Good multiplayer game, great for anime fans and otakus!
Graphics:
7
the graphics on this game are decent, nothing real special, the characters arn't too detailed and the backgrounds are simple but nice. Graphics dont make the game though...
Sound:
9
Actual sound effects are just what you'd expect from a fighting game, pretty good but nothing memorable, the music is nice, some of it really fits in and you can tell which of the 3 animes its from, other music is kinda dull and tedious. But you won't have to worry about that too much because most of the time you'll be listening to the burst mode music (burst mode is when your character becomes extra powerful and allows you to kill everyone else, hehe...) which is alright but can get very tedious after a while. One good thing is the voice overs, which are the orginal japanese voices (if you've compared original animes against dubs this information should greatly relieve you) and sound just right. Nothing more nostalgic than hearing goku shout kamehameha or naruto yelling raisengan, or luffy's gomu gomu no pistol... you get the point.
Gameplay:
8
The gameplay in this game is VERY similar to the super smash brothers series, which works out quite well for a 4 player match up. The characters all move at roughly the same speed and jump at the same height (a few exceptions...) and the controls can feel a bit stiff at times, but the feeling passes quite quickly. The characters are varied (thank god, I'm sick of anime fighters where all the characters are practically the same) and fairly balanced. Anyone who's knows about these 3 animes would expect the characters from these 3 series to be quite unbalanced but luckily they all have their pro's and con's. Generally I've found that the naruto characters are good for close range fighting and have good techs, all the DBZ chars have at least one ranged attack and some more and are quite elusive, and the one piece characters are all a bit of a mix. My opinion would be that most of the naruto characters are slightly better, but its close either way. Another cool little feature is that the DBZ chars can fly! well not really... they can do an airdash thing, which can be quite useful but isnt much of an advantage, the naruto characters can all do a wall-jump (or can stick to the wall for a few seconds) but the one piece characters dont have anything unique, but it dosnt really make a difference.
The single player mode can get a bit boring and its really quick and easy to finish (which is a good thing because you'll need to do it lots of times to unlock stuff) the only really bad thing I can say about this game is the unlocking method, to unlock more characters and levels you need to do some slot machine which is very annoying, but it you keep at it it should only take a few hours to do... there's also a time attack and survival mode for a bit of variety, a practice mode, and a gallery which is all in japanese so unless you can speak it there's not much in it for you.
The real fun is in multiplayer, its great, allowing fast fun matches with up to four players, you can have teams and stuff or just go free for all, and there's lots of different options you can change, but you need special cards for those, but you get them heaps in the slot machine whilst trying to unlock all the other stuff so you wont need to go out of your way for that.
value:
7
single player will get boring after a while, not much you can do about that...
you wont really be spending hours perfecting your skills cause its all pretty simple and basic.
But the multiplayer aspect will draw you back again and again, espically if your friends are all anime fan boys/girls that argue over which anime's or characters are better.
All in all this game is really cool, especially if your into those 3 anime series, its a satisfying play on your own and great fun for multiplayer. if you've got friends with game cubes or 3-4 controllers, and a freeloader (to play imported games) then get it. otherwise you can just sit here dreaming about how cool it would be to play it.
thanks for reading