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Dragon Ball Z: Sagas Review - Xbox

Dragon Ball Z has become a phenomenon similar to Pokemon in recent years in Australia, and ever since the western market discovered this gem, the games have been pumping out. The Budokai fighting games on Playstation 2, The Taiketsu fighting games on GBA, but still nothing arrived for the Xbox – until now. Dragon Ball Z: Sagas is an adventure game like no other. Kamehameha your way through over forty levels, as you control all of your favourite characters through the Dragon Ball Z series from Raditz through to the defeat of the evil Cell.

Gameplay

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas is the first ever fully 3D DBZ adventure game – well, it’s basically 3D. The game is about as linear as it gets, and unfortunately you can’t simply fly over vast landscapes while destroying enemies below with your Masenko’s. At the beginning and the end of every level, there is a cartoon excerpt from the series which really gives a sense that you are actually in control of the game. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been designed too well for the story to work with the gameplay, as you still have to kill the bad guys without dying even though often in the cartoon the bad guy actually kills one or two of the Z warriors occasionally.

The game works very similar to any other action adventure game, and the controls are rather pivoting. You have to learn new moves which are explained below, but all the basic moves are already in play. Powering up, flying, running around and bashing things is all part of the fun of the Dragon Ball Z Sagas. When you hold the L button, you lock on to an opponent. This is a fundamental use of the game, as without it, you may find it very hard to pull off moves. If you don’t lock on to the target, then you have to rely on your own aiming in order to hit them which is really quite hard given the camera doesn’t rotate.

There are plenty of items to pick up on the way. In every level there are Z coins to collect which can be spent at the stores to buy new attack, combo, and KI moves. Some of the combos get a bit ridiculous, but if you remember the fighting throughout the DBZ series, you’d know that it does get a bit like that anyway. Unfortunately you don’t really have a variety of KI attacks. There are only two different ones for each character, one that you can fire quickly, and one that must be powered up. Dragon Ball Z: Sagas looks its best when you are powering up a Kamehameha, or a Beam Cannon from Piccolo. The whole world goes in to matrix mode, and there’s a true sense that you’re actually controlling the character with the skills of a Z fighter in your hands.

Along with the Z ... (continued next page)