Dragon Ball Final Bout
Reviewed by Clement Chan Zhi Li
Dragon Ball Final Bout is one game that can be classified as
the game that will make you return to this game for more
fun. There are many secret characters to unlock, mainly
characters in their ultimate or Super Saiyan form. Stages
and everything in this game are all in 3D, except when
fighting in the game itself. Overall, if you're a Dragon
Ball or fighting games fan, this game should not be missed.
Graphics - 9
Everything was purely modeled in 3D, even the background
itself. As Dragon Ball games has been mostly in 2D before,
the idea of having a game re-created in a 3D environment is
very appealing. The bright colours that are used to lighten
up the whole place was very nice, and the colours used for
the characters are quite good too. The stages too takes
place in different areas, that are mostly based on Dragon
Ball themes. You can find places like the Kung-Fu tournament
and several others unmentioned and cool places.
The background are nice but not really that great to grab
your attention as they will just be red sky with few dull
clouds and other uninteresting things. Graphical effects
such as light source when your characters charged up their
own power, which will act sort of a torch light for your
character. Everything was detailed too, from the fireball
launched by any characters to the smallest character in the
game. Of course, the characters look exactly as they meant
to be with the hand-drawn pictures that are shown before you
start in the game. Even the 3D modeling of the characters
look as real as they meant to be, which was a good thing.
Music - 9
The background music suits exactly on every of the stages
and every battle. Battle theme music will begin with musical
instruments accompanying it, with fighting sound effects to
follow. The music will become more and more tense as you
fight through the game, and as the game forces you to pay
attention to everything that you are supposed to do, you are
likely to lose any attention that you made to the background music.
The sound effects are nice, ranging from the blast of
Kamehameha from Son Gokou to the flying speed of every
characters. To make the game much better, every action that
you made will produce at least one sound, even if it was
tiny. The voices from other characters was slightly
disappointing and shocking. The Japanese voices that
accompany it (what I played was the Japanese version) sounds
absolutely girlish and doesn't suit at all. As I haven't
been tuning into Dragon Ball anime, I wouldn't even
recognize those voices but I guess that should done it.
Gameplay - 9
This game was 3D, from the graphics and the background to
the characters themselves. But unfortunately, the battle
system is in 2D, with some parts of the game slightly in 3D.
You can fly up, down, left and right of all areas but you
can also dash across into the background, if you know what I
meant. This will mean that the background will be rotating
around and your opponent can not shoot you as it will likely
miss.
The battle system is simple but at the same time, unique as
this is a Dragon Ball game. You can shoot your enemy with a
'qi', an internal energy from your character and pressing
different combination directional buttons plus the 'qi'
button will result your character shooting your opponent
with their own special power. If you're near your enemy,
your character will shoot the power immediately but can be
easily missed as your characters can fly away anytime they
want. But if you're far away from the opponent, a special
sequence will happen showing your character charging up the
power. At the same time, your opponent can have different
options on that time, either shooting back with their own
special power, repel it away with their hands, using the
'qi' shield, block or take full damage of the attack.
For instance, if your opponent shoot back with their special
power, you'll need to press the Triangle button (that's the
default one) repeatedly in order to see whose power will
surpass whose. Repelling it away with their hands or using
the 'qi' shield will cause a little of your health but if
your opponents' power are strong, more damage will be taken.
Blocking will result you taking half of the power's damage
while if you didn't do anything, you'll receive head-full
straight from the power.
Of course, battling with 'qi' are much more interesting than
using punches and kicks but sometimes, these are the one
that will safe your life. Other than a normal punch and a
normal kick, like the 'qi', you can use directional button
combinations to make your character punch in their own style
or kick in a different way that will make you want to use it
more often as some of the style was simply beautiful or
wonderful in damages.
You have two different bars, of course. One will be your
life which will take two times to make it empty while the
other one is your 'qi' or energy, as you might want to call
it. Using any of your 'qi' attacks will result having your
'qi' bar decreased while using a super power will decrease
the bar even further. The 'qi' bar can be automatically
decreased by time but it would be too little, so you can
easily press the Square and X buttons together in order to
let your character charge up their power. Beware, while
using this technique, your character is complete visible to
any attack so it's not really advisible.
You can have two types of special physical attacks, which
need several button combinations to result two types of
special attacks, Meteo Smash and Combo Breaker. Meteo Smash
is weaker than Combo Breaker if compared to Combo Breaker as
Combo Breaker can attack a lot of times all in on go while
the Meteo Smash requires you to be near the enemy and
produce a small amount of damage.
Characters, on the other hand, are quite a lot to choose,
ranging some from the Dragon Ball Z series and some from
Dragon Ball GT series. Don't be surprised if you find the
Small Son Gokou over there or even Pan. Characters can be
unlocked more and more if you fight against those secret
characters in the Arcade mode. This will allow you to choose
that particular character again in Arcade or Versus mode.
What really livens up the whole game is the Versus mode,
which provides lots of fun and entertainment for the whole
crowd of friends. The Build-Up mode is also nifty for you to
build up your characters' skills which adds a lot to the
replay value.
Controls - 8
The controls are not really difficult to remember as you
don't even need 1 hour practice to get used to it. There are
many different combinations which will make you confused
between which one is which during the beginning of the game
but once you get used to those controls, you won't have any
problems with it at all. Example, pressing the Triangle
button will make your character shoot a tiny fireball while
pressing Square will make your character punch. Not really
difficult as even a five year old could play this game
(though not mastering this game of course, in the case of my
ex-neighbour's younger brother).
Replay Value - 8
If you never played the game for a long time, you'll still
continue to play this game, even if you had played it for
countless of multi-player battles. Playing with lots of
friends will let you simply enjoy the game even more, as I
myself had already experienced the joys of playing this
game. Arcade mode will only let you get through the game
only for a few times while the Build-Up mode will bore you
quickly and last probably only for a few days.
Overall - 9 out of 10
This game should never be missed, if you can shell up a
couple of bucks or can get this game cheap. You can simply
have the enjoyment and the fun through this game (and also
quarrels, if one of you always win). Nevertheless, you might
not want to miss this game so have some good time playing
this game.
Dragon
-----
+ Good fun for everyone, especially with the Versus mode
around!
+ Unique battle system for you to fight with!
+ Wonderful 3D graphics and great 3D modeling!
Wagon
-----
- Can get boring if you play it too much.
- The battle system is in 2D, sadly but it's still fun all the same!
- If only there are more characters to choose from
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