.
After beat the roughly 12 hours’ worth of offline single-player missions I was pretty tired of failing due to the incompetence of my computer allies, so I turned to the online co-op only to find the unreliable and tedious matchmaking and jumped online to tackle some stages with real partners. I found it immensely satisfying to coordinate attacks three allies and proceed to pulverize a foe around the stage in chaotic four vs. four matches, and surviving some of the more brutal challenges with my mates inspired a cry of victory (don’t even ask me how many times we lost the showdown with Perfect Cell). Unfortunately, lag is a consistent issue, and the matchmaking’s tendency to throw players of every skill level together means most games included brand-new players who can be an even bigger burden than the bots.
One of the best parts about co-op mode, though, is that it eliminates the restrictions on character selection present in single-player, leading to some unique (and canon-breaking) battles. Have you ever wanted to play as Captain Ginyu and team up with Kid Trunks and two Vegetas to take down Raditz and Nappa? Now you can. Even better are the hypothetical missions Battle of Z throws your way after beating the main sagas, such as a reunion battle between all of Frieza’s and his brother Cooler’s terrifying forms. I only wish these fiction-shattering team-ups and showdowns were fully available in single-player.
On the other hand, the most disappointing aspect of Battle of Z is its poorly balanced competitive multiplayer. There are only four game modes available, three of them kill-‘em-all affairs, and the fourth basically a capture-the-flag mode with Dragon Balls. Sadly, most of the matches are brutal and one-sided. In Normal Battle (read: Team Deathmatch), teams share a pool of lives that depends on the absolute strength of the fighters each player chooses—the stronger each warrior, the fewer lives that team gets. Perhaps developer Artdink thought this would even things out a bit. The truth is I never played one fight where the side with the more powerful characters didn’t win by a landslide. Matches lasted mere seconds, not minutes, and rarely did the winning team lose even one life. No matter what side you’re on, that result isn’t fun, and the five to ten minutes it takes up just to set up a match on top of the already tremendous lag just makes the frustration that much worse.
If you can’t resist taking the fight to others, I recommend playing Score Battle, which places characters’ power levels into tiers and makes matches a much more balanced affair. Still, multiplayer should be avoided until you’ve unlocked some of the more elite warriors in single-player or co-op, or you’re likely to be obliterated faster than you can say “Kamehameha.”Verdict
Battle of Z’s faithful models, beautiful settings, and chaotic action are an excellent fit for those seeking another tribute to the legendary anime and manga series. Fighting on both sides of every major encounter from the show is a treat, and overcoming the challenge of downing particularly difficult enemies is extremely satisfying, especially with a couple friends at your back. However, with its relatively simple combat system, useless AI teammates, and horrifically unbalanced multiplayer, Battle of Z is a game only diehards should spend any significant time with.
