The Budokai Tenkaichi series debuts onto next gen consoles with Dragon Ball: Raging Blast. The last game in this series to be seen was Dragon Ball Z Budokai: Tenkaichi 3 released on Playstation 2 & Nintendo Wii.

In the past the series has progressed with every installment, but with Raging Blast it’s gone two steps back. In a fighting game the core mechanics have to be smooth and consistent and this year’s installment is missing both of these factors.

First and foremost I have to mention the flaws, one of them being a delayed reaction in carrying out moves. You could have the fastest trigger finger in the world but you’ll never execute a sequence of moves as fast as your tapping.

In a fighting game the pace at which you tap the face buttons is vital and when there’s a delayed transaction from your controller to carrying out a move you’ve got a serious problem.

After playing a couple of matches, my hands started to strain and that’s not cool. Putting double the effort in such a fighting game is very uncomfortable and none the less unpleasant. 

The camera angle is seriously flawed in this game, if your opponent is above or below your position you can’t see them. In the past a caption would appear on screen signifying your opponent’s position, but now there’s no such thing. The only way to figure out their location is by pressing the dash button (X button pressed twice), which leads you right to them.

For players who are new to the series there is an in depth tutorial mode or Dojo as the game calls it. A hesitation you may come across in this mode is the fact that’s there’s a lot of text to be read and lots of boring repetitive dialogue.

Reversing is more challenging now as the timing for reversals are lot faster. To make matters worse whenever an opponent does the same move as you a mini game automatically initiates without warning. The problem is that the computer will always have the upper hand and before you know it you’ve lost.

Dragon battle collection is probably where you’re going to spend most of your time. The battles in this mode are mostly taken from the Dragon Ball Z anime.  What’s more the developers have also catered for the fans this time; with a few ‘what if’ battle scenarios whereby the fabled Vegeta Super Saiyan 3 is brought to life as well as other surprises.

What’s amazing is how the franchise always manages to promote each installment as new, when they always implement the same battle scenarios in each installment. The ‘what if’ scenarios is the freshest idea seen for years in the series.

Other than that Raging Blast still keeps the usual modes such as world tournament and the not so long lasting survival mode. Online works at a steady frame rate, the only problem you’ll find is people tend to use the same characters and combos over and over again. Often enough you’ll find that if you keep using the same repetitive moves your opponent will exit the match. 

If there’s one thing many developers don’t support in PS3 games its playing music whilst you’re gaming via the XMB (Cross Media Bar). For players who enjoy listening to their favourite tracks while playing video games, Raging Blast is one of the few PS3 titles that support this feature.

Raging Blast is quite a package with over 60 characters and enough modes to keep the most uptight fan content. Then again with the awkward camera angle and poor fighting mechanics I find it difficult to recommend to anybody, let alone Dragon Ball fans. It would come as no surprise if Raging Blast gathers dust next to Tekken 6 this Christmas.

6/10