Raging Blast 2 Review of... Reviewness.
Posted on 11/07/2010 by Trambapoline
It's late into the year, so here comes the annual Dragon Ball fighting game!
As I've mentioned pretty much every single time I bring this series up, I enjoyed the flawed first outing for Spike's quasi-new-except-not venture into the Dragon Ball franchise. The online was a lot of fun, ran surprisingly smoothly, and despite the world's wost camera and that terrible Star ranking system for the story mode, it was good fun. Does the sequel manage to fix the issues and deliver something great?
Well, yes and no.
If you're unfamiliar with the series (Raging Blast, that is, not Dragon Ball), then here's the gist. Raging Blast (and Budokai Tenkaichi/SPARKING before it) are arena-based fighting games that have a lot in common with the ol' Virtual-On series, except RB is a heck of a lot faster. You get mostly bland, but overall neat arenas to fly around in at supersonic speed, with the objective being to smack and/or blast the everloving hell out of your opponent.
Both Budokai Tenkaichi and Raging Blast get quite a bit of criticism laid at them for never substantially changing from title to title. With each new game released they only seem to have changed slight details in the mechanics and added more increasingly obscure Dragon Ball characters. RB in particular got torn a new one in this regard, despite adding in online multiplayer and whatnot. That said, the criticism is entirely deserved, with Spike seeming to think they have a great thing going here, so very little has changed since the first Budokai Tenkaichi title half a decade ago.
So, yes, that's the gist. Now onto Raging Blast 2 itself.
While Spike have done a pretty earnest job mixing things up for this title, unless you're knees-deep into the mechanics and general systems, the game will play like every single other one in the series. Not to say this is a bad thing by any means, but if you're sick of the Virtual-On-like arena fights then.. well, best keep crossing those fingers and hoping that another developer picks up the Dragon Ball fighting game franchise. This is a Spike game, so.. well, if you've played any of the others, you've played this one.
If this is your thing, then Raging Blast 2 is probably the most polished and balanced outing in the series. With most of the camera issues fixed, the fighting flows very smoothly. Online is better than the first game by quite a margin (at least for Australian players), and the overall mechanics have a nice little bit of strategy to them, but not so much that the average player can't pick 'em up after playing through the Tutorial section.
Right, that's enough pseudo-professional reviewer blargh for me. Onto the rants!
Overall, I'm really enjoying this game. If you're not going online with it, then it may as well just be Raging Blast 1: We Added More Characters! But with online (or at least some level of dedication for getting into the new/changed mechanics), then RB2 does start to feel like a legitimate sequel. But even without dabbling into online, it does far more than most Spike DBZ sequels. Even if that's still not within throwing distance of what Capcom or Namco do with their fighting game sequels.
I suppose the two biggest changes/additions to the game are the new Galaxy Mode, and the Raging Soul mechanic. Galaxy Mode replaced the usual Story Mode, and striked up a lot of debates on many a DBZ forum for its focusing on the fights themselves, rather than cutscenes or any level of coherence when it came to story. Honestly, I think it was a good move, but there are certainly some problems it brings to the table alongside everything else.
Basically, Galaxy Mode lets you choose any unlocked Dragon Ball character you have and allows you to travel across a little mini-board with them, with the point being to progress to the Boss Battle at the end. Each fight has its own little conditions and quirks you need to abide by. For instance, one battle might make you defeat an enemy in 90 seconds, or fight against an enemy that has constantly regenerating health. There's a lot of variables, and honestly, most of the them are pretty fun. They give a good challenge and help mix up the usually very monotonous fights of a DBZ game's Campaign Mode.
I'd like to see it return in RB3, with the major issues fixed. Maybe not to as important a degree as replacing a story mode, but its inclusion somewhere would be welcomed by me.
That being said, I don't think I can emphasize enough how certain battle conditions can kindly go sodomize themselves with a rusty chainsaw. The biggest offender being where you're asked to fight while at a Near Death status. Which basically equates to, 'Get hit once and you die'. In a game where everything is very high-speed and punches are thrown essentially every 0.3 seconds, trying to not get hit while whittling down 3 health bars on a usually high aggressive opponent is.. well, as impossible as it sounds.
Usually these fights can be avoided on the path to a character's Boss Battle, but there are times where it's completely unavoidable, and you're forced to either spend lord knows how many infuriating minutes trying to complete the task, or give up and try playing on another character's path. There's an equipable item that negates the Near Death effect, but it's a random reward from any mission, so if you don't have it, then.. well, best of luck, I guess.
The second annoying condition is one where the enemies health regenerated rapidly. As far as I can tell, you need a randomly dropped item that negates this effect to win these battles, because even if you spam Ultimates/Raging Soul at practically every opportunity you're not going to make a sizable dent in their HP. These sorts of objectives are thankfully rare, but they completely suck the fun out of the game when they do appear unavoidable on a main path. If Galaxy Mode returns in a sequel, these fights best be on the many optional paths, or.. honestly just forgotten about altogether. They're a kinda neat idea, but they bring a hell of a lot more annoyance then they do fun.
As for the other additions the game, aside from the mentioned Raging Soul mode, they're not worth special mention unless you're a fan of the series already. The mechanics and certain characters have been balanced greatly, so now every character is, more or less, on equal footing. The animation and effects, while not AAA game caliber, are still quite shiny at times (especially during Ultimates).
And lastly, the voice-acting, on the FUNimation side of the audio (I don't know that much Japanese to make an educated guess on the Japanese audio), is well done. The new additions to the cast from Dragon Ball Kai do a good job with their characters. Overall it's solid, and I can't think of anything else to really say about it, except that I miss Perfect!Cell's original voice actor. I know why Mr. Clarke isn't in the game, and Travis Willingham does a good imitation, but like most imitations if you're familiar with the original voice you can notice the differences. It's more of a little note, rather than anything negative.
Finally, there's Raging Soul mode. As I mentioned in my little demo talky-talk, when you power up your Ki to its maximum (like Broly) you get the choice to enter Raging Soul mode. What this does is remove your ability to fire Supers or Ultimates, but allows you to melee-wail on the enemy with little limitation. In the hands of the AI, and the general health/strength differences in Galaxy Mode, it's... a questionably balanced mechanic at best. Thankfully online and in other game-modes it's much less over-the-top powerful. You can generally counter a Raging Soul player/AI by either keeping your distance, using Supers/Ultimates (which they can't do), or just be wailing on them before they get the chance to.
It works well for now, and is a nice addition. I guess only time, and letting the playerbase find out the tiniest details of the system will let us know if it's worth keeping for an inevitable sequel, or if it'll go the way of Dragon Rush from Budokai 3.
Oh, and there was also an anime OVA or whatever that came with the game. But who cares about that?
In all honesty, despite being the main selling point of the game, I found the Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans OVA to be pretty darn forgettable. In sort of fairness, it's not terrible by any means, and is a lot better than the original Playdia OVA/Guide, but that's not exactly saying much. The Son Goku and his Friends Return special a little while ago was much better in almost every regard.
The biggest problem with the OVA is that it's only 30 minutes long. While most DBZ specials go by at a blazing pace, there's usually at least some sort of anticipation or build-up to one big event or another. Here? Plot points shoot by at such a fast pace it's hard to even care about what the hell was going on. Also, it's really hard to sell Hatchiyack as this big Super Bad Villain when he appears and is destroyed within 10-15 minutes. I mean that's a darn site better than dragging the fights on forever like in the non-Kai anime, but sheesh!
The movie begins with the a flashback to when the Saiyans were defeating the Tuffles/Tsufuru-jin on Planet Vegeta. While the Oozaru!Saiyans are blowing shit up real good, a Tuffle named Dr. Lychee has just finished his 'Grudge Amplification Device'. Don't ask how this works, because it's never properly explained. It just does shit and spawns a mediocre villain. However, just as Dr. Lychee dies from... a sudden shaking of the screen, he presses the button that activates Hatchiyack. The machine and Dr. Lychee glow, then fly off into space.
Cut to many years later... IN SPAAAACE. The machine and a very mutated looking Dr Lychee, who may or may not be dead right now, fly off towards Earth, while the insane doctor screams about revenge. Something that nobody ever does in the Dragon Ball universe, let me tell you.
On Earth, a giant dark sphere appears over the planet and releases dark plumes of gas everywhere. People start coughing, falling over dead and all that other ominious stuff. But no time to worry about that now, as we suddenly cut to Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks and Bulma standing around in a lab discussing what's going on. Apparently the Dark Plumes of Kill Everything is called Destron Gas (No relation, unfortunately) and it will wipe out all life on Earth in 70 days. Oh noes!
Vegeta comes by and explains that this gas could have only have been created by the Tuffles. There's a bit of banter about the backstory of the Tuffles, but it means nothing unless you're a big fan of the Bebi/Baby saga in Dragon Ball GT. Long story less long, it's never explained how the hell Vegeta knew about the Destron Gas or how it's really connected to the Tuffles. But since Vegeta is correct in this case I guess we can let it slide.
Though it raises the question of if Dr. Lychee is here on Earth for revenge against the Saiyans... how did he figure out they were here? I guess that handy-dandy Villain Magnet™ Goku carries around in his gi attracted them or something.
In any case, Bulma starts working on a way to fight the mysterious gas that's been on Earth for about.. 2 minutes now and comes from a completely alien source while Goku and rest fly off to see if there's something they can beat up real good. Luckily it turns out there is! On top of a nearby-ish skyscraper there's a funky red machine that's spewing out Destron Gas like a YouTube commenter spews out stupidity. Upon sighting it, Vegeta, ever the plot-device triggerer. turns Super Saiyans and fires a Ki blast at it.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody bar Vegeta, the smoke clears and the machine hasn't been damaged. Suddenly, out of the Destron Gas, Frieza appears! This shocks Vegeta so much that his eyes go pure black due to
I'll take him over Broly appearing, that's for goddamn sure.
Vegeta, as per usual, gloats over how the villains who were so 'miserably killed' especially don't stand a chance now. Cue kinda spiffy fight scene between the two groups! Goku fights Cooler, Trunks fights Frieza, Piccolo fights Lord Slug (well, grapples, but still), and Gohan fights Turles.
So, uh.. what's Vegeta doing? For the person that was instigating the fight, I can't see him sitting on the side-lines picking his arse.
No time for logical thinking or expecting people in behave in-character! Goku throws Cooler into a nearby building, which supposedly kills him or something. As Cooler dies/passes out/goes nighty night, he turns back into Destron Gas and is rejuvenated. Likewise for all the other villains. Clearly something sinister is afoot here!
Goku and the group start to grow weaker as the Destron Gas starts slowly poisoning them. Just as the villains are about to kill the weakened Z-Fighters, Bulma suddenly flies in and declares that she's created a neutralizing agent for the Destron Gas. How... incredibly convenient of you, Bulma. She flies around and deploys the agent in a rather lengthy scene which does nothing but make me wonder why Cooler, Frieza or anyone else doesn't just shoot her?
Seriously. She's in a dinky little plane, they're warriors capable of destroying planets, and she's about to get rid of their only possible means of killing Goku and the rest. You'd think something would click in the brains that makes them go, "DURR MAYBE WE SHOULD GET RID OF HER", but no, that'd make some sort of sense!
Anyway, the Destron Gas vanishes, the villains go all "GRRRRRR", because, you know, there was clearly nothing they could've done to stop this from happening, and Goku, Piccolo, Trunks, Vegeta and Gohan recover their Ki and get back up. Bulma says the agent might not last long, so they should defeat the villains while they have the chance.
So they do.
Before being finally vaporized, Frieza screams, "Do not estimate our grudge!" This confuses the group quite a bit, and Gohan points out that the villains were just imposters. Imposters created by a machine that the villains never came across and was never around on Earth/Namek during the time of the big fights, so there's no possible way it could really get 'data' on the villains. Or heroes, for that matter. But instead of trying to sort this farce of a plot out, Goku just screams out to Kaio-sama/King Kai for information. He gives out this sage-like advice.
"Yes, Goku. Whoever is controlling the gas, Frieza, and the others, might be hiding somewhere."
You know, like, say, the giant goddamn gas planet that's hovering just above you, you morons!
Anyway, King Kai goes on about how there are other machines around the world that are continuing this terror, which may or may not be spewing out old villains, and that Goku should focus on finding the culprit of this dastardly crime for now instead.
Cut to the giant ass-fuck planet hovering above Earth. Inside 'Dark Planet - Lychee's Fortress', Dr. Lychee is blabbing on about hatred and revenge growing stronger and other such junk. There's a shot of the villain's faces being trapped in these dark orb-like things, but I honestly have no idea what the point of it is. I guess they're being stored away in there or something? In any case there's a lot of these orb-like things which serve no apparent importance to what this movie calls a plot, so let's just move on.
Lychee goes on to talk about how once they've absorbed 'Maximum Grudge Energy' the ultimate warrior will be born! Again, never heard this sort of talk in Dragon Ball before. Lychee looks up and suddenly goes, "So, you've come... Saiyan!" For a moment I had no damn idea what he was talking about, until the scene cuts to Goku and everyone landing nearby.
Not.. going to explain how they got here, movie? I know, as said, a giant planetoid hovering over Earth isn't exactly subtle, but apparently they didn't know about it, so you'd think a scene detailing them finding it, or even one of Goku going, "Derp, teleporting now!" would be warranted, but I guess not. We've got fighting and poor storytelling to get on with!
Anyway (that's being said a lot, huh?), Lychee spews forth exposition about him being the creator of the Destron Gas, and how he has returned as a ghost through the power of this Grudge Machine: Hatchiyack. So, it creates gas, creates imposters of villains it shouldn't have any knowledge about, is a fighting machine, and creates ghosts?
That's a lot for one machine to do isn't it? Let's ask Professor Farnsworth!
Well, fair enough then.
In response to this, Piccolo says, "I see... So that's how you brought back Frieza, Slug and the others." So.. are they imposters, like Gohan claimed, or are they the actual ghosts of the villains, like Piccolo seems to be implying? If they're imposters, does that make Lychee an imposter as well? Or did the machine somehow make him a ghost, but just make imposters of everyone else?
My head hurts. This is like watching GT all over again.
Goku yells at Lychee to stop releasing the Destron Gas, Lychee refuses (though it'd be pretty funny if he just went, "Well, shit!" and shut down his multi-decade long spree of revenge right there), and then a fight breaks out. As always happens in this series.
Everyone goes to punch Lychee, but his protective barrier makes them all bounce backwards. There's a bit of gloating from the insane doctor about said barrier, and then everyone punches it slightly harder. This starts to crack the barrier, which causes more Grudge Power or something to flow into the machine. Goku breaks apart Lychee's shield with the world's slowest Kamehameha, and then Vegeta fires a Final Flash at Lychee himself, and that's the end of that.
OR IS IT?
It seems the short battle had a terrible affect on the group of heroes, as once the smoke clears from the Final Flash, they're all horribly deformed, and appear to have miscoloured eyebrows! Truly this must be the effect of
A few seconds later Lychee (or the machine in the voice of Lychee) starts laughing and demands the Grudge Amplification Device absorb his grudge and awaken in its perfect form!
No, but good guess.
The machine gives off, actually, a pretty creepy scream as it starts to shrink and transform. King Kai goes on about how he's seen such a Ki before. Again, never heard that in Dragon Ball before. Back in the fortress, Vegeta smirks and comments about how things just got interesting. Thank god, I've been sitting here for about 20 minutes now either confused or kinda bored.
A giant red demonic/bio-mechanical creature appears in front of the stunned group. The subtitles helpfully point out to us that this is Hatchiyack before he teleports forward and practically OHKO's Vegeta in a single punch. I guess this is meant to be impressive, but this is set in the Cell Saga, where this sort of shit is pretty much Vegeta's sole occupation. Him and Worf would be best of buds if they ever met in a bar.
After Hatchiyack punches everyone else into the distance, Vegeta gets back up and fires a Final Flash at the red monstrosity. There's a lot of smoke and, oh Jesus, this is Dragon Ball. If you honestly don't know what's going to happen next then you've clearly never watched for more than 10 seconds during any Vegeta-based fight.
The smoke clears and it turns out Hatchiyack wasn't phased at all. You may now all proceed to eye-bulge, drop dead, and any and all of the other standard and recommended responses to sheer shock. "I-Impossible.." Vegeta stammers, "My technique!" He's the only one in the room that's shocked by this, clearly.
Vegeta is still blubbering about his Final Flash he charged for all of half a second while Hatchiyack powers up his own attack. Goku screams for Vegeta to get out of the way of Hatchi's Revenge Cannon, but he just stands there and takes it like an idiot. See, Vegeta? This is shit you should probably remember for when you fight Perfect Cell in the futur-Oh, who am I kidding, you're never going to learn, you donk.
Vegeta is knocked out (but still in Super Saiyan form, apparently) as Trunks rushes to his side. Meanwhile, Hatchi is beating the snot out of Gohan and Goku. Piccolo manages to save Gohan from being killed, and now having fulfilled that obligatory action in a Dragon Ball movie, Piccolo is blasted aside and does little else for the rest of the running time. Hurray!
As Hatchi is about to fire another blast, Trunks rushes in and actually managed to do some damage to the monster with a well-timed kick to the face. As Hatchi flies back, Goku notices this and begins to form an extremely dubiously devised plan. He says that Hatchi's, "Ki disappeared while he was defending". Which isn't true, since he was charging an attack, not defending, but whatever.
Gohan and Trunks rush in for an assault, but, of course, get their arses handed to them on a lovely little silver platter. After those two are off eating dust, Goku appears before Hatchiyack and thinks about how he might be even stronger than Broly. So.. he'd still be weaker than the majority of DBZ's mid-to-later villains.
That's right, I went there.
After a short fight, Hatchiyack starts charging up an attack, as Goku starts counting to 15 in his head. I have no idea where he drew the connection between the two, but again, whatever. Right on 15 seconds, Hatchiyack fires an attack, but Goku manages to easily dodge it. In doing this, he calls about Gohan, Trunks and the rest to help. They apparently also figured out the 15 seconds weakness of Hatchiyack. How.. unlikely.
Goku says he'll buy some time and rushes at Hatchiyack. This goes about as well as you'd expect, so not at all. So what is Goku risking his life for his friends to accomplish? Why, so they can all stand around and do absolutely fucking nothing, of course! On one hand, it's pretty stupid of them to do nothing while Goku gets beaten to death before their eyes... but it would have also helped if they formulated a plan before going, "Right! 15 seconds!" and ending that conversation right there and then.
"We can't waste this chance Goku has made for us!" Trunks says, as he lands besides Gohan. Well great start so far, guys.
As Hatchiyack goes to charge up another Revenge Cannon attack thing, Goku yells at everyone to begin charging up their own attacks. Now, y'see, if Hatchiyack were smart or a credible character in any way he'd fire the attack at, say, 10 seconds or something. Or just beat the shit out of everyone without using the attack with the obvious weakspot he knows everyone now knows the flaw of. That was going pretty well for him!
Oh well, anyway, Goku fires up the Kamehameha, Vegeta with the Final Flash, Gohan with the Masenko, Trunks with the.. um.. Burning Attack (I think?), and Piccolo with the Makankosappo. On the count of 15, everyone fires off their now Kamehameha-like attacks (I don't know, just go with it...) and a giant beam struggle ensues. Of course, Hatchiyack ends up losing this fight and is vaporized in the beam. The End!
Actually, it turns out Hatchiyack was apparently a load-bearing villain and the Dark Planet starts to explode. Everyone groups together as Goku teleports them out just before the Dark Planet explodes somewhere in deep space. Wait.. How the fuck did it get there from Earth's atmosphere earlier in the movie? And secondly, if it was out here most of the time, how did Goku manage to find the blasted thing?
Who cares. On Earth, all the machines suddenly explode and everything is returned to normal! Goku and friends suddenly appear/crash in front of Capsule Corp, and the effect of teleportation seems to have had a drastic effect on poor Mr. Piccolo! At the very least, one of this legs is bent in a way that's broken in two or more places. Ouch!
Bulma and her parents show up and congratulate everyone on a jorrrb well done. There's a bit of an amusing moment with Goku, Gohan and Chi-Chi when the boys return home and that's the end of the movie.
Cue credits, bitches!
As you can probably tell, the movie doesn't like explaining how anything actually works. It just says it happens, so you better goddamn buy it! I suppose for a 30 minute run-time that's to be expected, but if you know you only have that much time to get across this sort of thing, then proper planning and writing can make a world of difference. The problem here is that instead of doing a retelling of the 60 minute OVA/Guide they seem to have just taken the script from it, cut it in half and gone, "Eh, good enough."
As a Dragon Ball movie, I'd say it's functional, and occasionally pretty to look at, but doesn't do anything specifically worth remembering. There's worse movies out there (4, 11 and the original OVA/Guide come to immediate thought), but there's a lot better. Just taking Hatchiyack as a character and making a completely new story that fits the 30 minute time-frame would have probably made this a lot more enjoyable.
Nothing really bad about it, but nothing good either. It came free with a game I was going to buy anyway, so I got more than what I paid for. So there's that.
As for Raging Blast 2, I think I've covered my thoughts on it. I think it's quite fun, a few flaws in Galaxy Mode aside, and if you're a fan of Spike's games then definitely pick it up. If not, then I guess we get to see what happens to the series next year!
As much as I do enjoy these games, I think Raging Blast 2 shows that Spike has done pretty much all they can with the series. Online was really the last big step this particular series could go in, and RB2 and other potential sequels can really do nothing but tweak things here and there and add even more obscure characters. I like it, but I do think it's time for another developer to give the franchise an honest crack.
Like Kojima and the Zone of the Enders team!
I can dream, can't I?
I can dream...
Credit for the above clips featured here goes to whoever the buggery decided to upload them onto the wacky ol' Internets. Thanks!
Typing small is fun. Wheeee!
