Dragon Ball Z the cartoon certainly has its share of fighting, but there are
other aspects to it such as story, characters with personality, and dialog. Such
is not the case with Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu though. It’s all fighting,
just fighting, and not much else. And to make matters worse, the fighting aspect
of the game is not that good, which leaves you with…
You can select from all of the most popular characters, but there’s not a
g\significant difference between the fighters. Each has only one or two unique
moves so there’s no adjustment period if you decide to play as another fighter
for a while.
The fighting is pretty straightforward 2D fighter stuff. There’s not much
strategy to it – this is one of those games in which it’s possible to do
perfectly fine just randomly mashing buttons. The AI is not very smart or
challenging, and it is easy to find one move that you can use to consistently
bash your enemy into submission. Repeat the same few button presses a number of
times and win another match with your opponent never catching on. Don’t be
surprised if you play your way to the end of the game’s challenge mode on the
first try.
The game adds a little variety to the fighting with its sky battles. Perform
a high jump and you’ll fly off the top of the screen. Your opponent then has the
option of jumping up to join you in the battle. Once in the sky it’s a literally
a button-mashing race – the first person to hit a button fast enough to fill a
power meter wins. Then the fighters drop back down to the ground and resume the
main event. You can refuse to follow your opponent into the air for a sky
battle, and believe me, you will not want to bother after the first time.
Playing through the game’s challenge mode will earn you points that can be
used on unlockables, but there’s not much that’s really worth spending a lot of
time to unlock. Without the carrot of interesting unlockables, there’s not much
motivation for playing through the game’s monotonous fights over and over.
Without much effort you can win every fight and make it to the end of the
challenge mode every time. Where’s the fun in that.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
40%. A monotonous and unimaginative
fighter that can only possibly appeal to the most die-hard of Dragon Ball Z
fans.
