I’mma chargin’ my Kamehameha! Directly at this sorry attempt of a Dragon Ball Z game! First, there’s no need to question my loyalty to the Dragon Ball/Z/GT series. At all. Second, as the style, or focus, of the anime should always fit the game, this one tries so hard. Yet it fails to deliver on both ends.

Where to begin? Let’s go over the art style first, since we all love graphics in the day in age, rather than CONTROLS, GAME PLAY, and what’s that other important thing? Oh yeah, FUN FACTOR! Where the hell is that? Going back on track here, the art style is amazing. It fits just perfectly for all the characters, and same goes for the stage environments. Be it fighting on ground, in the air, or space, the amount of detail needed for each part of the stage is very impressive.

That’s the end of being nice, folks. Time for honesty, that rare moment that happens in video game journalism. None of the stages are destructible, which is a big freaking let down since this game is on a system that can handle such renderings and process power. Come on guys, what the hell were you thinking when you were watching and developing this game? “Oh cool move set there, man! Fuck destructible environments! Players don’t care about that!” Seriously, having that in the game would’ve pushed this game even further in the grade scale. If you’re a fan of the series or have watch at a couple of episodes, you see almost every character being beaten into the ground, or the side of a mountain.

When I’m playing as Frieza and I pull out that Death Ball, I expect a major fucking change in the environment. Not a big hole in the ground, but total chaos everywhere. Lava bursting from the ground, bones of animals and people scattered everywhere, pitch black clouds, and lighting. And what of my foe? Either alive but buried within the rubble, or laying dead. When we’re fighting, and I start pushing him towards the ground, I’d expect the ground to be pushed back as well, thus creating a big fucking crater. That’s another thing, when we’re blasting out Kamehamehas and what not, there should be rocks, dirt and even trees being blown away from the force of those blasts. But what do we get? Nothing.

There’s this thing called Drama Pieces, where during the fight and you’re in a certain condition or something happens, that will trigger a Drama Piece. It could be that your selected partner jumps in to launch one fucking weak attack, you gain your Ki faster, or defense gets a small boost. How does that make me feel? Fucking sorry for this guys failing on coming up with something really creative. Okay, here a helpful hand from yours truly. Instead of having said feature, create a ”Partner Sequence”. What does it do? Well, if your character is getting the crap beat out of him, press the R2 button and presto! Your selected partner does an attack to your opponent and becomes the playable fighter. And while that’s happening, your other character is slowly regaining his hit points. Sure it sounds like something from Soul Calibur or Street Fighter, but you could set what type of opening attack he will have.

Moving on to the story of the game, which you’d expect to be any different, but it’s nothing more than small bits of the main story line. The fights lack in immersion and playability. All you’re doing is mashing buttons like a crazy fiend, hoping that whatever you’re doing will stop your opponent from oving at all. Combos? Ha! That’s thrown right out the window when it comes to those fight scenes where you have to mash all four buttons to stop getting the crap kicked out of you in mid flight. The only reason why you should play through the story mode is to unlock the characters, don’t bother getting thrilled about “reliving” the DBZ experience.

Here’s another suggestion, create a whole new DBZ game but have new villains and stages. A totally new story mode never before seen or heard of in the DBZ universe. Creating something fucking new! I feel like I’m getting ripped off for playing this game. Having to go through the same crap as before. Give us something new and exciting! Have villains from the other DBZ movies in that new game. Hell, since we’re playing this on a PS3, put every single villain and character in there! Not just from the DBZ time line, but from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT. Go all out with the next game, please.

As for the fighting, it’s awesome to look at, but that feeling fades away as soon as your concentrating on your opponent and mashing those buttons. Pulling off those combos is easy, but there’s almost no point when you can just mash away. You know what? Forget it, I’ll just rant some more on how bad this game is. DBZ fighting games have come a long freaking way, some of failed while others have and are still remembered as great games. But this game, Burst Limit, fails on an epic scale. I’m sorry folks, but I can not show any mercy towards slackers who dare to tarnish the imagery of such a great series like Dragon Ball Z.