Ever wanted to punch someone through a 12 story building?
Many, and I mean many, attempts were made to replicate the action in the form of video games. The Tenkaichi series was the first to successfully deliver Dragon Ball style fighting down to the last round house kick. Infact, some argue that the fighting seen in the video game is more exciting then most scenes in the show, however, I leave that opinion to you.
One problem lingers in the wake of the Tenkaichi series. If you have never seen the show, you will not understand the story, at all. The Tenkaichi series is infamous for its lackluster story mode. It endlessly skips important scenes and is very choppy, if you're familiar with the Buu Saga from the show, they actually skipped a laughable amount of episodes in one of the fights. I'm estimating it could be somewhere between 40-80 episodes that they skipped in two fights. They go from Majin Vegeta killing himself in an attempt to stop Majin Buu, to you fighting Evil Buu after he absorbs Gohan, as Vegito. Yeah, there's no gap between those two fights, not even an SSJ3 Gotenks Versus Evil Buu. I looked at the screen in bewilderment, for a time I HONESTLY thought that I accidentally skipped 10 fights or thought that some of the fights were hiding from me. Anyways, The story begins when the main character, Goku, finds his son kidnapped by an evil member of an alien race, the Sayans. He proclaims himself as Radditz, Goku's brother. As you brawl your way through the unforgiving, laughably bad story, in which you can finish in roughly 7-10 hours, you'll encounter opponents that seem to be the strongest entities in the universe, only to find that they pale in comparison to the next enemy, and your character will power up and reach new heights of power in order to save the planet, and it goes on like that for a few sagas. Worst of all, voice actors sound bored out of there mind and simply want their paycheck so they can leave. Honestly, a score of 7.5 might be too high, but that's up for you to decide.
That's where the ace comes in. The only thing that saves this game from its terrible story mode, is its gameplay. There are so many ways you start and end a fight, it's mind boggling. You can rush them and give them a quick flurry of blows. You can mix in siganture techniques, stuns, gutbusters, aerial barrages, grapples. The newest addition to the series being that, depending on your character, you can launch a premature energy wave in the middle of your melee combo to send them back. You can Punch them so hard they'll fly a quarter mile. You can punch them a quarter mile, fly at their helpless ragdoll like body, Kick them straight up into the sky, teleport behind them, and hammer them straight torwards the ground, and teleport right above them and smash there face into the ground as they decend torwards it. The brawls are simply endless. All characters have 2 special abilities, called Blast 1's, that require a set amount of 'blast charges' to be used. Blast 1's generally aren't offensive techniques, rather they are defensive. They can range from a small heal, to a defensive energy barrier, to power raising buffs, and more. All Characters also have two special attacks called Blast 2's, in which a set amount of 'Ki' or 'energy' is needed to use them. Ki is accumlated by holding down L2, the character is vulnerable while charging his ki, so players need to be careful when deciding when they're going to charge there ki. Blast 2's range from Full power energy waves, to oversized energy balls, to high speed rushes of melee, to explosive barriers of energy, and more. The real fun however, begins when characters continue holding L2 after they have the maximum amount of Ki, and have an available blast charge. Players Go into max power mode which lasts roughly 15 seconds or so (players can increase this number using ingame equips). In Max power mode, players gain a large amount of abilities normally not accessible. There are endless possibilities when it comes to destroying your enemy in this mode. Finally, there is the ultimate blast, which is the characters single most devastating techinique. It is only accessible in Max power mode. Ultimate blasts are the same as blast 2's in terms of what they can be, but they cause much more damage. To make things more interesting for advance players, players are given the potential to dodge every source of damage delivered at them. Normal rush moves can be blocked and easily countered with the press of a button, energy blasts can be deflected, focused players can easily deflect a grapple, and all blast 2's and ultimates can be dodged with correct timing, or simply by flying away. It's not easy, but you could potentially block or evade every thing thrown at you, so when two advance players meet in battle, it's a battle of wits and tricks, advance players will need to use fakes and bluffs in order to win.
With each character having 2 Blast 1's, 2 Blast 2's, one Ultimate Blast, there own signature techniques and unique movesets in melee fighting, and over 160 characters, you can only imagine the possibilites. On top of that, there are a large number of equips to modify your characters abilities. These range from simple stat boosts, to ability changes such as giving characters that did not originally possess flight, the ability to fly, the ability to resist stuns, halving energy requirements, and much much more. Fans of the series will find it appealing as they try as hard as they can to perfect their devastating combos to make it look as "Dragon Ball" like as they can, as it's always surprisingly satisfying to start a combo with a few simple punches and kicks, and drag it out with a relentless barrage of blows that accelerate your opposition into destructible enviroments, and end it with finesse as you see your enemy fly away helplessly, only to be caught in one of your powerful energy waves. This is a MUST for any fan of the series that tires of watching the show, only to find that for an entire episode, characters "power up and talk smack".