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DragonBall Z: Sagas 
Release date: 22 Mar 2005
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Mygamer review
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Kame-hame-I want my money back
Whatever credibility DBZ games gained from Budokai 3, Dragon Ball Z Sagas effortlessly destroyed. Sagas sets the entire industry back at least ten years. Take away pressure-sensitive controls, transition animations, camera control, and the cel-shaded goodness that we've come to expect from Budokai, and what you have left is Dragon Ball Z Sagas for PlayStation 2.
Gameplay is divided into chapters covering everything from the Saiyan through Cell sagas. Camera movement occurs automatically at certain points, meaning that backtracking is difficult and enemies frequently can't be seen, so you don't know when they are attacking. Lack of pressure-sensitivity means that an increase in speed is dependent on time; you start out slow whether you're on foot or in the air, and eventually you gain speed. All levels are full of invisible collision-blocking passage to what looks like reachable areas, and your character freezes in mid-animation when you reach one of these environmental barriers. The tutorial takes place on Kami's Lookout, half of which is blocked by invisible barriers. As you acquaint yourself with the gameplay, it doesn't take long to notice the pixilated character shadows and lack of transition animations associated with basic punches and kicks. The ability to "fly" is a nuisance due to the severe height limitation. Items such as Health capsules, Ki capsules, and Z coins are often beyond your reach, forcing you to backtrack to a higher point or forward track to a higher point and then backtrack in midair to try and grab the items you need. This can be more frustrating than a boss fight and the flying effects sound like jet engines. Not all sounds are sampled from the show as with Budokai 3.
With Z coins you can purchase skill upgrades which carry over to any character you use. Ki upgrades include Flight Speed and Teleport, which allows you to appear behind enemies that are nearby. Combos are available for purchase as well as Melee abilities including Throw and "Finishers," which is simply a combo strike modifier. After one play-through you will have purchased just about everything, eliminating any need to collect coins in subsequent play-throughs if you ever play again. Health and Ki bars are lengthened by picking up their respective capsules. Each character has one signature Special Move that can be purchased at upgrade stations. When you purchase the Special Move for Goku you can use kamehameha by holding down the Ki button. You need only purchase the Special Move once, as your skills and stats carry over regardless of which character you use. Special moves use the same amount of Ki regardless of how long they are charged and only part of the attack is called if you fire it quickly; a quick kamehameha will have Goku shouting only "Ka!" Somehow Vegeta, the prince of all ventriloquists, manages to say "Galick gun" and scream at the same time.
The combat in Sagas is an avalanche of suckiness. Even after purchasing the recovery time upgrade, recovery times after taking damage or attacking an enemy seem to last forever. You are bombarded by energy attacks from numerous enemies while trying to focus on one and even after a teleport, enemies frequently maintain the upper hand and attack you the moment you appear behind them - especially when training in the hyperbolic time chamber. The Combo Breaker, whose description reads, "Break out of any enemy combo attack" either doesn't work properly or isn't adequately explained and for player combos to work, buttons must be pressed at exactly the right speed. When a camera change occurs it is sudden and frequently pulls back so far that it's difficult to see and explosions further reduce visibility. Many enemy attacks seem inescapable and appear out of nowhere. One of the attacks Vegeta uses against Goku is a giant ball of energy that appears without warning and follows Goku while nearly turning the entire screen white, again reducing visibility. When the blast hits, you can't escape even with a teleport - a property found in many boss attacks. Vegeta's A.I. is repetitive and you'll hear "Galick Gun, da!" over and over again as Vegeta repeats this single attack.
To transform, you must fill the Super Saiyan (SSJ) meter by successfully landing melee attacks; this takes almost an entire chapter to accomplish. When you finally fill the meter and transform, the meter rapidly depletes and to maintain the transformation you must constantly perform melee attacks. Save transformations for boss fights because they are damn near impossible to maintain, especially Gohan's SSJ2, which is literally twice as difficult. First you must become a SSJ, then you can begin filling the SSJ2 meter; you can't fill them both and then transform all at once. In most cases, by the time a character is ready to transform there are no enemies left to melee and maintain said transformation. Furthermore, transformations don't increase your speed. The audio associated with Ki-charging animations plays for the same amount of time regardless of how long you are powering up; if you stop right away the full sound file continues playing while you continue about your business. Everyone including the androids have yellow aura even prior to a SSJ transformation (androids don't have aura).
Dragon Ball Z Sagas is completely broken. In Chapter 2 there are at least four locations where the camera passes through rock formations, one of which even lacked collision and allowed Gohan to waltz right through it. Two years of experience says that there is no possible way they missed this in beta. At one point in this same chapter Gohan even disappeared into the ground. When Gohan finally approached Nappa to initiate the boss fight, nothing happened. I was forced to quit out and start again, losing all upgrades purchased on that level. Between chapters are cartoon segments ripped directly from the show, which later appear in the "Extras" menu after completing a play-through. There is only a handful of in-engine cutscenes throughout the story, and the intro cartoon at the beginning of the game was quite obviously drawn for Sagas, seeing as how it bears only a passing likeness to Akira Toriyama's original artwork. If you've seen the show, you've seen the story sequences. This half-assed cartoon footage occasionally cuts off dialogue at the end of a chapter, leaving the last syllable of a sentence to play after the footage is over. A CRASH was encountered during the cartoon after defeating Captain Ginyu and, in classic Atari style, Cell has the wrong voice during a cartoon sequence. After the final cartoon at the end, gameplay reappears for a split second prior to the credits.
You don't have to be a fan boy to catch some of the gaps in story progression. After a cartoon of SSJ Vegeta fighting Android 18, when you return to gameplay Vegeta is back to his normal state and by the time he melees his way to a full SSJ meter the fight is almost over. He also wears the wrong outfit in the latter half of the Ginyu saga and there is a cartoon of Gohan transforming into an ascended Saiyan (SSJ2) and destroying the Cell Jr.'s…but then you fight Cell back at SSJ1.
It gets worse…
Many missions make no sense whatsoever. As Vegeta hunts down Cell, he fights Saibamen along the way, even though on the previous missions he was fighting prototype androids. Granted, these prototype androids weren't in the show, but you need somebody to fight and it makes sense for the sake of gameplay. Saibamen on the other hand were a weapon Vegeta used at the beginning of the game and they have no business appearing this far into the story. When playing as Trunks in the future, before you can travel back through time you have to obtain the heart virus antidote that will save Goku's life. While on his way to confront Android 17, Trunks randomly finds the antidote sitting in the backseat of a car on an abandoned city street. Wait, what?
If you have the tenacity to complete a play-through it will unlock all of the characters, even the ones who don't appear in the story and offer no explanation as to why they are there. Pendulum Mode becomes available which lets you select any character and any chapter from the story mode for one or two players co-op. Each main character has numerous outfits to choose from but only one of teen Gohan's outfits allows for SSJ2 and another CRASH was encountered here while loading the game. Sagas offers little to nothing, and authentic voice acting and destructible environments isn't enough to counter-balance disgusting character models and code written with an Etch-A-Sketch. With Dragon Ball Z Sagas, Atari answers the age-old question of why there has never been a DBZ action game. Do not buy Sagas. Do not rent Sagas. Don't even tell anyone you read this far.
Review by Dave Kaplan on 29 Mar 2005
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