3.5/5 ★ – Lancey's review of Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Every year we wait for another Dragon Ball game. This time it's Dragon Ball Fighterz as in Fighters not Fighter Z. Let's cut to the chase. The game's got superb graphics. Arc System made the right choice when they went back to cell shaded animations instead of the disgusting manga style animation we had in Ultimate Tencrapchi and Raging Blast 2. The music is entertaining but not as good as it was in Budokai 3. The story is pretty drab. The Z fighters have lost all of their power and have to regain it by fighting clones of themselves. Android 16 is back and the new Android 21 joins the fray. While its nice to see the Z fighters back in action together, the story is rather dull. The voices are not synchronized with the animation of the characters mouths. This seems to be something they'll never get right in a Dragon Ball game. However, the story mode isn't the bread and butter here, it's multi-player. There's a multi-player lobby where you run around as a little Chibi character. This is kind of cheesy because the multi-player lobby in Xenoverse was a lot cooler. You got a full size character there. Anway, you can play matches 1v1, co-op, story mode, and various other modes. You earn Zeni to buy costumes for you Chibi character. Multi-player is disappointing. The controls are cumbersome. An inexperienced fighter needs to merely button mash to get the upper hand while you are still trying to pull off a proper combo. An experienced player who has mastered the controls will keep you locked in a corner. Being able to move and get out of the counter or block will spell your untimely demise. It was easy to break being locked in a combo in Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3, Raging Blast and Xenoverse. Dragon Ball Fighterz really punishes the player. Super moves and Ultimates aren't easy to pull off in the heat of combat either. In addition, characters lack good super moves. For example, Adult Gohan will only do his Super Kamehameha if you pick Gotenks as a member of your team. Otherwise he'll do a Family Kamehameha. Even worse, you can't power up through the levels of super saiyan. Nope, you go super saiyan at the start of the fight and will not transform back to base, go super saiyan 2, or super saiyan 3. The only time Goku goes super saiyan 3 is during his ultimate, and it's one of the weakest supers of the game at that. You can get the base forms of characters like Goku and Vegeta, but you have to buy them. Budokai 3 came with over 40 characters, included transformations and fusion with Potara earrings out of the box. What DIMPS or Arc System really needs to do is make an updated version of Budokai 3 minus the Dragon Rush mode and a revised capsule system. Kind of like the one used in Infinite World. However, game developers are more interested in making a quick buck off a new DBZ title with the same old story and just doing things a little bit different from the last DBZ game. I will continue to wait for a true follow up to the Budokai series but it may be a long wait if not never.