by:	March 29, 2005

The fighting system is very poorly put together and gets so unbelievably repetitive and tiring that it will probably make you mad. Sure there are some cool upgrades you can buy for your characters (which you don’t get to choose by the way) such as a cool roundhouse kick, a powerful uppercut combo and a teleport technique where you can teleport to a locked on enemy from the other side of the level. You can also fly which is pretty cool because you can still attack from the air and it doesn’t use up any energy you have stored. The combo system itself is pretty lame mainly because each combo is just the same thing only there are shortened and extended versions of it. You can purchase the first combo for so many Z Coins that allows a 3-4 hit combo and then when you purchase the next combo it allows for a 4-5 hit combo with same basic pattern but only adding one more punch or one more kick into it.

Graphics
The entire visual presentation is actually very stunning. Dragonball Z: Sagas takes on the same appeal and looks exactly like the Dragonball Z anime…and I mean perfectly. The graphics have sort of a cell-shaded/real 3-d model look to them making the character models, enemies and environments look exactly like the anime. I cannot stress enough how amazingly dead on the graphics are onto the anime but I can say that when I was playing the game, I easily got a sense of actually being in the Dragonball Z universe. While the character models are dead on with the anime, the environments are too but they lack somewhat through the overall game. There are a lot of repeated textures and duplicated objects throughout each and every level. For example, in the Androids Saga when you are in the city fighting androids, while running down the street (or flying) you will pass the same looking car, benches, trees and buildings over and over again. Not to say that they don’t look good, but the fact that they were used over and over again within one level drastically takes away from the overall appeal.

Sound
Not really too much can be said about the sound because not once did I actually ever hear any music actually being played in the background. From time to time when your character wasn’t making little remarks while fighting enemies or battles weren’t going on, you could briefly hear a little theme music in the background. However, very disturbingly, this music was not any music from the Dragonball Z series whatsoever. If you listen hard enough you can tell that it sounds a lot like the DBZ music heard in the anime, but normally it is so low and mellow it can’t even be heard. Also, there are no fast paced, rock guitar songs that get you pumped for boss battles or fights like there are in the anime. The voice acting is amazing because the same voice actors in the anime have come to do voices for the game as well. Between each level there is a video from the anime that sums up the story so far explaining what has just happened in the story (the mission you just did) and what is about to happen (your next mission). The voice over for this is the same guy who does the voice over for the beginning and end of the Dragonball Z anime where he describes the past episode at the start and the next episode at the end. Though during these short movies, this announcer tends to speak very loudly and very quickly not really taking any breaths in between sentences. After a while it starts to get irritating and if you already know the story you may just want to put it on mute until he’s done talking.

Overall, Dragonball Z: Sagas is not a very good game mainly due to the fact that the gameplay, sound and length of the game are so horrible. But if you are true, hardcore fan of Dragonball Z than you will most likely, absolutely love this game because of how dedicated the game is to the anime it came from. There are a few extras to unlock after you beat the game, which of course are automatically unlocked after you beat the Cell Saga. There is nothing special at all about the extras except being able to use any character you want on any stage in the game. Now when I mean any character I mean any character! There are about 5 different versions of each character you can play with each having their own look and some being stronger than others, ex: Goku compared to Super Saiyan Goku. There are also 2 hidden characters you normally couldn’t play with but I will not mention who they are, but I will say that it is really cool to be one of these characters.

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The first Dragonball game on Xbox isn't a bad game, but it is no where near a good game...unless you are a true Dragonball Z fan. If you're not, well then you are going to have alot to complain about in this weak representation of an action/adventure game. Dragonball Z: Sagas looks very promising but looks can be decieving, very decieving. The graphics match the anime perfectly easily making the game look so much better than it actually is. Don't be fooled by the amazing graphics, because in reality, Dragonball Z: Sagas is only a game for the true, hardcore fans...and absolutely no one else.

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