I think many fans (looking at the Atari board) have forgotten that the gameplay is the most important aspect and that the gleam and gloss of the “Z” elements should take high priority (accurate storyline, ki blasting, over-the-top super moves, and over 130 characters). Why should I or any gamer should care about all that extra stuff if the gameplay isn’t well-crafted to begin with? While I commend Dimps for at least trying to improve their Budokai games from sequel to sequel, which is in opposition to the Sparkling series which is just a thin coat of new paint over the old games as far as I’m concerned. I’m not afraid of admitting that I think Super Dragon Ball Z is the only Dragon Ball game I would place on the tier as a fighting game, because I felt as though Super Dragon Ball Z had more to offer as a fighting game beyond a stretched out story mode or over 100 characters. Despite the many references to series in both presentation and gameplay, it’s a fighting game first and foremost.
Heres a quote from Ed Boon in the Game Design second edition book.
When I’ve read this I couldn’t help but think of the Sparking series, don’t get me wrong while it not biggest offender it pretty close as far as DB games go.
“Also, it’s not true “the button presses should do approximately the same thing across all the characters.” In fact, exactly opposite is true. Some fighting games have criticized for doing exactly that. If all of basic attacks for the characters were approximately the same, then there really wouldn’t be much distinction between different characters, other than their special moves. This results in perception that all the characters are basically the same and game quickly gets dull.
The goal with fighting games is to make the character as diverse as possible in all areas: Basic attacks, defensive moves, special moves, speed, strength. The more variables you can adjust to make as varied a cast of characters as possible. This is very challenging as rosters of characters in fighting games has gone up from about 8 in the early 90’s to 20+ in today’s games.”
The point of this is thread is not to listen to my ranting, but to get some (hopefully good
) insight on what you think that game designers can do to elevate future Dragon Ball games from terrible/mediocre and if you agree with the notion of the “Z” factor above all, offer some insight on why the factors must take the highest or higher priority. And please no comments like “if you don’t like it don’t play it” because it does nothing to contribute to the tread and discredit nothing on the possible upcoming opinions from the other forum members.Well here a few of my suggestions just to get things started.
1) I believe a 2 year or more developing cycle would help give studios like Spike a chance to produce a better quality game, which could in turn allow them to achieve a harmony between a well executed story mode and gameplay.
2) Less focus on the “over100 characters” gimmick and reduce the character roster to at the very least 30-40 and that way the designers can focus on making each characters unique while keeping their fighting style true to their manga/anime counterpart. It wouldn’t hurt or diminish the game as a whole, I meanTekken 5 had 31, Virtual Fighter 5 had 17, and Soul Caliber had 20 characters and to my knowledge those games have been placed on a higher pastel then many of the current DBZ games which tends to have rosters that goes well over 40. This could help reduce developing time and allow them to focus on more important aspect of the game and perhaps focus on the “Z” element
.3) I would do some good if Namco Bandai gave other developer (good developers mind you) a shot with the franchise like they did with Super Dragon Ball Z. I wouldn’t mind so much if Bandai Namco kept to their DB game a year with the Sparking series, while allowing another studio develop 2-3 cycle game.
4) Would it kill the designers to offer controls that are intuitive and responsive?
Edit: What L's.
