Spoiler:
See here for scrapped gameplay footage of Bulma, unearthed after 20 years
On November 16th, 2004, Dimps’was released on the PlayStation 2. The third game of the trilogy — really, more of a hexalogy if one takes the latertitles andinto account –built heavily on the bones of its annual predecessors (remember when game series could do that and get away with it?) to deliver what many did and still do consider to be the ultimateexperience.Bringing back the entire roster from(no what-if Fusions and transformations like Tiencha, though),also rescued Kid Gohan and no one else from the original game to provide a slightly more comprehensive roster and give players more options to choose from for the new story mode. Each title in this series offered a wildly different campaign to relive the story ofand this game’s effort came in the form of Dragon Universe, a quasi-open-world exploration sim where a select group of Z Warriors could fly around Earth and Namek to fight a series of battles. You could find the Dragon Balls to grant a wish and even get rewarded for finishing matches in a canon-compliant way. The first game’s cinematics were missed but for my money, this was the most in-depth single-player campaign theseries offered up to this point.Combat was largely similar to the already refined, just with a few bells and whistles. And the RNG nonsense of Dragon Rush, which sucks. Screw you, Buutenks, playing Tien’s route in the story mode is a special kind of pain. The best thingsbrought to the table were the aforementioned bells and whistles for your toys. And this game had a lot of toys. A then-record 38 characters (stop laughing, that was a lot once upon a time), covering most of the canon material of DBZ as well as sampling OG, themovies, and. For the first time since, players could control a young Goku in a fighting game. And for the first time since, players could utilize Super Saiyan 4 in a video game. Speaking of Super Saiyan 4, I believe this game marks the first time that Gogeta (also not playable in a fighting game since) could be used in his Super Saiyan 4 form, starting a long tradition of the fused Saiyan being a hilarious gamebreaker.Moves were more cinematic and for the first time in this series, we had genuine energy beam struggles during gameplay. Thetitles inched ever so closer entry by entry to becoming truesimulators. The latergames would take that concept and run with it but for those who prefer a less arena-style form of combat, this game was argued to be the peak until. Or, no Dragon Rush sounds like an automatic improvement.This is thegame I’ve probably put the most time into. Playing with my younger brother and cousins and trying to level our way up through transformations (holy crud, we can use all of Frieza’s forms now!) was just pure fun that only a licensed game can provide. A highlight of the PS2 and one of the few 3D fighters I was halfway decent at. This game, alongside the original, would be rereleased in 2012 with a non-plagiarized soundtrack for the HD consoles of the time. The fact that there’s a bigger gap between said HD release and the current day than there was between 2004 and the HD release is sobering. We’re due for a newer, more comprehensivecollection.Enjoy the possibly plagiarized select screen music:
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