I have fond memories of the Dragon Ball series, both the manga and the cartoon, from the fantasy adventures of Dragon Ball to the simpler science fiction battles in Dragon Ball Z. What I don’t have fond memories of though, is Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22. There are several Dragon Ball games now on every console and some of them do a great job of giving you the feel of the battles from the series and the fun of playing as your favourite characters. Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 was the first Dragon Ball game I played and unfortunately achieved none of this. Released in Europe in 1996 for the PlayStation, the game had 22 playable characters from the series and another 5 unlockable characters.

There was no story mode, the music was bland and graphics looked just plain lazy. It was a fighting game that had 2D sprites battling against sparse 3D backdrops. As well as kicking and punching, players could fly and shoot energy blast at each other. If both characters started to fly then the backdrop would change to up in the sky (this looked even worse than fighting on the ground), only changing back if a character landed or was knocked to the ground.

The sprites weren’t animated well but having them in a 2D rather than 3D style was a good idea since each character faithfully resembled their cartoon counterparts. The art style of Dragon Ball is what first attracted me to the series so keeping this intact in the game was probably the only positive thing about it. I first came across Dragon Ball in Spain when I saw stickers and key rings of it. The character designs impressed me and I bought them not knowing it was a cartoon show until I briefly saw some of it on Spanish TV. Even still the 2D sprites in this game weren’t particularly clean or clear looking as the anime was so I call it the positive aspect of the game, but that’s being generous.
Dragon Ball Ultimate Battle 22 is a game you’d rather forget but thankfully the newer games were a massive improvement. Even though the series originated in the 1980’s, it still remains popular with a new animated film released in Japan earlier this year. I’m expecting a Dragon Ball game to make its way to the PlayStation 4 too.