Dragonball Final Bout

	DRAGONBALL FINAL BOUT SLPS 00949 Copyright © 1997 Bird Studio / Shueisha - Fuji TV - Toei Animation, Bandai Sony Playstation, 2 players Now available in Japan Available in U.S. November 1997 ¥5800 — by Joseph Lee		This much-anticipated and hyped game from Bandai has finally arrived. This is the third installment of Dragonball games on the Sony Playstation by Bandai following DRAGONBALL Z ULTIMATE BATTLE 22 (27) and DRAGONBALL Z LEGENDS; not counting the numerous ones already existing on the SNES and Saturn systems. First named DRAGONBALL GT to parallel the anime series currently being shown by Fuji TV in Japan, the name changed at the last moment probably because of the lack of the majority of characters from DRAGONBALL GT, and the inclusion of some very specific Z characters for fighting purposes. The opening FMV is animated by the DRAGONBALL GT (DBGT) TV series crew, so it is very nice, and there are no fake-looking graphics as in DBZ UB 22. Music is done by the same group that did the Cha-la Head-cha-la music of DRAGONBALL Z and is great.. The game is a 3D-ish 2-person fighting game. Players fight in a plane that stretches vertically from the ground up to a game-limited height in the sky. Backgrounds are real 3D backgrounds that rotates around as a fight progresses. It's 3D-ish because fighting remains in a 2D plane (left-right/up-down) with minimal side-stepping ability. Nevertheless, the addition of a up-down direction to the standard left-right/jump 2-d fighting formula makes game play interesting. There's a health bar, and a psionic power stored bar which are self-explanatory. Characters can punch, kick, block, and throw mini ki-balls. Dash to move left/right/up/down. Dash is very useful considering how slow the characters move when walking/floating. Also included are move up and move down attacks, quick get-up, and roll to the side as you get up. Carried over from LEGENDS is the Meteor Smash combo attack system, where a character can initiate an automatic, super-fast, chainable, multi-hit cheese combo. Meteor smashes differentiate between punch, kick, and throw power-blast combos, which are selected at the end of the previous Meteor combo. Super ki-blasts end the combo chains, and chains link up to 10. Meteors are difficult to reverse, and just as hard to break (at least the computer's), but can be turned off in the options. The big sprite/polygon super ki-blasts are back as it was in the SNES games.. They made characters' characteristic super ki-blasts very impressive, but have seemingly little effect now in DBFB; characters take a step back when hit instead of being knocked into next week by Gokuu's Kamehameha. One can defend from a super ki-blast by batting it away, ki-shielding for half-damage, or challenging back with a super ki-blast. The last option was quite popular in the SNES games where players would furiously pound their buttons to see who would win the super ki-blast push war, and the excitement remains in FINAL BOUT. A small window (indicated by text flashing on screen) is the time the receiving player gets to respond to the super ki-blast. It is, however, strange to see time freeze as the opposing character takes all the time in the world to charge up for a return ki-blast. Overall, the fighting is very pretty to look at when it starts playing the Meteor, super-ki, attack-combo sequences, but fighting response just isn't there. Walking takes forever so you must dash to get anywhere. Punches/kicks/jumps all have large post-lag times, and push the hit character back quite a distance, making multi-hit combos difficult. Fighting is mostly a button-mashing fest, punctuated by lots of dashing, super ki-blasts, and attack-specials. Blocking is a joke most of the time. Turning around takes so long (much like GCentury) that it seems better to dash away instead. In short, this game is not for the strategic-fight type of player but fine for DB fans and button-mashers. Selectable characters include Son Gokuu (GT, big), Pan, Gokuu (GT, small), Trunks (GT), Super Saiyajin (SSJ) Vejiita, Gohan (Z), Perfect Cell, True Buu (Z), Freezer, and Piccolo. Unless specified, characters come from either DRAGONBALL Z (Z) or DRAGONBALL GT (GT).
			Hidden characters are SSJ Gokuu (Z), SSJ Gokuu (GT, big), SSJ Future Trunks (Z), SSJ Vegiito (Z), SSJ4 Gokuu (GT), SSJ GT Gokuu (GT, small), and SSJ Trunks (GT). The unplayable boss character is Super Oozaru (Were-Monkey) Bebi from DBGT. Strangely, with the small subset of some of the most powerful characters in Dragonball history, the differing power-levels have absolutely no effect on game play and individual strength/stamina. Everybody plays the same, albeit with different fighting techniques, specials, and super ki-blasts. However, the size of the transparent, rotating 3D-poly models seen when ki-charging actually reflect in size the known power-level of the charging character (i.e. SSJ4 Gokuu has a very large poly model compared to Pan's or most others). There are 4 main options for the game: 2-player battle, 8-player tournament battle, training build-up mode, and options with a practice option. Two player mode is the standard play - through - random - bunch - of - opponents - to - reach - boss, who is Bebi here. Beating Bebi with almost perfect health lets you challenge SSJ4 Goku. Winning against each hidden character makes them selectable (except for Bebi). Selected characters talk to each other as the match loads, which is properly distracting and cute. The 8-player tournament is a 3-tiered-levels of 2-player elimination matches. These 8 players can be either computer or a real human. Build-mode training is the same idea as DBZ UB 22 where one builds up and saves particular character's attack power, stamina, speed, and other strengths. The difference in FINAL BOUT is that you can build up individual strengths separately such as doing power blasts, or kicking, punching, etc. Once you've build a strong character, challenge your friend's built-up character for more fun. Graphically, the game has the gouraud 30fps polygon models of the specific characters pretty much on the mark. Technically, the models are pretty bad when compared to others, with visible joints everywhere, and a blocky look. The only place to see Akira Toriyama's character designs respectably in 3D seems to be TOBAL. Backgrounds here are nice with varied terrains, and various animated extras such as lightning. The super-ki blasts are very nice. Music is very well composed in the characteristic vein of previous Dragonball music--strong on riffs from the guitar, synths, etc, in a traditional Chinese/Asian meets Western stage/classical/rock style. Each AD-PCM (non-cd player compatible) track is tailored for its particular background. A cut above all previous Dragonball game music. Sound seems to be sampled or taken directly from the original sources. Ki-charging, doing the super ki-blasts, the FMV, the original DBZ music group, voices, exclamations, etc. It definitely gives that anime feel. In summary, FINAL BOUT is a decent installment in a long line of games. Although it is very pretty to look at and has moving music, the game play needs some serious work. Game play drives the rating down, but the nice graphics and music/sound raise them a little. Pretty typical of a Bandai game. The US release is scheduled for November 1997 with dubbed voices, and FUNimation music, but one would wonders how they would explain the new GT characters, and why won't they use the English lyric versions of the songs the original DBZ music group had done. Rating: (out of 4)**