Dragon Ball is one of those properties that's had its ups
and downs when it comes to game adaptations. And when I say downs, I'm
talking about pretty incredible lows: bottom-of-the-barrel material like
Ultimate Battle 22 and Final Bout that frequently turns up on "worst
games ever" lists. But it's had some highlights, too: The Budokai series
made a lot of fans happy, hitting on a formula that satisfied what
buyers crave from an anime-flavored fighter: a comprehensive cast,
true-to-the-source visuals, and fighting that made you feel like a
hyper-powered Super Saiyan.
Sadly, Dragon Ball Z: Battle
of Z is not Budokai, instead following in the underwhelming footsteps of
more recent DBZ efforts like DBZ Kinect. It's a confused, overly
chaotic mission-based action game that tries to recreate the team-based
camaraderie oft seen in its source material, but more often than not
falls flat on its face.
Battle
of Z offers three gameplay modes: a single-player, mission-based story
mode that follows the various story arcs seen in the anime/manga series,
a co-op multiplayer mode, and a versus mode. The multiplayer modes
become available after playing a short ways into the single-player mode,
but you'll probably want to play through a good amount of single-player
to unlock characters, items, and status-augmenting cards you can equip
on your Z fighters before going online. I say "going online" because
there is no local multiplayer available: if you want to play with
friends, you must play online.
You'll jump into
single-player mode first--since you don't really have much choice. Once
you navigate through confusingly-designed menus and get into the actual
game, you immediately notice that while the character models themselves
look fantastic, the environments are sparse and dull. To be fair, the
anime wasn't exactly known for its lushly illustrated backdrops, but the
fighting arenas in Battle of Z rarely go past the likes of "craggy,
rock-laden environment" on the inspiration scale. You'll also likely
struggle with the controls, which map everything to buttons that don't
really make a lot of sense (such as ascending and descending via the
face buttons), and have you executing special skills with further
badly-thought-out button combinations.
Once you achieve
some measure of competency with the controls, however, you start to see
the way combat flows in the game. You and a posse of pals (either human
or AI-controlled) zip around arenas pummeling waves of foes with your
various superpowered attacks until you've finished them all off.
Cooperation amongst your team is key: players can give and share energy
and revive fallen teammates, as well as coordinate to execute
high-damage team attacks like the meteor chain, which ping-pongs an
opponent between fighters. Characters fall into four types--melee,
support, ki blast, and interference--which helps determine both the
effects and the effectiveness of their individual skills. Individual
characters can also receive bonuses and special abilities through
equipped cards and items, which can be either won during missions or
purchased with points earned throughout the game.
The
team-based focus is an interesting idea, but it just feels messy in
practice, mainly because Battle of Z's combat feels unfocused on many
levels. You have a decent arsenal of attacks at your disposal, but for
most characters, only a few of these skills are actually effective in
dealing damage to foes--the rest exist solely to help you regain meter
to execute the aforementioned effective strikes. It leads to a
frustrating cycle in which you try to land basic hits on an enemy to
replenish SP energy--which can be quite difficult on some of the
bosses--in order to actually perform the attacks needed to cause
significant damage, all while your AI teammates seem to have no idea
what they're actually trying to accomplish. Sometimes even knowing what you're
trying to accomplish is hard enough--the camera can be dizzying, target
lock-ons drop or fall behind objects for no good reason, and oftentimes
there's just so many ki strikes and special attacks and characters
flying in from offscreen that it's difficult to get a handle on just
what the heck is actually happening.
Ultimately, every
moment in Battle of Z feels is a struggle--not to overcome challenges,
but simply to enjoy the game. After you wrestle with the controls and
menus, you're faced with stage timers and tedious encounters in which
you deal piddling amounts of damage with each attack, all the while
battling a targeting system that actively hates you, and AI teammates
dead set on not helping you when it matters most. Dragonball Z is all
about straining, training, and eventually overcoming unfathomably
powerful foes, but this is not so much an entertaining depiction of
developing your latent talents as much as it is a simulation of a year's
intense training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
Dark Souls II asks this question of you at every turn,
encouraging you to press onward in spite of imminent death. And with
each death, you lose a little of your humanity and become more hollow.
Your maximum health slightly diminishes each time as well, eventually
sinking to 50 percent of its full value, and yet as each sliver of
humanity is sliced away, you heed the call to move onward. Eventually,
you overcome the obstacle that stood between you and victory--that
quartet of gargoyles swarming you on a rooftop, that arachnoid demon
plunging poisonous pincers into your flesh, that disgusting mound of
meat that defies description. You have triumphed! But your gain does not
come without sacrifice. You have sworn, you have gasped, and you have
sweated. You have forfeited your own humanity so you might collect the
souls of the damned.
Like Dark Souls and Demon's Souls
before it, Dark Souls II is not just a fantasy role-playing adventure,
but a cloud that hangs heavy over your head whenever you so much as
think about it. These modern classics developed by From Software have
rightfully earned a reputation for being brutally difficult, but their
beauty is derived not solely from difficulty, but also from dread. Dark
Souls II is not a survival horror game in the normal sense, but few
games can make you this afraid to peer around the corner, while
simultaneously curious as to what awaits you there. Death is so very
beautiful in this game, for it comes at the hands of amazing beasts and
warmongers: hulking armored knights, shimmering otherworldly invaders,
and tendrils that rise out of black pools of poison. Sure, each death
punctures your heart, but one of Dark Souls II's many gruesome pleasures
is discovering new ways to die.
The eerie blackness is front and center as you start up the
game and enter the mysterious abode in front of you. Three old crones
await you inside and ask you to customize your character and choose a
class before venturing into the unknown. Like most of Dark Souls II's
characters, these women offer vague advice and refer to events and
concepts without filling in the details. The anxiety mounts as you weave
in and out of the nearby caverns that fill you in on the basics of
movement and combat. This area may teach you the fundamentals, but it
also raises a number of questions. What are those odd voices you hear
when you stand near the bird's nest that rests on a narrow ledge? What
is the significance of the flame sconces scattered about that you are
meant to set alight? How do you survive encounters with the monstrous
ogres on the beach below that squish you like a measly bug when you draw
near?
Welcome to Drangleic, a world that is not quick to
whisper its secrets to you, in a game that trusts you to find the
answers for yourself.
This
introduction is not as soul crushing as the original Dark Souls'
opening, but that's just fine, for Dark Souls II offers you an early
taste of hope, a feeling that was quite rare in its predecessors. That
hope arrives by way of Majula, a gorgeous oasis that's as close to a
home as you will find in the game. My first glimpse of Majula was a
revelation. As I emerged from the nearby shadows, the glowing sun
blinded me, and I stood in awe of the world opening up before me.
Whenever the bleakness of Drangleic at large overwhelmed me, I was glad
to return to this hub for an emotional refresh.
Majula is
more akin to Demon's Souls' Nexus than to Dark Souls' Firelink Shrine.
It is your central hub of operations, and while it's mostly devoid of
life when you first come upon it, it slowly fills out with the vendors
you meet upon your travels, many of whom set up shop there. Your most
important contact there, however, is the cloaked woman who allows you to
level up in exchange for souls, the game's currency. But even Majula is
not immune to mystery. There's an impossibly deep hole in the ground
here, one that spells certain death if you fall into it. (Don't let it
fool you; the boards that crisscross this passage may look high enough
to provide a safe landing, but you will not survive that fall.) What's
down there? Surely something valuable must lurk down there. Or something
horrifying. You eventually make your way down, but Dark Souls II
doesn't tell you when or how that may happen.