Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 Review

For those of you who grew up watching the Dragon Ball animated series, like myself, you’re going to have some mixed feelings about this game. DB: Raging Blast 2 was developed by Namco Bandai and will appeal mostly to the hardcore fans rather than the average fighting game player.

The game feels similar to a lot of other fighting games, however it does has a bit of twists to it that makes it feel like Dragon Ball. The fights can be taken back and forth from ground to air, along with ridiculously powerful moves, fan-favorite character transformations and huge over-the-top ultimate attacks.

Some characters scream while they power up their KI meter and depending on the relationships between the characters, you’ll hear little dialogues between them throughout the battles. Little things like that is what makes the game feel like the anime.

DB: Raging Blast 2 features a huge roster of characters, each voiced by both their original Japanese and English voice actors. There is also a variety of different modes to play in both offline and online. Most of which can unlock either items to enhance your characters, new super moves, more characters, costumes, music, concept art, movies and levels.

The aesthetics of the game are true to the anime, which is great for fans. The characters are animated really well and their voices are on par with the anime. However, the level designs feel clunky and poorly done, but in a way still look as generic as they did in the anime’s fight scenes. I just wish Namco put a little more effort into the level designing.

Players are given a decent number of characters from the start, but if you want to unlock the full roster of characters, you’ll be spending hours and hours playing various mode just to get them all. The combat mechanics are complicated, which makes combos a little complex. The combat is no doubt frustrating and can take quiet a while just to learn the basics.

You can mash buttons and hold block all you want, but if you’re looking to unlock everything in the game, especially the full character roster, then you’ll need to face some of the harder AI opponents and they are what make the game mostly frustrating.

Another problem is that a lot of the characters play very similar and some feel exactly the same with a slightly altered appearance. The game modes don’t offer a lot changes to them either, for the combat mechanics are still basically the same in all of them. Again, I wish the developers spent more time on the fighting mechanics.

The music isn’t all that great either, some of it is okay but the majority of it isn’t very memorable. It’s a shame to say it too, considering I enjoyed the previous Dragon Ball games. Oh well, what can you do.

Final Verdict:

I’m not a hardcore-fan but I still love the Dragon Ball franchise, I grew up with its ridiculously long battles, super-powerful moves and characters that grew a bit stronger throughout the series. Overall, I did enjoy the game for what it was, but it just gets boring overtime.

The online can fun though, especially with friends, but only the hardcore-fans of the anime will truly love DB: Raging Blast 2.