#taiketsu

Part 4: The GBA/DS Era and the rise of Arc System Works

The last two in their retrospective (Ultimate and Extreme Butoduen) are gonna be seperate parts since I have a LOT to talk about with those games, but anyway:

Taiketsu (2003 - GBA) Fuuuucccckkkkkk this one. This was made by Webfoot, the same guys that made the Legacy of Goku series. And considering they never got truly good till the second Legacy of Goku, it defintely shows here. 15 characters total, this time being evenly based across all the main sagas of Z, with the inclusion of Broly who was promoted as it was his first game appearence in the US. Probably the only highlight of the roster, which immediately fades away since Broly was in Budokai 3 and was much more fun in there. It plays similar to Street Fighter as opposed to any of the Buotden based games. And it wasn't bad enough Super Street Fighter II Turbo's port to GBA was terrible, this just proves how the system is just not meant for this style of fighting game. (unless it's Crawfish Enterainment's rather great port of Alpha 3 to GBA) Controls are piss poor, I'm lucky to even pull of a single quarter circle forward motion to pull out a Kamehameha or Galick Gun. All the fighters are ugly as SIN as they use pre-rendered sprites ala Donkey Kong Country or Sonic 3D Blast, but looking like a jumbled mess of crap since the models are pure ass unlike the aformentioned games. Also transformations are only on the Super Moves. Vegeta turns into a Great Ape with his Level 3 Super, Buu turns into Super Buu and Kid Buu in his ones. It's just....weird, very weird. Unlocking stuff is done by buying them at the “Z-Shop” section. You can get very VERY small compressed pics of each character, cheats (to make the pain go away faster), bios, and the other characters. But to do so you need to go thru arcade mode like twenty times to get enough points to by them. On the bright side, it does save your progress so you can either exit or jump right back into a run after a while. Odd but nice addition to something like an Arcade mode, and works nicely for a handheld entry. The only other upside is that the music is decent and some would be reused in the remaining two Legacy of Goku games. (Legacy of Goku II and Buu's Fury)

I LOATHE this game with a burning passion and I beat every single BIT of it. EVERYGAME on this list is better than this game by a county mile.

SuperSonic Warriors (2004 - GBA) The first by Arc System Works, who funny enough would make this, it's sequel on DS, Extreme Butoden, and the upcoming Dragon Ball Fighter Z. It takes a very different approach than the past games and opts for full free flight in battle. Except here it's not super clunky and works great. To compare, it feels like the Butoden games, but without restrictions. It's super fast and very fun. Weak and Strong are the attacks here with Ki being one of the L/R triggers. Super attacks have different properties depending on if you're doing them near or far from the oppoent. You can also select different "Levels" of each character. Changing their forms moves and strengths between each version of them. You can have the option for 3vs3 team battles. Story mode lets you choose between going thru the main four sagas or each individual characters' "What If?" sagas, similar to Buyu Retsuden. Music is great, some tracks are changed for the US version, but all of the main character themes and other menu/cutscene themes the same. You can also notably hear "Cha-La-Head-Cha-La" in the character select screen's music. Overall damn fun game, and I can see why they kept them on for later games. SuperSonic Warriors 2 (2005 - Nintendo DS)

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Overall: ☆ | ☆☆ | ☆☆☆ | ☆☆☆☆ | ☆☆☆☆☆

Following: No, but ♡ | Now I do! | Of course | Forever and always