Shenron’s sense of humor
The flickering spark that lights up Dragon Ball Fusions hits when the protagonist, whose name and appearance can be customized by the player, and his friend Pinich can even find the last of the seven balls of the dragon to evoke the powerful Shenron and express a wish.
Unexpectedly, so much so that the same dragon remains grounded on the first, the two friends do not ask for wealth, eternal life, or the ability to rewind time as they like, but are content with a tournament that can once and for all determine who the fighter is strong of the entire galaxy, in full Dragon Ball style.
The god fulfills the desire, but, as has often happened during the batches of the various series of the anime, does so in his own way, carrying his two friends to another world, through which several space-time gaps are accessing all the strongest warriors, regardless of their intentions and the world of origin.
The first meetings they make will bring a handful of known faces from Nappa and Radish on the screen, as usual, to Goten and Trunks, passing through a Bulma GT version: along with the adventure, Dragon Ball Fusions will bring on two screens of 3DS all the main characters of the series dedicated to Goku’s adventures and company, including some feature-only visas such as Broly.
Unfortunately, not all of these characters will play an active role in the stories they tell, with some that will limit their appearances to short cameo, but despite a storyline that will not win any prize for its quality (as well as manga and of the souls over the years), Ganbarion’s last effort (yes, just those of One Piece’s video game adaptations and underrated Pandora’s Tower on Wii) is set to be a manifest of how to make the fanservice in a respectful and worthwhile manner.
The license is, in fact, exploited intelligently, with a battle system built specifically to remember the one seen in hundreds of TV episodes and the addition of so many unpublished characters, alongside those not known, so that the less passionate might do not notice the detachment.
Despite the very few lines of dialogue, we liked the coupling between the original Japanese track, which is well suited to the context and spirit of the product, and the Italian subtitles, which make the product approachable even by younger franchise fans.
Kamehameha !!!
Unlike the overwhelming majority of titles inspired by the original anime, Dragon Ball Fusions proposes to the role-playing mechanical player, a genre that on the 3DS console family has always been extremely successful: creating its own alter ego, the player will soon be dropped into a sequence of primary missions, secondary missions, and small side tasks that all contribute to accumulating the energy needed to access the next layers of the bizarre universe where the story is set.
The heart of the gaming experience is represented by the Ganbarion Combat, Cross and Delay system: it takes turns, but it requires timing to the player, called to choose which direction to parry before any enemy attack.
The deployable fighter roster at the same time is nourished (up to five can inflate the clashes) and each has three different types of attack: one physical, one energetic, and one special.
Inflicting and receiving damages fills a bar that, upon its completion, allows to launch devastatingly unique attacks, such as fusion of all five wrestlers into a single, huge fighter or Zenkai attack, useful to enlist new members in the team .
The latter can be recruited in the order of the dozen (if not hundreds), provided they have a star next to their name and are finished with a Zenkai move. At the end of the clash, they meet these conditions and join the team of player, making their baggage available and g
reatly expanding the range of strategic solutions available.
Each of the hired fighters can be melted with one of their fellow-mates, generating delightful and often powerful hybrids, which, in addition to delighting the fiercest fans, will end up unbalancing the difficulty of the game, allowing them to create unrivaled force fighters to that of the available opponents.
A bottom-line bar scans the pace of the fights with the icons that match party members and enemies running from left to right, resulting in alternating shifts on the unforgettable Final Fantasy Active Time Battle that they were.
By knocking off an enemy outside the battlefield, in addition to inflicting additional damage, it will reset the turn, forcing it to miss the opportunity to act: t
he strategic variations, therefore, are more than you might think.
In the attack phase, then, the possibility of engaging other fighters with their own attack must be carefully evaluated, by stealing an enemy in the direction of an ally, which will help him to inflict a couple of free blows, as doing the same against another enemy will suffer contact damage.
At the end of each clash, the player will also be offered a pool of different skills in addition to canonical experience points, so he can choose which skills to teach his wrestlers, each having a limited number of slots (just like the Pokemon, ). It is a pity then that these abilities are often quite useless because they not only tend to repeat themselves too often, but often show a power considerably lower than those already in the player’s possession.
