Why were the Japanese DB fans so upset about Infinite World?

[dbboxkaifan]

I didn't realise they hated the game so much after seeing that the majority of the reviews on Amazon.co.jp were 1 ratings.

Amazon.co.jp

According to the broken Google/Bing translators the top reviewer was unhappy with the game and wanted Spike to do sequel to Sparking Meteor

Erm, the West appreciated this last PS2 DBZ game and it definitely, had the best of Budokai's music. Game itself was fun too.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Remember, Infinite World was a full price release in Japan while it was a budget release here.

[Hitiro]

Maybe fans just wanted Infinite World to go straight into being a pure fighting game with no story elements. They already had 3 games previous with stories so perhaps they were getting fed up. In terms of gameplay mechanics it excels B3 in every way so it obviously isn't the combat at fault.

[Eddie]

While I don't agree with these fans on the one star ratings, I can see where they're coming from. I was pretty disappointed in the game myself. It felt like a big step down from Budokai 3, a game that came out quite some time before it. The story mode was not as entertaining, the difficulty was weird at times, and the minigame things they threw in weren't very fun.

[Hellspawn28]

I didn't bother with Infinite World after hearing bad things about it. I remember being told that the game was made pretty quickly since I remember being told that it was in development for like five or six months. The game used the Budokai 3 engine which could be why they made the game so soon.

[Rocketman]

Infinite World beats the absolute shit out of B3, if only for one reason:

DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH

[dario03]

Infinite World beats the absolute shit out of B3, if only for one reason:

DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH

In B3 whenever somebody turned red I would just keep backing up till they ran out of power. Eventually the one friend that played the game with me just agreed to not use dragonrushes which made the game way better.
Some things that bugged me about IW :
-AI was very easy once you figured it out
-Blue mode thing that let you spam specials and tank basic attacks for as long as you had power which just drained with time
-certain items, especially the ones that let you not lose power for 30 seconds so you could use blue mode and spam like crazy
-fatigue gauge
-the way that you untransformed based on fatigue instead of running out of energy
-being able to use ultimates out of no where (again especially when in blue mode with unlimited energy capsule) (though a big part of that was I didn't figure out the whole energy block thing for a while ) and the way that most ultimates didn't use energy if you missed and didn't leave you open all that much
-combo system being nothing but block cancels that let you do the same combo over and over and over and over

[Hitiro]

-the way that you untransformed based on fatigue instead of running out of energy
-being able to use ultimates out of no where (again especially when in blue mode with unlimited energy capsule) (though a big part of that was I didn't figure out the whole energy block thing for a while) and the way that most ultimates didn't use energy if you missed and didn't leave you open all that much
-combo system being nothing but block cancels that let you do the same combo over and over and over and over

I agree with the other things you said but these three I do not.

-Forcing characters to revert from a transformation is in the game for balance reasons, Goku at SSJ4 has a maximum damage output of 144% leaving characters without transformations trailing behind in terms of attack power. Characters of a baseline ki of 3 can only output a maximum of 110%, and it just gets worse for characters with higher baseline ki levels without transformations. Android #16 has a baseline ki of 4 and his maximum is 108% Making Goku and other characters revert allows for people who play as characters with weaker attack power percentages because, they have no transformations, to perform on the same level without too much of a disadvantage. It is also the reason why Goku's SDF is locked out until he can transform, for balance reasons. Part of Goku's gameplay revolves heavily around the use of cancelling his SDF for him to output some pretty powerful combos. If it is stripped away from him he loses probably 40% of his damage.

-I haven't had any problems punishing characters who try to get off their ultimates without using a combo before hand to stun me long enough to pull it off. So I don't know why you have problems with this. Also as far as it not using any energy consumption, why should it? It is fair enough for games like SSF4 or UMvC because their ultimates do come out and you must be careful not to get caught in them. But IW's ultimates are pretty easily dodged and have no range, they need to be initiated with a connection so I see no problems with it.

-Unless the combo you are doing is an infinite you cant use it more than once without placing your opponent in a really awkward position in the air that will subsequently just allow them to break-fall. Combo strings like >P,K,K- for Goku can be used over and over because its an infinite so even if you use it more than once you can cancel and perform it again providing you're fast enough. This is why people use backdash or revert backdash when cancelling to make the first input whiff so they can continue the combo on the ground. Also the fact that damage scaling is reduced to 1% after 34 hits so your punches will only be doing 1 damage per hit so getting out >P,K,K- for 34 hits won't give you that much damage compared to a combo with varied combo strings and uses of supers in the middle of them.

[MCDaveG]

I dunno, I agree that the difficulty was a damn mess, but otherwise the gameplay for me was better than Budokai 3.
And I missed Budokai Tournament there.

[dario03]

-the way that you untransformed based on fatigue instead of running out of energy
-being able to use ultimates out of no where (again especially when in blue mode with unlimited energy capsule) (though a big part of that was I didn't figure out the whole energy block thing for a while) and the way that most ultimates didn't use energy if you missed and didn't leave you open all that much
-combo system being nothing but block cancels that let you do the same combo over and over and over and over

I agree with the other things you said but these three I do not.

-Forcing characters to revert from a transformation is in the game for balance reasons, Goku at SSJ4 has a maximum damage output of 144% leaving characters without transformations trailing behind in terms of attack power. Characters of a baseline ki of 3 can only output a maximum of 110%, and it just gets worse for characters with higher baseline ki levels without transformations. Android #16 has a baseline ki of 4 and his maximum is 108% Making Goku and other characters revert allows for people who play as characters with weaker attack power percentages because, they have no transformations, to perform on the same level without too much of a disadvantage. It is also the reason why Goku's SDF is locked out until he can transform, for balance reasons. Part of Goku's gameplay revolves heavily around the use of cancelling his SDF for him to output some pretty powerful combos. If it is stripped away from him he loses probably 40% of his damage.

-I haven't had any problems punishing characters who try to get off their ultimates without using a combo before hand to stun me long enough to pull it off. So I don't know why you have problems with this. Also as far as it not using any energy consumption, why should it? It is fair enough for games like SSF4 or UMvC because their ultimates do come out and you must be careful not to get caught in them. But IW's ultimates are pretty easily dodged and have no range, they need to be initiated with a connection so I see no problems with it.

-Unless the combo you are doing is an infinite you cant use it more than once without placing your opponent in a really awkward position in the air that will subsequently just allow them to break-fall. Combo strings like >P,K,K- for Goku can be used over and over because its an infinite so even if you use it more than once you can cancel and perform it again providing you're fast enough. This is why people use backdash or revert backdash when cancelling to make the first input whiff so they can continue the combo on the ground. Also the fact that damage scaling is reduced to 1% after 34 hits so your punches will only be doing 1 damage per hit so getting out >P,K,K- for 34 hits won't give you that much damage compared to a combo with varied combo strings and uses of supers in the middle of them.

-I fully agree that characters untransforming should be in the game. I just preferred how it worked in B3 with it happening when you used to much power. Of course personally I would of changed a lot of things involving transforming. I would give more power upped statuses to people that didn't have transformations or just make them have better bases. So if there was a character that was just like Goku but didn't have transformations I would give him something like 120% as his base. I think I would probably actually make the transformations drain power more instead of granting more power or make it so if you dropped to 2 bars you untransform. Probably wouldn't let transformations be used as a knockback or block either.

-I don't know man, I'm no where near as good at IW as I was in B3 but I'm pretty decent at fighters and to me the ultimates seem far to safe. And sure your left open for a bit but I think it should be a bit longer. After missing a ultimate you can move on to other moves or use counter pretty quick and if they're in blue mode they can just tank basic shots or counter out of it. So maybe it is just something I'm missing, I did just power through the game after not playing a Budokai game for years but as far as I can tell they seem to good.
But why should a missed ultimate take power? Well because you tried a big pay off move so there should be big consequences for missing. I'm not quite sure what you mean with your comparison to SSF4 and UMvC. Yeah you can just throw out a super or ultra in SSF4 but for the most part you need to set them up. If you use Ryu and just throw a metsu hadoken out of nowhere then your opponent can just jump over and punish you with whatever they want. Thats how a lot of the fighters in SF are. Plus almost all ultras/supers are blockable and can be hit out of, and once you use the attack it doesn't matter if you hit or not, your energy is gone and takes a lot more to gain energy in SF than it does in IW (even ultras/specials that require you to be right on the opponent or ones that only work if your opponent attacks you)

-Well block cancel infinites is what I have a problem with and this game has a lot of them (actually I hate infinites in any game no matter how its done). Though I guess I shouldn't of said that is the only thing about the combo system.

[DBZAOTA482]

Infinite World beats the absolute shit out of B3, if only for one reason:

DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH DRAGONRUSH

Ehh... I liked Dragon Rush even though it's widely reviled, because it makes the fighting more exciting, and it resembles the anime plus it's at least optional Janken sequence, not the core fighting system. *looks at Ultimate Blast*

[Hitiro]

-I fully agree that characters untransforming should be in the game. I just preferred how it worked in B3 with it happening when you used to much power. Of course personally I would of changed a lot of things involving transforming. I would give more power upped statuses to people that didn't have transformations or just make them have better bases. So if there was a character that was just like Goku but didn't have transformations I would give him something like 120% as his base. I think I would probably actually make the transformations drain power more instead of granting more power or make it so if you dropped to 2 bars you untransform. Probably wouldn't let transformations be used as a knockback or block either.

-I don't know man, I'm no where near as good at IW as I was in B3 but I'm pretty decent at fighters and to me the ultimates seem far to safe. And sure your left open for a bit but I think it should be a bit longer. After missing a ultimate you can move on to other moves or use counter pretty quick and if they're in blue mode they can just tank basic shots or counter out of it. So maybe it is just something I'm missing, I did just power through the game after not playing a Budokai game for years but as far as I can tell they seem to good.
But why should a missed ultimate take power? Well because you tried a big pay off move so there should be big consequences for missing. I'm not quite sure what you mean with your comparison to SSF4 and UMvC. Yeah you can just throw out a super or ultra in SSF4 but for the most part you need to set them up. If you use Ryu and just throw a metsu hadoken out of nowhere then your opponent can just jump over and punish you with whatever they want. Thats how a lot of the fighters in SF are. Plus almost all ultras/supers are blockable and can be hit out of, and once you use the attack it doesn't matter if you hit or not, your energy is gone and takes a lot more to gain energy in SF than it does in IW (even ultras/specials that require you to be right on the opponent or ones that only work if your opponent attacks you)

-Well block cancel infinites is what I have a problem with and this game has a lot of them (actually I hate infinites in any game no matter how its done). Though I guess I shouldn't of said that is the only thing about the combo system.

-While I agree that some of the characters should have increased base power I don't think that the current iteration detracts from using characters without any transformations. In fact, Bardock is the character with the highest damage output in the game and he has no transformations and only has a baseline of 3. It does need to be tweaked and I personally think that characters with higher baseline ki levels should have longer ki regen times more than anything. The current power output for non-transformable characters is the least of the games worries.

-My point with the SSF4 and UMvC comparisons is that the ultra's in those games have significantly longer active frames for the opponent to deal with. Most of the attacks are unavoidable leaving the opponents with just one single option for dealing with ultras, block. In Infinite world you can easily sidestep the ultimate and while I agree it is a big pay off for connecting you still have to connect. I feel you have a much larger chance of connecting with a random ultra in SSF4 then you do in IW purely because the amount of startup and active frames between the two are so different. If you aren't combo'ing into an ultimate in IW then there isn't really much point in launching the ultimate in the first place as your opponent is most likely going to sidestep and cancel your ass to kingdom come. That being said I do prefer the SB style of ultimates where they all have their own startup and active frames.

-I personally don't see a problem with infinites in the Budokai series, most of them like Goku's >PKK or KKKK are quite difficult to pull off and the way the Budokai games are designed allows for the opponents to escape the flurry of infinites and even if you can't your, at most, going to lose 1 bar from a player who just infinites a combo up to 34 hits. Anything after 34 hits is scaled to just give you 1% damage anyway, which is pretty much nothing. A neutral P for most characters is about 30 damage so 1% of that is 0.3 which is just rounded up to 1 so each hit after 34 will just be 1 damage. Now, if we were talking about a game like SSF4 or UMvC I would see infinites as a problem because there are no game mechanics to get out of such a combo leaving you to basically die unless damage scaling makes it so that after so many hits you receive no damage. I guess I understand why you don't like infinites if they are cheap or the mechanics of the game won't allow you to escape such a thing. But apart from certain infinites like Yamcha's or Goku's air juggle infinite >PPPP<P (Which is still quite difficult as if you position your opponent in the wrong place they will just hit the floor and break-fall their way out of the combo.) I see no problems with them in the Budokai series of games.

[Hellspawn28]

I always surprise that fans enjoy the game when reviewers didn't seem to enjoy it that much.

[mysticboy]

I always surprise that fans enjoy the game when reviewers didn't seem to enjoy it that much.

Reviewers =/= fans. Reviewers didn't like it because they have the mindset of "another year, another DBZ game" so they automatically deduct points for that without even playing it first.

[Hitiro]

Reviewers =/= fans. Reviewers didn't like it because they have the mindset of "another year, another DBZ game" so they automatically deduct points for that without even playing it first.

Not to mention they probably can't even play it that well. I've not seen any reviewer pull off any of the more difficult mechanics within Budokai games. They just spam whatever they can.

[funrush]

I dunno, I agree that the difficulty was a damn mess, but otherwise the gameplay for me was better than Budokai 3.
And I missed Budokai Tournament there.

Yeah. I probably wouldn't have gotten past Freeza if it weren't for that you can equip tons of health capsules. (The one that ups default to 7, and then the item capsule that gives 5)

[dario03]

--I don't know man, I'm no where near as good at IW as I was in B3 but I'm pretty decent at fighters and to me the ultimates seem far to safe. And sure your left open for a bit but I think it should be a bit longer. After missing a ultimate you can move on to other moves or use counter pretty quick and if they're in blue mode they can just tank basic shots or counter out of it. So maybe it is just something I'm missing, I did just power through the game after not playing a Budokai game for years but as far as I can tell they seem to good.
But why should a missed ultimate take power? Well because you tried a big pay off move so there should be big consequences for missing. I'm not quite sure what you mean with your comparison to SSF4 and UMvC. Yeah you can just throw out a super or ultra in SSF4 but for the most part you need to set them up. If you use Ryu and just throw a metsu hadoken out of nowhere then your opponent can just jump over and punish you with whatever they want. Thats how a lot of the fighters in SF are. Plus almost all ultras/supers are blockable and can be hit out of, and once you use the attack it doesn't matter if you hit or not, your energy is gone and takes a lot more to gain energy in SF than it does in IW (even ultras/specials that require you to be right on the opponent or ones that only work if your opponent attacks you)

-My point with the SSF4 and UMvC comparisons is that the ultra's in those games have significantly longer active frames for the opponent to deal with. Most of the attacks are unavoidable leaving the opponents with just one single option for dealing with ultras, block. In Infinite world you can easily sidestep the ultimate and while I agree it is a big pay off for connecting you still have to connect. I feel you have a much larger chance of connecting with a random ultra in SSF4 then you do in IW purely because the amount of startup and active frames between the two are so different. If you aren't combo'ing into an ultimate in IW then there isn't really much point in launching the ultimate in the first place as your opponent is most likely going to sidestep and cancel your ass to kingdom come. That being said I do prefer the SB style of ultimates where they all have their own startup and active frames.

I won't comment on UMvC since honestly I don't have much experience in that game and only a bit in MvC3. In MvC3 I don't remember haveing much trouble with blocking or jumping over random ultras but again I didn't play a whole lot. However I have played SSF4 a good bit and SF4 a lot and I will definitely disagree with saying that your only option is blocking and that you can hit a random ultra easier. The biggest thing being that your only option is blocking, really the much better option to random ultras is jumping or teleporting (like side stepping in IW). Once you have jumped or teleported past the ultra in SF4 your opponent is usually wide open because they also have longer recovery frames (though I haven't actually since IW frame data, found a post at a other site that looks to be from you but didn't see the link to the site that was mentioned (probably since I'm not a member of the site)). Or if you do just block the random ultra (something you can't even do in IW) then you will still have a huge frame advantage. Actually if your not really low on health but have your super/ultra built it isn't even that bad of a idea to bait your opponent into a super/ultra, block it, and then counter with your own super/ultra.
Really the only other reliable way to land a ultra without a setup is to use it as a counter. But that only works for some characters and only if your opponent throws out something heavy with a lot of frames. So yeah if you throw a fireball half screen away at Seth he can easily counter it with a ultra or if you try throwing a hard kick at Akuma he can counter it with a ultra but thats why you just don't do that. Beyond doing that you would have to just flat out guess what your opponent is going to do and get the timing perfect (and that Akuma example I just used often times is going to require you to do this). And you can do the guessing game in IW to.
And on top of all of that you still lose all your power when you do a super/ultra in SF4 even if its blocked or missed. And you can't just power up like you can in IW you have to use moves/get hit to build super and get hit to build ultra. Usually you'll only be able to use 1 maybe 2 ultras a round and probably only 1 or 2 supers in a 3 round fight and often times your better off using the special meter for EX moves instead of super.

[Hitiro]

I won't comment on UMvC since honestly I don't have much experience in that game and only a bit in MvC3. In MvC3 I don't remember haveing much trouble with blocking or jumping over random ultras but again I didn't play a whole lot. However I have played SSF4 a good bit and SF4 a lot and I will definitely disagree with saying that your only option is blocking and that you can hit a random ultra easier. The biggest thing being that your only option is blocking, really the much better option to random ultras is jumping or teleporting (like side stepping in IW). Once you have jumped or teleported past the ultra in SF4 your opponent is usually wide open because they also have longer recovery frames (though I haven't actually since IW frame data, found a post at a other site that looks to be from you but didn't see the link to the site that was mentioned (probably since I'm not a member of the site)). Or if you do just block the random ultra (something you can't even do in IW) then you will still have a huge frame advantage. Actually if your not really low on health but have your super/ultra built it isn't even that bad of a idea to bait your opponent into a super/ultra, block it, and then counter with your own super/ultra.
Really the only other reliable way to land a ultra without a setup is to use it as a counter. But that only works for some characters and only if your opponent throws out something heavy with a lot of frames. So yeah if you throw a fireball half screen away at Seth he can easily counter it with a ultra or if you try throwing a hard kick at Akuma he can counter it with a ultra but thats why you just don't do that. Beyond doing that you would have to just flat out guess what your opponent is going to do and get the timing perfect (and that Akuma example I just used often times is going to require you to do this). And you can do the guessing game in IW to.
And on top of all of that you still lose all your power when you do a super/ultra in SF4 even if its blocked or missed. And you can't just power up like you can in IW you have to use moves/get hit to build super and get hit to build ultra. Usually you'll only be able to use 1 maybe 2 ultras a round and probably only 1 or 2 supers in a 3 round fight and often times your better off using the special meter for EX moves instead of super.

I have also played quite a bit of SSF4, I am aware that there are ultra's in the game which can be jumped, or teleported, away from. However my experience is that most of them you just have to hold block. It may be because I haven't taken the time to learn the best counters for ultra's so I apologize if it isn't the case. That being said characters in which you jump away from their ultra's is still quite difficult. I used to main Blanka when I played SSF4 and my friend used to try jumping in between the active frames of his shout of earth ultra. He found it pretty hard to do and in all of the games we had he only managed to pull it off 25% of the time. Of course if he blocked it then the chip would have given me the game. With the startup and active frames for ultras in SSF4 I genuinely think that it is safer just to block the attack rather than jump and hope that you can do a good enough job to place you outside of those active frames. But in Budokai 3 all you need to do is a simple sidestep, there is nothing to worry about like Blanka's ultra catching you while you try to jump between the active frames.

And yes, it probably is me on that other forum talking about frame data. To be honest its nowhere near completion and I haven't included the frame data for the ultimate's startup and active frames for any character because it is all the same. Also the fact that I was focusing on all of the combo strings frame data to see where the safest places to drop combos are, what disadvantages to some combo strings have on others, etc. It has also taken a back seat at the moment while I do the Budokai 3 frame data.

[Hellspawn28]

Reviewers =/= fans. Reviewers didn't like it because they have the mindset of "another year, another DBZ game" so they automatically deduct points for that without even playing it first.

Not to mention they probably can't even play it that well. I've not seen any reviewer pull off any of the more difficult mechanics within Budokai games. They just spam whatever they can.

From what I've read from many reviews that IW is just a Budokai 3.5 and they did it so late. By 2008, most gamers already had a 360 and PS3. I prefer to listen to critics then the audience most of the time since they often know what they are talking about. Places like IMDB and Metacrtic allow anyone to give out ratings with no reasons behind them.

[Insertclevername]

Infinite World was a title for the then very large number of PS2 owners who hadn't purchased a 7th generation console yet. Considering we got Burst Limit that same year, I have no problem with IW being a little skim on the new features, it's lucky we even got 2 Dimps games in the same year, not counting PSP titles. I for one don't really look up to most "professional" reviewers for advice as I found their reasons can be just as vague as any anonymous scores. This video on Splatterhouse (2010) addresses what I'm referring to.