Man this thing is addictive.
So it goes like this.
Your power level is everything. (The default settings are "Start 10k" and max = "It's over 9000k!") It dictates how much damage your moves do, how fast they charge up, how fast you move in all states, how fast you can throw beam attacks, how big many of your attacks can get, how many times you can throw super special devastator moves in row before the power gets downgraded for a few moments.
Your power level carries over from each round of the match into the next, so it's a long-term tactical consideration.
You get power by doing the whole DBZ rage out thing...or by taking a beating. So as you whoop a guy's ass, he gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Meaning you need to outstrip his power growth even as you're kicking the shit out of him, or one good beam attack will nuke you. And this is against the stupid AI, who spends way more time throwing piddly ki balls than it should.
But it gets better. All the super Saiyan and other special forms double your power level when activated in most cases. Meaning, on your end, you can ramp up your power level tremendously quickly and nuke the fuck out of someone, but you can also fall way behind over the course of several rounds, when you've got say 128k energy and they're over 9000k!. I'm kind of scared to play a better AI, because the stupid AI, between the beatings and stuff, keeps pace with your power level easily. I spent over 2 minutes charging up my power level through z-raging (the AI got stuck in a wall and did nothing) and barely got to 128k.
And then there's all sorts of other tactical options. The "aura" makes you go faster, charge faster, do more damage but you don't regen the stamina that lets you throw attacks. (When you run out of stamina, you start using life to power your attacks instead. Once you've done too much damage to yourself, you lose consciousness for a second and fall out of the sky. Not good.) Then there's the Kaoken form that slows time but eventually gouges your life bar.
Melee is a button mashing mess, where there's lot of combos you can do but getting them to work in the mayhem is tough. Melee moves use the same buttons as power attacks. They switch over between the two when you close melee range. Staying in melee range is tough though. So you run into melee, spam buttons and get sucked into a hyper fighting sequence. You have to hit buttons in sequence and if you beat the AI, they go flying. It's tougher than it looks, I haven't won against the stupid AI yet.
This game really captured some parts of DBZ combat that the Playstation games missed. Honestly, it's brilliant compared to those. The only thing that drags it down is the melee combat, but on the flip side, it's power attack game play is far better than anything else I've played. Having only three "action" buttons, your first instinct is to spam. But being effective with your ranged attacks actually requires a lot of judgment and control, because there's at least 8 things your "beam attack/kick" button does when combined with arrow keys and other buttons.
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Topic: Lemmingball Z (Read 11150 times)