Dragon Ball Final Bout is one game that can be classified as the game that will make you return to this game for more fun. There are many secret characters to unlock, mainly characters in their ultimate or Super Saiyan form. Stages and everything in this game are all in 3D, except when fighting in the game itself. Overall, if you're a Dragon Ball or fighting games fan, this game should not be missed. Graphics - 9 Everything was purely modeled in 3D, even the background itself. As Dragon Ball games has been mostly in 2D before, the idea of having a game re-created in a 3D environment is very appealing. The bright colours that are used to lighten up the whole place was very nice, and the colours used for the characters are quite good too. The stages too takes place in different areas, that are mostly based on Dragon Ball themes. You can find places like the Kung-Fu tournament and several others unmentioned and cool places. The background are nice but not really that great to grab your attention as they will just be red sky with few dull clouds and other uninteresting things. Graphical effects such as light source when your characters charged up their own power, which will act sort of a torch light for your character. Everything was detailed too, from the fireball launched by any characters to the smallest character in the game. Of course, the characters look exactly as they meant to be with the hand-drawn pictures that are shown before you start in the game. Even the 3D modeling of the characters look as real as they meant to be, which was a good thing. Music - 9 The background music suits exactly on every of the stages and every battle. Battle theme music will begin with musical instruments accompanying it, with fighting sound effects to follow. The music will become more and more tense as you fight through the game, and as the game forces you to pay attention to everything that you are supposed to do, you are likely to lose any attention that you made to the background music. The sound effects are nice, ranging from the blast of Kamehameha from Son Gokou to the flying speed of every characters. To make the game much better, every action that you made will produce at least one sound, even if it was tiny. The voices from other characters was slightly disappointing and shocking. The Japanese voices that accompany it (what I played was the Japanese version) sounds absolutely girlish and doesn't suit at all. As I haven't been tuning into Dragon Ball anime, I wouldn't even recognize those voices but I guess that should done it. Gameplay - 9 This game was 3D, from the graphics and the background to the characters themselves. But unfortunately, the battle system is in 2D, with some parts of the game slightly in 3D. You can fly up, down, left and right of all areas but you can also dash across into the background, if you know what I meant. This will mean that the background will be rotating around and your opponent can not shoot you as it will likely miss. The battle system is simple but at the same time, unique as this is a Dragon Ball game. You can shoot your enemy with a 'qi', an internal energy from your character and pressing different combination directional buttons plus the 'qi' button will result your character shooting your opponent with their own special power. If you're near your enemy, your character will shoot the power immediately but can be easily missed as your characters can fly away anytime they want. But if you're far away from the opponent, a special sequence will happen showing your character charging up the power. At the same time, your opponent can have different options on that time, either shooting back with their own special power, repel it away with their hands, using the 'qi' shield, block or take full damage of the attack. For instance, if your opponent shoot back with their special power, you'll need to press the Triangle button (that's the default one) repeatedly in order to see whose power will surpass whose. Repelling it away with their hands or using the 'qi' shield will cause a little of your health but if your opponents' power are strong, more damage will be taken. Blocking will result you taking half of the power's damage while if you didn't do anything, you'll receive head-full straight from the power. Of course, battling with 'qi' are much more interesting than using punches and kicks but sometimes, these are the one that will safe your life. Other than a normal punch and a normal kick, like the 'qi', you can use directional button combinations to make your character punch in their own style or kick in a different way that will make you want to use it more often as some of the style was simply beautiful or wonderful in damages. You have two different bars, of course. One will be your life which will take two times to make it empty while the other one is your 'qi' or energy, as you might want to call it. Using any of your 'qi' attacks will result having your 'qi' bar decreased while using a super power will decrease the bar even further. The 'qi' bar can be automatically decreased by time but it would be too little, so you can easily press the Square and X buttons together in order to let your character charge up their power. Beware, while using this technique, your character is complete visible to any attack so it's not really advisible. You can have two types of special physical attacks, which need several button combinations to result two types of special attacks, Meteo Smash and Combo Breaker. Meteo Smash is weaker than Combo Breaker if compared to Combo Breaker as Combo Breaker can attack a lot of times all in on go while the Meteo Smash requires you to be near the enemy and produce a small amount of damage. Characters, on the other hand, are quite a lot to choose, ranging some from the Dragon Ball Z series and some from Dragon Ball GT series. Don't be surprised if you find the Small Son Gokou over there or even Pan. Characters can be unlocked more and more if you fight against those secret characters in the Arcade mode. This will allow you to choose that particular character again in Arcade or Versus mode. What really livens up the whole game is the Versus mode, which provides lots of fun and entertainment for the whole crowd of friends. The Build-Up mode is also nifty for you to build up your characters' skills which adds a lot to the replay value. Controls - 8 The controls are not really difficult to remember as you don't even need 1 hour practice to get used to it. There are many different combinations which will make you confused between which one is which during the beginning of the game but once you get used to those controls, you won't have any problems with it at all. Example, pressing the Triangle button will make your character shoot a tiny fireball while pressing Square will make your character punch. Not really difficult as even a five year old could play this game (though not mastering this game of course, in the case of my ex-neighbour's younger brother). Replay Value - 8 If you never played the game for a long time, you'll still continue to play this game, even if you had played it for countless of multi-player battles. Playing with lots of friends will let you simply enjoy the game even more, as I myself had already experienced the joys of playing this game. Arcade mode will only let you get through the game only for a few times while the Build-Up mode will bore you quickly and last probably only for a few days. Overall - 9 out of 10 This game should never be missed, if you can shell up a couple of bucks or can get this game cheap. You can simply have the enjoyment and the fun through this game (and also quarrels, if one of you always win). Nevertheless, you might not want to miss this game so have some good time playing this game. Dragon ----- + Good fun for everyone, especially with the Versus mode around! + Unique battle system for you to fight with! + Wonderful 3D graphics and great 3D modeling! Wagon ----- - Can get boring if you play it too much. - The battle system is in 2D, sadly but it's still fun all the same! - If only there are more characters to choose from
