360 Dragon Ball: Raging Blast

Experience the thrill and excitement of fighting within the Dragon Ball universe, in the most recent title from the franchise to hit the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles - Dragon Ball: Raging Blast. Made with a visual style all its own, this game comes with a hugely packed character roster, and is one of the first Dragon Ball games to hit beautiful HD, giving an unparalleled visual experience.

The Dragon Ball universe has had a whole host of games created for it throughout the years, but none to date have looked as good as this one. Not only is it capable of being played at full 1080p HD, but it takes advantage of all the advanced graphical features of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 - and uses them to make up the world of Dragon Ball as it was seen in the original Manga series.

However, don't think this is a game where the focal point is just visual. The creators have taken more into account than just how it looks, implementing the trademark combat style of Dragon Ball, and allowing for a depth of customisation rarely seen in other fighting games. Attacks are powerful and can be altered by the player to hone their own play style, as well as bringing in additions to move sets seen in previous Dragon Ball games and series. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast incorporates a new 'Super Rising' move with each character, allowing them to quickly fly upwards throughout the large scale battle arenas, giving rise to new tactics and strategies. This turns the usual left to right fighting style into a fast vertical action game.

Along with this unusual take on video game fighting on Xbox 360 and PS3, other special abilities are available including: super dashes, health drain, time stop, rocket punch, and wolf's fang. These moves, which make more sense if you follow the Dragon Ball series, add some more depth to the battles.

The combat itself has also been expanded. Extra variety is bundled into the fully fleshed out mechanic. This is achieved through a character roster that has to be one of the biggest in any fighting game. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast has a total of 43 playable characters, each with costume variants and transformations, meaning that in total there are 120 possible fighters to choose from at the selection screen.

However, even with all these character traits to consider, there's another level of variation that you'll need to consider if you want to triumph in the world of Dragon Ball, and that's the environment. Taking cues from other titles that employ similar mechanics, the developers have implemented near fully destructible environments with rocks, mountains and even the ground at your feet now fully breakable - you can litterally split, shatter and even be completely obliterated terra firma. Players can choose also to throw their opponents over precipices and into destructible environmental features, leaving them dazed and dealing a healthy dose of damage also.

This is the first ever title that I've seen that manages to pull off a fully cartoon style - in this case manga - while maintaining image quality. Too often in games based on hand drawn animations, you end up with poor visuals that are pixelated, or lacking the depth and animated quality of the original art work; not in Dragon Ball: Raging Blast. In this game, you might as well be watching the original series; it really does look that good.

The makers of Dragon Ball: Raging Blast on 360 and PS3 can take a bow with this game, as they managed to near perfectly transfer a franchise that's over two and a half decades old into a fantastic looking, and excellently playable fighting game. It has stunning visuals that capture the magic of the original manga, solid fight mechanics that will please any beat ‘em up enthusiast and environmental physics that add plenty of depth to a title that looks set to occupy fighter fans for some time to come.

Written by Jan Brookes

Jan Brookes writes the Frugal Gamer column. "Welcome to my buyer's guide video game reviews. As well as giving you the low down on the best Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS lite and PSP game I also offer well research alternatives that are Similar, Easier and Harder than the one we are reviewing."

Jan Brookes' recent reviews:

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