This Dragon Ball Game has some things to fix, but gets bashed on way to harsh.
The main point which everyone complains about is probably the most important thing to any game and that's gameplay. The game plays like other dragon ball z games, till you get a guy at the end of a combo; it's at that point you do what every likes to call a rock, paper, scissors action sequence. Which then, if successful you continue the combo with either [x] or [y], till it ends with an animation witch shows your foe getting beat down; if not successful you take some damage and you have to start the combo over again. You can block normally which can prevent combos but not getting smashed in the air. Then there is the range system in the game. As you get close, the fighter will clash for one hit the you will not be able to fire any more chi blast. In contrast as you pull away by double tapping [a], (or get in close for really far.) You will be given another action sequence similar to the combo one. Depending on how you do decides whether or not you take damage before getting in close or backing up. Their is also a defense system that let's you block, evade, or intercept your opponent's special attacks. This is an interesting feature, however comes with a twist. To raise your defense meter, you must charge your Chi; meaning that if you want to use your Kamehameha, or Wolf Fang Fist, you must first beat the living hell out of your opponent till it reaches a certain point. While it something you can get use to, it kinda switches what we were familiar with from other games. Add to that, the ranges and the Rock, Paper, Scissors style action button presser and you can get into a somewhat luck based fighting style. There's nothing wrong with this as when it works, but sometimes it may say you pressed a button when you didn't, or you might get defected in what looked like a cheep shoot.
As for the story, for the most part it is like Dragon Ball Z. There is a new what if story, it involves the hero you make in the character editor. As a new feature in dragon ball games, the editor is very basic and only allows male saiyans, which is unfortunate for those who might have wanted to make a badass Namek. Most of the stuff you have to unlock as you go, meaning that if you want to dress your saiyan a certain way, you might need to beat a few guys first. The game allows you to change your appearance as you go, making it easy to dress and color your saiyan to your liking. You get power ups by training with the DBZ characters, which is grinding in RPGs. While i can get tiresome and increases in difficultly, it's never kill the game for me. In fact the only real problem in the game comes from the "boss fights". While impressive in look, the bosses seem to fallow a pattern which can be easy to get use to, the difficulty comes in avoiding the attacks. Every time you press the attack button, you lunch three chi blast when the boss is away, and punch as the boss in close. With the blast attacks, you must get use to the pattern quickly because after pressing x a few times you will freeze in place, allowing for a cheep hit, also you must wait until the boss leaves a body part open then hit away all the while waiting to make sure you can avoid his attacks, after part of his heath is gone then it goes into an series of action sequences similar to Naruto Ninja Storm, if you fail enough times it back to the beginning of the fight, if you can win it is either the next part of the fight or victory.
While boss fights are lacking in quality, this game still has some redeeming points. It's soundtrack is kick ass, and you can set up the music you can fight with. As you fight the way it runs, it fells like your actually in a dragon ball z fight. While the animations can get tiring after a while, there are still a lot of action and power to keep you going to the end. While some may not like the changes, it mean the game is not fun. The things that are wrong can be fixed with future installments. It not a bad game to add to your collection.