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If
you are a ten year-old boy, you don’t want to see cartoons where
people get along, take responsibility and act rationally. You want
to see wild fights, planet-destroying energy blasts, weird aliens
and possibly even huge, huge hairstyles. What on earth has all this?
DragonBall Z of course. With over two hundred  and fifty
episodes and more than ten feature films, DragonBall Z is one
of the most popular animated series’ ever made. Needless to say,
the DragonBall franchise has had more than it’s fair share
of tie-in games and, up until the release of DragonBall Z:
Budokai, they were almost exclusively all tripe. For some
reason, once DragonBall Z: Budokai had arrived, the standard
increased dramatically. The DragonBall Z: Budokai series has
gone from strength-to-strength with the most recent incarnation, DragonBall
Z: Budokai Tenkaichi for the PlayStation2; a title
attempting to revolutionise the Beat-‘Em-Up genre with it’s high
flying, fully 3D battles from a totally original view-point, and
receiving critical praise for it’s trouble. The Game Boy Advance
also received some decent DragonBall action in the guise of DragonBall:
Advanced Adventure and DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors.
Although quite simple, DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors
offered players easy to pick-up, fast-paced battles wherever they
took their Game Boy Advance. Following the reasonable success of DragonBall
Z: Supersonic Warriors, Bandai have decided to release a sequel
and, like so many developers, have decided to publish it for
Nintendo’s newer, flashier handheld, the NintendoDS.
DragonBall
Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 allows players to fight through Story,
Z-Battle, Maximum, Multi-Player and Free Battle Modes and also
includes a Tutorial to teach you the basics. Story Mode is nowhere
near as in-depth as the ones offered by the DragonBall Z: Budokai
series with each character having only around ten battles each,
although any of these may be replayed at any time. There are,
however, several characters to choose from and unlock so there is
still a good amount of longevity in this mode. The game also offers
What if? battles that do not feature in the series. In order to
reach these, certain battles must be won in different ways, such as
having more Health when the time runs out as opposed to beating your
opponent unconscious. Although these What if? stories are a little
less than coherent, they do offer something a little different for
fans of the franchise. Z-Battle Mode is a basic Arcade Mode that
allows you to pick a team and battle against several random computer
teams. On completing this mode, Maximum Mode is  unlocked. Maximum
Mode has three ranks, each with twenty-four preset matches that must
be completed in order. This mode is similar to Story Mode in that
any match may be replayed, but instead of set battles for your
chosen character, any team may be used. Multi-Player allows wireless
two-player action, however, just like many other Third-Party games,
insists on both players owning a Game Cart. Finally, Free Battle
Mode allows the player to choose their opponents as well as their
own team.
DragonBall
Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 is a Beat-Em-Up dissimilar to most due
to the fact that all playable characters can fly. Instead of
separate kick and punch buttons, attacks are classed as light and
heavy similar to many Action games. These attacks are assigned to
the X and Y Buttons and the actual attacks are dependant on which
angle you approach your enemy. Aside from this, the control setup is
akin to the system used in the DragonBall Z: Budokai games,
with the other Face Buttons being used for Guard and Ki Attacks and
the Triggers for charging Ki and locking-on to foes. This simple
control system worked very well in DragonBall Z: Supersonic
Warriors and once again allows easily accessible, action-packed
battles. In order to prevent Guard becoming too powerful, a guarding
character can only block a certain amount of attacks signified by a
Gauge at the top of the screen, however, the fast pace of the action
together with the simplicity of the controls mean that it is
unlikely you will need to excessively use it. A simple simultaneous
press of X and A with a direction initiates one your characters
special moves that cause large amounts of damage to opponents. These
attacks use Ki just as  standard Ki attacks do, albeit with a much
higher cost, however aside from that, these moves tend to be very
easy to pull off. At a full Ki gauge of 200%, easy to attain since
each successful hit gives 20% Ki, four of these attacks can be
initiated in a row. This is very likely to win you the match and as
such can make the game far too easy until the later stages of
Maximum Mode.
Another
large part of the game is the Team System. At the Character Select
Screen you are given a certain Dragon Point limit with which to make
your team, with each character is worth a specified amount of Dragon
Points. For instance, Captain Ginyu, a relatively low powered
character, is worth only one point, however, Teen Gohan Super Saiyan
2 is a very powerful character and is worth six points. This means
that you can make a team incorporating either one or two powerful
characters or a larger team with three weaker team members. During
battle you can switch between characters by touching their portraits
on the Touch Screen. Some characters also have access to Team Arts,
which is a very powerful attack, dependant on which characters are
in your team; for instance having Vegeta and his son, Trunks, in the
same team allows you to use the Garlic Buster. These attacks are
very easy to pull off as all you have to do is attain 200% Ki, touch
the Team Arts Button on the Touch Screen and not get interrupted
during the execution. Needless to say, using these attacks can
easily swing the match in your favour, but they do add to the game
by making the player consider different method of winning matches.
Although you start the game with only seven Dragon Points, during
Maximum Mode you receive extra points as you advance allowing you to
beat the harder opponents by using teams of stronger characters.
There are also support characters available that do not directly
attack, but offer several bonuses to the player. This Team System is
well executed and finding the best combination for you is definitely
a large part of the fun.
As
NintendoDS games go, DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors 2
pushes the system very little. The backgrounds are in 3D and are
fairly detailed, but nothing outstanding for the system. The actual
fights are 2D, and the fighters are 2D sprites. These sprites are,
however, clear and recognisable as the characters they are supposed
to represent. The lack of heavy number crunching means that the game
always runs at fast rate throughout and there are no visible bugs.
Although of reasonable quality, sound effects are occasionally
repetitive and can become slightly irritating. There are also
occasional Voice Samples from the series which fans may enjoy and
the music is very similar to that used in the series; generally of
quite good quality, except for one song so off-key it borders on
cacophony.
DragonBall
Z: Supersonic Warriors was credited for it’s simple controls
and DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 strays very little
from this - making the game simple, occasionally too simple, but
also making the game very playable. The fact that every Mission in Story or Maximum Mode can be replayed, the Team-based battles and
the inclusion of the What if? scenarios mean that DragonBall Z:
Supersonic Warriors 2 also has a good amount of replayability
and completion of this title should take a little while. All in all,
DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 is a great,
easy-to-pick-up fighter and any DragonBall fans should
certainly take a look, but anyone looking for a
technical-Beat-‘Em-Up or a title using the NintendoDS’ unique
features will be disappointed.
 
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