Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z

With its relatively simple combat system, useless AI teammates, and horrifically unbalanced multiplayer, Battle of Z is a game only diehards should spend any significant time with.

It's probably the most bland and repetitive DBZ game of this generation, with its only saving grace being the immense roster of characters.

It isn't the best title in the series, but it certainly isn't the worst, and if you're looking to play a fighting game that tries something new, rent Battle of Z before committing to the purchase.

Battle of Z had a lot of potential, but like so many DBZ games before it, it fails to capture the opportunity. The unnecessary amount of grinding required to progress through a story we’ve seen a dozen times before overshadows the decent combat.

It’s nice that Namco Bandai has opted to get a company to do a twist on the standard fighting action, and fans will no doubt enjoy what’s on offer here, but with a lot of depth ripped out of the game, it becomes a title that’s has the creativity, but is nothing more than a bundle of shallow fun.

Battle of Z suffers from bad cameras and sometimes muddled gameplay, but it is still a nice brawling game... that really needs to be played online if you want to enjoy it.

A forgettable title in Dragon Ball series, with some good ideas poorly executed. Here's hoping that the next chapters in the series will bring a needed revamp in quality.

Still feels as shallow and monotonous as ever. [Apr 2014, p.89]

If you’re a huge fan of the iconic anime looking for even more fighting action -- and you have friends who are willing to fork out the cash to join you online -- there is some enjoyment to be had. For everyone else, aside from the increased multiplayer, you've already played this before.

However you play, the button-mashing combat proves crushingly simplistic and repetitive, and moving around the stages is awkward and disorienting, with a dizzying camera that makes Battle of Z a pretty ideal motion-sickness simulator.

A disappointing evolution of the Budokai Tenkaichi template, which despite some interesting ideas seems intent on making itself as shallow and simplistic as possible.

A poor show for the last Dragon Ball of this generation. Visually lacking, extremely simple on its mechanics, poor on its fanservice and without local multiplayer modes. Its online team battles could be interesting, but the game didn't need to be that flat.

It's a confused, overly chaotic mission-based action game that tries to recreate the team-based camaraderie oft seen in its source material, but more often than not falls flat on its face.

Time is flying and Dragon Ball videogames are sinking into mediocrity. Battle of Z may be one of the worst episodes of the saga. It's hard to say though if the lack of experience at Artdink studios was the main problem, or if it comes from their will to make something different. Nice try, but the result is awful. You just can't make a Dragon Ball game and forget about the offline multiplayer! And even if you can overcome that, you'll land in an atrocious cocktail of blurry colors and unintelligible action. Your one and only solution : don't buy it.

In the end, Battle of Z is a disappointment.