It might be safe to say that the team behind Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 just stopped trying at some point. While the first Raging Blast wasn’t the worst game based on the wildly successful Dragon Ball franchise, it certainly wasn’t the best either. Raging Blast 2 is pretty much more of the same, minus content that actually made the first even a little worthwhile.
Let’s get the good points out of the way first and foremost. The presentation is very well done. The game looks amazing, and the very flashy ultimate attacks performed by each character are incredibly well executed. While the first Raging Blast looked great as well, this game looks a bit more polished altogether. Environments are nice and simple, the interface as a whole is much cleaner, and the sound quality is probably the best you’ll find in a Dragon Ball game.
The controls work well, allowing you to perform the most basic attacks and the super and ultimate attacks with relative ease. There isn’t as much of a steep learning curve as there was in the first game, but I also found that I could really just button mash my way through a lot of the fights. There is no strategy or depth involved here. Any match, whether it is against an A.I. or human opponent, boils down to who can pull off their ultimate moves first. Everything else is as basic as it can get.
The camera is pretty troublesome. When battles get hectic, you will often find yourself fighting the camera more than your opponent. And this is where I get a sense of déjà-vu as I find that this problem was just as persistent here as it was in the original. Considering the team has added practically nothing really new to this game, you would think they would at least tighten up what is already present.
The story mode is completely gone, as is any real trace of story in general. The two main single player modes are Galaxy Mode and Battle Zone, both of which are pretty similar. Galaxy Mode has you choosing a character and fighting a bunch of opponents in a row while unlocking completely pointless things like pictures from the anime.
You can play through this mode with each character, but there is absolutely no reason to do so. There is no story here, just a bunch of battles poorly strung together. Battle Zone is basically the same thing, except it’s the same for every character you can select. You are allowed to customize your character and it will come into play in this mode, but customization is absolutely pointless and really adds nothing to the core gameplay.
Online multiplayer is there and it works, but good luck trying to find anyone to play against. There is local multiplayer, a training mode, and some pretty helpful tutorials, but that about sums up everything in Raging Blast 2. The fact that this is being passed off as a full retail product is pretty bad when it doesn’t even contain half of the content from the first, but all of the problems.
Raging Blast 2 is not a good game. It looks very nice, but at the same time it’s unfinished, shallow, and an insult to a series that many people love. This is nothing more than a cheap cash-in, a game that even the most diehard fans of the anime would scoff at. Avoid at all costs.
Pros: Gorgeous visuals; the game is functional, but nothing more
Cons: Awful camera; lackluster fighting system; not a lot of content or value found here; this is just more of the same from the first game, minus some content
