An RPG is only as good as its battle system. I firmly believe this because let’s face it, you’ll be fighting a lot in any given RPG. It's called the grind, and it's half the fun. I love running around fighting mobs and slowly watching my characters get stronger and obtain new abilities. A great battle system can offset the flaws in an RPG and save it. Conversely, a bad battle system can drag down an otherwise great game and even make it unplayable. Dragon Ball Fusions has one of the best battle systems I’ve played in years.

Not only is it fun, it manages to capture the excitement and impact of the anime. Which is really hard to do in a turn-based battle system! Characters fly around, shoot energy attacks, get knocked through mountains, team up for multi-hit combos, yell a lot and do all the stuff that makes the anime so great. It’s quite a feat to capture all that in an RPG!

After you assemble your team, which takes a little bit of time to get five members, the fights really comes to life. The battle system features one of my favorite RPG mechanics, the attack timeline bar at bottom of the screen. Like Grandia, which I consider to have the greatest battle system of them all, you can see which characters are going to attack next and plan your strategy around that. You can even knock characters out of the ring, or be knocked out yourself, to send then to the back of the attack order. With some moves, you can even knock multiple characters out at the same time and send half the opposing team out.

Speaking of knocking bad guys around, attack positioning plays a huge part in this battle system. When you attack with melee, you choose which side you’re going to hit the enemy from. Right as you attack, a segmented circle appears around the foe, and you choose at that moment which side to attack from. This in turn determines which way they’ll fly back after the attack. You can knock the foe into his own teammates, causing damage for everyone. Or you can knock him into your teammates, who will also hit him and if everything lines up, he bounces around like a pinball and takes quite a bit of damage. It’s really fun to watch!

Another cool feature of the melee-based combat is the blocking function. When attacking, the characters briefly punch and kick each other super-fast (like in the anime!), then a segmented ring appears around the character being attacked. The attacker chooses one of the rings as the direction they’re attacking from. If you’re being attacked, you choose three segments as the area you’re blocking. If that’s where the attacker attacks from—you'll block it! And take less damage too. If not, you’ll get a hit for full damage. It’s pretty much a gamble, but it happens so fast it adds another layer of excitement to the fights. Although I admit, the computer is not the best blocker. Hello! I always attack from the back!!!

Of course, this being a Dragon Ball game, energy attacks play a major part in battles. And each energy attack has a different attack pattern that can be used to hit multiple bad guys at once. Some hit a small circular area, others a much larger circular area. Some go on a straight path, and so on. Positioning is key if you want your attacks to hit as many characters as possible. And energy attacks are unblockable.

Yet another fun feature of the combat are the assisted attacks. If you do a melee or special move and if one or more of your teammates is in line to attack next, they all jump in for one hit before your attack. This not only stacks up damage fast, it looks amazing as foes are smacked from one character to the other in rapid succession before the final move.

But wait! There’s more! If you can’t tell, I’m in love with this combat system. One more cool thing about the fights are the Zenkai attacks. If you build up enough energy, you can choose a Zenkai attack, which lets you fight in real time briefly before your move. The screen changes and suddenly you’re flying around punching and kicking as fast as you can to get additional Ki Orbs, which are used for special moves, and do massive damage.

And as if all that cool stuff wasn’t enough, there is also the mind-boggling Ultra-Fusion! All five of the character fuse together into a mega-powerful character that does a ton of damage! Of course, they do a little dance first. After fusing, the game goes into real-time action and just like the Zenkai attack, you fly around in real time mashing the button trying to hit the enemies as many times as possible before unleashing the massive final attack. It’s quite a sight!

All this sounds good on paper, but how does it work? Great! Not only in terms of mechanics, it’s also beautiful! Everything mentioned above is delivered with graphical panache. The fighting has an explosive energy that is rarely seen in RPGs. Characters fly at each other with insane bursts of speed, hit each other with backbreaking impact, fly into mountains and destroy them when ringed out, and blast each other with screen-filling, eye-blistering energy attacks. It is downright inspired.

And when you’re not fighting, flying around the Dragon Ball world is fun. The world is a mishmash of various locales from the series that can be unlocked by releasing energy to break time vortexes. And although you’ll spend a lot of time flying from here to there, it’s not a burden at all because it’s so beautiful. Plus, you can fly at regular speed or get a never ending speed burst that is not only useful for getting around, looks and sounds really cool! There are warp points if you’re really impatient.

As for the story, well, it’s the typical light fare that you’d expect from a game that’s basically a giant mixed up salad of different Dragon Ball series. But the characters and dialogue are funny enough, and there are chuckles to be had here and there. However, it’s really about the fights and creating your own dream team.

The game also features plenty of unlockable doodads and extras to keep you busy. Many battles yield new special moves that you can choose to teach your characters or not. Plus, you can dress up your main character in different outfits and whatnot. There’s even a fun anime quiz that you can take every day. It’s actually pretty hard. I don't consider myself a Dragon Ball expert, but I’ve seen and read more than many and I was having a tough time.

The one minor flaw of the game is it’s a little too easy. I never really felt like I was under any real threat during battles. But it’s still fun to watch the sparks fly and I did miss my bus stop because I was so engrossed in a fight. That says something! 

For an RPG based on an anime property, this is an excellent game. The battle system alone makes it worth the price of admission. If you’re a Dragon Ball fan this will provide hours of entertainment and excitement. Or if you love unique RPG combat systems, it’s also a good buy.

Hint: Use your Zenkai attack to knock people out so they’ll join your team!

by Urian Brown