Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is yet another all-series encompassing fighting game following Goku and friends from the days of Raditz's appearance on Earth to the fall of Kid Buu and all of the major events in between. This time though, not only has Namco/Bandai taken control of the reigns, but instead of trying to build upon the long-standing Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi ATARI lines, Raging Blast tries to reinvent the controls and feel of the game.

The game looks exactly as you would expect, especially for those players who have taken on many of the other DBZ fighters out there. All of the characters are cel-shaded and bear a striking resemblance to their anime counterparts, and the locations also feel like the various places that the series took place in. The other major aspect to every Dragon Ball game's visual style is the special moves and how well they resemble what was shown in the TV series, and here again, the game's presentation doesn't let the fans down as both major and minor moves seem pretty well depicted in this title.

From the sound side of things, Raging Blast seems to have gotten the old crew back together yet again to take on their former roles and play through the series' various sagas since everyone from Goku, to Piccolo, Frieza and even minor characters like Bardock and the androids sound like they are done by the same actors as before.

Unfortunately, there are two major flaws in Raging Blast that makes it's faithful recreation of the anime series's visual and audio feel all but worthless. One is the game's actual fighting/control system (more on that later), and the other is the horrible camera. I can't tell you how many times the enemy has flown straight up into the air, and the camera's attempt to adjust itself so it could see both me and the opponent left both of us out of frame. If that didn't happen, then the camera was so close to my character, that I still couldn't see anything, and the only hope I had was to attempt to dash towards the enemy in the hopes that I would see him or her before they could counter my blind assault. This aspect alone makes the game all but unplayable.

Like pretty much any game associated with the Dragon Ball license, Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is a fighting game. The main thrust of the game is to work your way through the many battles in the story mode, Dragon Ball Collection. As many fans of the series, and their related games, can no doubt tell any reader out there, these games don't really do a lot in conveying the actual story that takes our heroes from one battle to the next. With the exception of Budokai 3 which used a pretty intuitive gameboard system to play everything out, most of the details of the series are lost as they just give brief and flimsy excuses to start up yet another high impact and seizer-risking flashy fight. Here, all of the show's sagas are crammed together, and while every high point in the series is definitely touched on, there is a lot missing, but since only long-time DBZ fans will really be interested in the game, and probabily already know all of the plot-details that are left out, I guess it could be worse.

What I did enjoy were a few of the shorter sagas that don't normally make it into DBZ games like Bardock's story, and even a short series of battles called "What Ifs" that put the characters in interesting situations that weren't seen in the series. One of my favorite fights from this particular section was Teen Trunks versus Kid Trunks. What is nice is that, not only is there a bit of custom dialogue between the two characters at the beginning of the fight, but also during it. When Kid Trunks (your opponent) first turns Super Saiyan, your character (Teen Trunks) makes a comment about not being able to do that at his age and how much more powerful this version of him is than he was at the time. If Raging Blast was a game made up entirely of What If missions instead of rehashing the same fights the other games do, then it would have been a much more interesting game to play.

The other modes of Raging Blast all help support or are a result of the Collection Mode in one way or another. The Museum lets you see character information, listen to voice clips and music you've unlocked, as well as watch any fights that you saved off. The game's Dojo Mode is a must since the training you get there will help you feel better at the game's simplified controls. This is especially a must if you are used to the past DBZ fighters out there. The final modes that include fighting against computers, human opponents or on Xbox Live (and of course in single fights or in a World Tournament) are all helped by the game's Ultimate Customize mode which lets you create up to three different customized fighting profiles for each unlocked character (as well as their various forms). These customizations come in the form of abilities and powers unlocked in the story mode that can be arranged on a grid and fit around each other in a Tetris styled layout.

What is most striking about Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is the difficulty. Even early fights in the game's story are hard to get through, and even after going through the game's extensive training mode, each of Raging Blast's battle will be a tough, uphill well... battle. Where some DBZ games have you always fight as the good guys and have you lose (if you are supposed to) in a cut scene after the fight, Raging Blast has you always taking on the role of the victor. This should mean that there are quite a few easy fights as the super powerful enemy (or newly powered-up hero) takes the stage to easily take out his/her opponent, but I found even the supposedly easy fights were hard.

While Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is tough one to master, the controls are really simple. In fact, they feel overly simplified and almost dumbed down to the point of requiring no real finesse and making each fight all but reliant completely on the easy-to-pull-off special attacks. While you can quickly pull off melee combos that might deal out some damage to your opponent, they really don't have any effect in the long run and are used primarily to buy you some time in order to build up your Ki Gauge so you can tap your Right Stick in one of the four directions in order to pull off one of your character's bigger attacks. Yup, that's right, super human/namekian/saiyan/whateverian powers that are rare and coveted by the rest of the galaxy have, as Vegeta would put it, "been reduced to a child's plaything," and to make matters worse, even these simplified controls feel slippery and don't always activate when they should. In the end, with the less-than-effective weaker attacks and the only semi-impressive super attacks, the fights come down to whomever can double up their Ki Gauge, go into High Tension Mode and click down on the Right Stick first in order to pull off the character's Ultimate Attack. While this isn't necessarily an "I Win" button, when these attacks land, enough damage is dealt to make the effort worthwhile.

Looking at Raging Blast as a whole, it is just hard to see why this game was even made. For a long time, the goal of each new DBZ fighting game was to cover more of the story and add more playable characters, but since the show has been off the air for quite a while now, and the last few fighting game pretty much covered everything the series has to offer, Raging Blast feels more like a contractual obligation when the licenses changed hands that there must be a fighting game instead of something actually designed to be fun for the fans. This is even more apparent when you consider the other titles Namco/Bandai has put out with the DB logo on it, Attack of the Saiyans and Revenge of King Piccolo, an RPG and Platformer respectively, truly unique ways to look at the license. While neither of these other games will win any best-of-year awards, they are at least different. In the end, Raging Blast feels like just another DBZ fighter that doesn't hold a candle to the previous games and is so hard to manage that even the most dedicated fans will want to avoid it.