Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 boasts 90 playable characters @ E3 2010

Written by Alex Roth  on June 19, 2010

Hands-On Preview: So how many different Gokus will that mean?

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At Namco Bandai's E3 booth I got to check out the latest fighting game based on the venerable anime series. As soon as my hands were on the Xbox 360 controller, they were bragging that the game would have ninety playable characters, twenty of whom which hadn't appeared in the previous Raging Blast game. The characters I was able to choose from in the demo (and their transformation forms) included Bardock, Broly (Legendary Super Saiyan Broly), Cell (Perfect Cell), Dodoria, Frieiza First Form (Full Power Frieza), Future Trunks (Super Saiyan Future Trunks) Goku (Super Saiyan Goku, Goku Super Saiyan 3), Kid Buu, Vegeta (Super Saiyan Vegeta) and Krillin.




I took Krillin for a whirl against Bardok on the planet Namek. Like most DB games, battle began on the ground, but often ended up above the rolling hills or in one of the planet's green lakes. I took pleasure in blasting my enemy clear though a mountain, reducing it to gravel. The destructible arenas were especially fun indoors. As Goku I fought Vegeta on Master Roshi's front lawn, but soon we were in his kitchen, acting like bulls in a china shop.



Unfortunately, the combat really hasn't changed at all. Movement, blocking, physical and energy attacks all felt like the Budokai games I played nearly a decade ago. The attack animations were nothing new either, hopefully these twenty new characters we've been promised will have something new and shiny up their sleeves.

At least the graphics were sharp; it's easily the best looking cell-shaded game I've played to date. They've done a really fine job of capturing the look of the show, especially the murky green underwater battles, the watercolor blue skies, and the rolling green hills of Namek. If you haven't picked up a DB game in while, you might want to check this one out when it drops in November. If you bought the last Raging Blast, you may want to rent this one first.