Coupled with the fact that the most powerful moves in the game are executed by the flick of the analog stick, and the whole system becomes less of a fighting game. In fact, the only time you'll ever see this happen is in the tutorial, and even then, failing to do this move results in a bug where the whole tutorial sequence must be restarted. Unfortunately, the response time for that button hit is never precise, and getting to this situation in the first place never seems to happen since the game doesn't indicate how much button-mashing is needed to get this right. Once this is done, you have to hit the indicated face button at just the right time to initiate the counterattack. You only have a limited amount of time to button-mash in the hopes of finally teleporting away from an incoming attack. Despite the fact that you're rewarded with great-looking fight sequences should you win, turning a brawl into a game of chance essentially undermines the whole experience, especially since getting to the choice option is so easy to execute.Ĭonsequently, while going on the offense is easy since all you have to do is get lucky and then hit either the light or strong attack in conjunction with a direction, going on the defense is next to impossible. Getting out the initial blows is fine, but once you get to the attack choice, your success really becomes a coin flip. Upon playing the game for the first time, you immediately see the problems with the fighting system. You can also try to reflect the attack by button-mashing. You can also choose to dodge the attack via a button-matching game, where losing means taking in more damage. On defense, provided you have enough ki, you can block the attack to take less damage. On offense, the release of the move is as easy as flicking down the right analog stick.
When this happens, you enter a spirit mode and can unleash the attack, which has enough power to permanently deform the environment or destroy buildings. People look forward to signature moves in the series, and those are unleashed once you are close to death.
You can also deflect those attacks and reflect them back at your opponent. You can do ki attacks from here, such as throwing energy blasts of varying strengths, but you no longer have melee attack capabilities. If you back up far enough from the opponent, the game switches over to the Raging Blast viewpoint, where the camera is an over-the-shoulder view. If you were on defense, you have to try to recover to stop getting hit and hopefully get a chance to counterattack. Pick incorrectly, and if you were on offense, you simply receive a counterattack. Pick correctly over your opponent, and you'll get a chance to unleash combos where you toss your opponent in the air, hit him further than before, and ultimately finish him off with a 20- to 30-hit combo. Once you register three hits from a light attack combo, you get a short pause and determine whether your next hit will be a light or heavy attack. You can unleash light or heavy attacks, block, and dash toward or away from your opponent, but you can't unleash ki-based attacks. Getting into melee range gives you the Burst Limit viewpoint, where the game is presented as a traditional fighter. The fighting system feels like a mix between Burst Limit and the Raging Blast games in terms of viewpoint. This new entry, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi, is no different as developer Spike forgoes the advancements made by earlier games and uses the story in its own fighting engine. The other part of the equation is that the games tend to change up the mechanics, often swapping out completely different engines while still maintaining the fighting game ethic set out so many years ago. Part of the sustained staying power lies in the fact that the fan base is still rabid enough to take in every iteration almost without question.
Despite the absence of new tales for more than a decade, the game series continues to chug along, content to retell the same battles over and over again. One cannot help but be amazed at the tenacity of the Dragon Ball Z license.