Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors
Score: 88% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Atari Developer: Atari Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Fighting/ Themed
Graphics & Sound: Let's see, a DragonBall Z fighting game, OK not so original. You get to play through the DBZ story line, once again -- it sounds familiar. You can play as 13 different characters, and that's about average for a GameBoy fighting game. So what is it that would make DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors stand out? Well for one thing, this GBA title has some great graphics when it comes to the characters themselves. Supersonic Warriors' characters and their various animations do a good job of portraying the villains and heroes from the show. When the two combatants are close to each other and firing off punch and kick after rapid punch and kick, you can tell exactly who it is fighting. And since this is the first GBA-DBZ title to feature controlled flight, the developers had to handle the space of the fighting arena a little differently. With the ability to fly comes a much larger area of battle -- so when the two characters are a long way apart, this is depicted by both warriors shrinking in size. At first I saw this as a cheap trick, but eventually my eyes adjusted and I grew to accept the look to be more like the camera backing up in an attempt to keep both fighters in view. The backgrounds are a static image fitting the various scenes from the show rather well. Every scene from Planet Namek to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber is recognizable enough to allow for any fan of the series to place it. Another aspect of the graphical style being used in Supersonic Warriors that got to me early on, but I later became more accepting towards, was the game's desire to briefly pause the fight when any kind of semi-special move was being preformed. When this first happened, I couldn't figure out why it seemed like the game was loading new data (what with it being cartridge based and all). Like I said though, eventually I just tuned the delay out and attributed it to the developers attempting to add some dramatic effect to the game (at least I hope that's what they were doing). The sounds were OK, but I played the game a good bit without the sound or effects turned on and it didn't help or hurt my gameplay ability.
Gameplay: DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors lets you take control of the various characters from the DragonBall Z story line and battle through various fights from the show, as well as several match ups that you weren't able to witness. Some of the characters you will be able to control are Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta, Trunks, Android 18, Cell, Majin Buu, Gotenks, Piccolo and Frieza. In a battle you will be able to control one, two or three of these fighters (one at a time of course) as you fight your enemies and go through the many confrontations presented to you throughout the game. Supersonic Warriors is broken up into seven modes (one for each DragonBall, conveniently enough). These modes are: Story Mode, Z Battle Mode, Challenge Mode, Free Battle Mode, Training Mode, Link Vs Mode and Option Mode. In Story Mode, there are 13 different stories to choose from. Three of these are the three major parts of the DBZ series: the Namek Saga, the Android Saga and the Majin Saga. The rest of the options are called IF Stories. The IF Stories are the other aspect of this game that will make it stand out to fans of the series. There is an IF Story for each character in the game, and you unlock them by earning points and buying them in the Option Mode. The IF Stories are an interesting look at the DragonBall universe. Here you get to see what would have happened had Frieza beaten Goku on Namek and continued on to destroy the rest of the Sayans. Or what if Piccolo had defeated Frieza when in the first saga. Unfortunately there is no way to save your progress through the story, so if you want to beat any of them, you would have to do it in one sitting. Thankfully though, each of the stories are fairly short and cover 10 or fewer fights. Z Battle Mode lets you choose between Team Battle and 1 on 1 Battle. Depending on which of these modes you choose, you will either choose one character, or up to three characters to face off in a series of battles. Challenge Mode pits a team of your choosing against several prearranged teams. Each team is tougher and worth more points than the last. Thankfully, once you have beaten a group, Supersonic Warriors allows you to go back and fight that team at any point -- as opposed to being forced to run the gauntlet over and over again like you do in the Story Mode. Free Battle Mode lets you choose both your team and your opponent's team as you battle it out, while the Training Mode shows you the ropes on how to fight in the air, defend yourself and use your character's special abilities and energy beams. Link Vs Mode lets you hook up with another GBA and play head to head with a friend. It is in Option Mode's Shop menu where you are able to unlock new characters, new IF Stories as well as the last two difficulty settings and the Museum (a mode that will allow you to "listen to over 180 character voice clips, 25 background tunes, 54 game sound effects and view 23 frames of DBZ art"). You purchase these features with points obtained by winning battles in the Challenge Mode, completing a track in the Z Battle Mode or finishing any of the stories in the Story Mode. The Option Mode also lets you change the sound settings of the game as well as view the rankings of the various characters you have played with. It is also here where you will find the Museum when you have bought it.
Difficulty: When you first start DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors, there are three difficulty settings already unlocked: Beginner, Easy and Normal. Two other settings are available for purchase in the Shop Menu (Moderate and Difficult). Each level is more difficult than the previous, but the difficulty of each fight (in relation to the others on that setting) is a little shaky. In general, there are easier fights and there are harder fights. Mind you I'm speaking about within a particular difficulty setting. An easy match in Moderate is by no means the same as an easy fight in Beginner. Unfortunately it isn't easy (or necessarily even possible) to predict which fights will be quick and clean. I found that I would have several good, easy fights followed by a couple of hard ones. This unpredictable nature made it hard to enjoy the game at times and led to me getting frustrated fairly easily, though the wide variety of difficulty settings that are possible made finding a mode for whatever mood I was in easier to do. And setting the game to Beginner and just plowing through many of the stories and challenges allowed me to unlock most of the characters and features rather quickly since it seemed like I would earn just as many points for beating a story or mode in Beginner as I would in any other difficulty setting.
Game Mechanics: On of the big annoyances I found in DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors was the fact that when you entered into a battle, there was no way to exit the fight without restarting the GameBoy. Typically, when you pause the game, there is some sort of menu present that will let you exit the fight, but with Supersonic Warriors, all I got was the a small "Pause" printed on the screen. Though there are no bad consequences from leaving a battle before it's over (except for the fact that if it is one of the Story battles, you will have to go through all preceding fights again), it was still annoying to have to sit through the GameBoy logo and the DBZ logo before I could get to the menu and play whatever aspect of the game I wanted to play. Another problem I found was that since you have a limited control over exactly which special attack you are going to use, what attack the game picks for you is often fatal (and not necessarily to your opponent). In order to use one of your character's special abilities you press the A button, B button and the Right Shoulder button all at the same time -- and if you have enough energy, your fighter will execute one of his or her major energy based attacks. Which attack will the game pick? Your guess is as good as mine. It seems to be based on how much energy you have and the relative position of your enemy to you, but it didn't always work out like that. There were many instances when my warrior fired off his close range energy attack, and my enemy was a screen away. Or more often, if they did execute the long range attack when i needed it, about half the time it was facing the wrong direction or nowhere near the target. DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors isn't the best DBZ game to come out. It has its problems, but the graphics in this game surpass those of prior GBA-DBZ titles, and the IF Stories add a uniqueness to this game that will make it stand out from the other fighters that Atari has published under this title for the GameBoy Advance. Overall, I would say that it is a good game for fans of the series, though it might not hold enough interest for anyone who isn't familiar enough with the story arc to enjoy the changes made in the IF modes.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Alias Winning Eleven 7 International