Dragonballz
The Dragon
Ball franchise has spawned multiple video games across
various genres and platforms. Earlier games of the series included a
system of card battling and were released for the Nintendo Entertainment
System following the storyline of the series. Starting Super Nintendo
Entertainment System, the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation most of the
games were from the fighting genre including the series Super
Butoden. The first Dragon Ball game to be released in the
United States was Dragon
Ball GT: Final Bout for the PlayStation on July 31, 1997. For
the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable games the characters were
redone in 3D cel-shaded graphics. These games included the Dragon
Ball Z: Budokai series and the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
series. Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit was the first game of the
series developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. A
massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Dragon Ball
Online is currently in development for release in 2010. It has been
stated that Akira Toriyama has been working on character designs for
this project for the last five years.
The game's combat presentation is displayed in a 2-D format. Players
take control and battle one of the characters from the Dragon Ball Z
series. Players are also given the ability to partner with another
character within the game however unlike those games, assisting
characters do not fight, but instead provide various bonuses during the
battle. One of the game's main modes of play is the "Z Chronicles"
which allow the player the opportunity to relive key points from the
Saiyan saga to the Cell Games story arc. There are also two exclusive
stories within this mode, the first where Bardock defeats Frieza and
finds himself mysteriously on present day Earth, and the second where
Broly journeys to Earth in search of Goku.
Another game mode is the Trial mode, where players are given the
option of three types of challenges which are the Survival Mode, where
players must fight a wave of opponents for as long as their health
last, the Time Attack Mode, where the player must defeat opponents
before a certain amount of time runs out, and the Battle Points Mode,
where players must earn battle points in battle. The
PS3 version became the top selling game in Japan for a total of
three months. Beating out its Xbox
360 counterpart, this came in at twelve. The game was nominated
for a Spike video game award for best fighting game.
