Can you name one of the most lucrative franchises around that have spurned many games, three TV shows, comics, and much more? There are only a few things around that can claim this fame, and one of them is the Dragon Ball series. Over the years, there have been many games for a variety of systems that cover this anime series, and very few have made it over to the United States. Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 is one of these games that never saw a stateside release, until now. Is this eight-year-old title really worth it to play, or should it have stayed over in Japan? Read on to find out.

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 has twenty-two characters that have appeared in the series at one point or another, with five more to unlock. All of these characters are taken from the Frieza, Android, and the Buu Sagas. There are few modes to play: 1P vs Com, 1P vs 2P, Championship, Build Up, and Build Up Battle. 1P vs Com is where you take a character and attempt to beat twenty-one enemies. 1P vs 2P is the standard two-player mode, where you can fight a friend. Championship is a tournament where sixteen fighters play in a Battle Royale. The Build Up mode is really interesting; it lets players build up the attack and defense of any given character to make them a stronger and more formidable foe. In this mode, the fighter will learn depending on how you use them, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, because the character will gain experience. Build Up Battle is a place where you can bring your new “built up” character and fight with their new skills. If a friend of yours has this game, they can build up characters as well, and you two can fight it out with them in this mode.

What I am about to say might enrage a few DBZ fans, but this has to be said: “This game never should have come out in America.” When I first loaded the game I had to remind myself that this is a Playstation game, and it was eight years old, don’t go in with high expectations. It was a good thing that this was the case, because the game falters in every single department.

If you are looking for a story, then look at the new PS2 DBZ game, because Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a story. The entire game revolves around picking a fighter, and beating the stuffing out of another fighter. The game never gets into any backlog of who is evil and who is not. You would figure that with so many enemies and chances for some sort of plot would appear, but it doesn’t.

The gameplay is just bad. The controls are horrible, slow, and not responsive at times. I am trying to perform a “Kamehameha” (a fireball), and it works one out of 5 times, doing the exact same thing. The AI is extremely cheap, all it does is block, until you are out of “ki” (energy) then it starts its rage of fury upon you, before you have time to gather more energy. Each of the characters has seven special moves that they can perform at any given moment. This is kind of cheap because at any given moment a player can perform the most powerful move they have, if the energy bar is high enough. This is also useless since players can’t link any of their moves together. A normal fight goes something like this, attempt to punch or kick someone, do a fireball, go into the air, repeat. The anime series is all about action, and this game does not follow in its footsteps.

The graphics are bad even for a 1995 game. I pulled out my SNES, and I have many games that looked better than this game would ever hope to be. The texture use is just horrific, and all of the characters look like they were pasted in using poor Photoshop techniques. Some of the environments player’s visits are in the show, but it is nothing to happy about, as they are cheesy representations.

Some people might be impressed that they left the original sound in from the Japanese game, so there is no American voice acting at all. On the other end of the spectrum the music is bad, after listening to it for a few minutes, the mute button was put on.

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 is rated T for Teen for violence. It requires 1 block on your memory card.

Gameplay: 3.0
The anime series is all about action, this game is not.

Graphics: 2.0
I have seen NES games that look better than this game.

Sound: 4.5
They left the Japanese voices in the game which is a nice treat, but the music spoils it, since it will pierce your eardrums with the annoying melody.

Difficulty: Medium
The AI is cheap and it is really hard to get anywhere in this game.

Concept: 2.0
The only thing going for this game is the amount of selectable characters, but it doesn’t help it any since the controls make this game from being any fun.

Multiplayer: 2.0
You get to frustrate a friend when you play this game! That can be fun in itself!

Overall: 3.5
This game should have stayed in Japan. If the publisher wanted to cash in on the DBZ license, they should have re-released DBZ Final Bout, which is what a lot of fans want to see. The only reason why you would want this game in your collection is if you were collecting every single DBZ game, if not avoid this game at all costs.