Right in the middle of Toon Week, and we’re going to look at a game based on one of the most popular Japanese anime cartoons of all time: Dragon Ball Z! The newest game based on the popular animated series: Extreme Butoden, is now available on the 3DS from Namco Bandai!  It’s a 2-D, one-on-one fighter from Arc System Works, makers of other great 2-D fighters like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear!

Like other 2-D fighters, you’ll use punches, kicks, and special attacks such as fireballs and beams to whittle down your opponents energy. Use button and joystick combos to perform special moves, but they managed to keep things pretty simple, which is fine by me since I’m not the best at fighting games.  Choose from characters like Goku and Vegeta, as well as their Super Saiyan forms, plus other characters like Gohan, Android 18, and many, many more!  You can also unlock and use Assist Characters.  These are minor characters who can pop in for a bit to distract the other player, nab a few hits, or power-up your character.  Some of the Assist Characters include Bulma, Chi-Chi, and Oolong, as well as my two favorite Dragon Ball characters: Puar and the Turtle!  You can switch characters and activate Assists by using the touch screen, but be careful as you can only fit a certain number of fighters and Assists down there, and must wait for them to charge back up once you use them.

There are several modes of play. In Z Story, you’ll go through the main sagas of Dragon Ball Z and defeat all of Goku’s rivals in all the story arcs.  This is great if you don’t know the story of DBZ, but don’t want to sit through the cartoon where they spend most of the time training and powering themselves up.  Once you beat Z Story, you’ll unlock a few more modes, including the chance to play as other characters in Z Story and see their side of things.

One of the other modes you unlock after beating Z Story once is Adventure Mode. Here you’ll encounter a brand new story where a dark dragon mixes up time and space, and Goku and friends must defeat all their old enemies again!  You’ll travel across maps on 8 areas, defeating opponents along the way.  If you meet certain requirements, you can even earn money or unlock one of the many Assist Characters.  Only problem is that you have to perform certain combos and get a good ranking, so it can be pretty difficult to do that at times.

After you beat Adventure Mode, you’ll unlock the Extreme World Tournament, where you can compete in super challenging battles. You can also go at it in Versus Mode with any characters you’ve unlocked, and even fight online, too!  There is also a Quest Mode where you can trade cards via StreetPass, and view artwork and bios in the gallery.

Needless to say, this DBZ game packs a lot of content! The only problem I had with this game is that you have to play through modes to unlock most of it, and that can take a while.  Plus it was hard to unlock some of the Assist characters.  Luckily you can set the general difficulty, so if you’re not good at fighting games (like me), you won’t have any trouble just playing through at least.  Dragon Ball Z fans and people who enjoy 2-D fighters (there aren’t that many 2-D fighters on the 3DS, are there?) should definitely look into getting this one.

Kid Factor:

Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden is rated T for Teen with an ESRB descriptor of Cartoon Violence. It is a fighting game, so it’s all about punching and kicking your opponent, as well as knocking them down with fireballs and lasers. But if you’re OK with your kids watching the cartoon, they’ll be OK with this game, too.  Reading skill is needed for all the text, though.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television