Dragon Ball: Raging Blast Demo Impressions

Let this be clear, I am no fanboy of the Dragon Ball Z series or of fighting games, but I adore the outrageous DBZ fight scenes as well as the famous meme that is at least over 9000.

The demo of DBRB includes the characters Goku, Piccolo and some other guy with the extreme case of frizz. Anyways I jump into versus mode and start out as Goku. My opponent, Piccolo. I got my ass handed to me faster than I could hit the pause button. Within blinks of my eye Piccolo teleported behind me and drove his foot into my spine, flinging me through the air. But he seemed to have a handle on things as he repeated this process, slamming me into the ground and kept delivering these blows until I evaporated into the soil.

Taking this all in stride as I maturely threw my controller against the wall and tried again. Better, this time my body was intact at the end of the fight. KO'd, but whole. The third time I suddenly got a stroke of luck and managed to not just win, but destroyed Piccolo in classic DBZ style. I unleashed a blurring fury of punches and kicks followed by a barrage of energy blasts and a kick so powerful I sent that green bastard into a cliff. But I wasn't finished yet, I resumed the flurry of punches to a point where THE CLIFF ITSELF DISINTEGRATED. Then I won.

In case you haven't figured out yet the combat was fun, but moving around and flying was cumbersome and avoiding attacks from opponents is difficult/cheap. The music fit the atmosphere of DBZ as well as the stylized graphics. The character design was great! They were true to the anime and felt right. The voice acting was......accurate, but adequate and the addition of destructible environments made the game oh so intense. However aside from the characters, the game engine is barely enough to be of a "next-gen" console.

Overall, its good. A definite rent for those who like DBZ and anyone who doesn't want to wait for the next fighting game.


+ Fighting is intense

+ Destructible environments adds to intenseness

+ Characters are true to series

- Moving around is a bitch

- Enemies are cheap bitches

- Environment looks not as good as it could be

My Rating: 7.0/10