Dragonball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 challenges you to prove yourself as the best DBZ fighter, as you face the toughest characters in the hit show!

Choose from 22 opponents, all from the animated series -- Buu, Gotenks and other classic characters

As you face off in amazing combat, you'll have the distinct moves of every DBZ character at your disposal

Build-up mode improves character fighting skills and increase their power levels as they compete

Create a 16-player Championship battle, for single players or for multi-player action

Average Customer Review: ( 53 customer reviews )
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Graphics:3/5
I don't care about graphical quality, but just so you know; Backgrounds are lifeless, simple, 3-D landscapes. But they are all faithful locations, like the rings (Budoukai and Cell's), Namek, and others. Characters look like rough, unpolished, cell-shaded sprites, with about 2 frames of animation for each attack; If the sprites were smoother, it'd look a lot better, and more like the show. but it's not the graphical quality that bothers me. It's the faithfulness of the characters and their attacks. Powering up sends sludgy-like ki(energy) upwards, instead of the flamy/shield ki look. Kamehameha blasts (and pretty much every other super blast) are orangey/yellow fireballs, instead of the icy blue beam. Quality wise though, considering this game originally came out around...I think 1997 (not sure), it's not bad.

Sound:2.5/5
The music is pretty simple, though there are character themes in their for authenticity. But the problem with that is that they aren't very fast and andrenaline-pumping; nothing to give you incentive to go berserk on your opponent. Characters make a few sounds here and there, but it's your basic grunts and attack-screaming that you'd find in most fighting games. They are however done by the original Japanese actors from the show (I think).

Controls:3/5
People familiar with Capcom's method of pulling of special attacks in fighting games will feel at home here. But others who aren't used to all the complicated "half circle slides" and "hold back, push forward" movements will need some time to practice. The controls are pretty responsive though, so once you get it down, you CAN actually use them.

Gameplay:2.5/5
The computer AI is annoying; it blocks nearly EVERY special attack. You have to REALLY time your attack so it can't defend or throw up its shield. It can be pretty dumb too; if you fly to the sky, it tends to keep dashing towards the edge of the screen below you, or dashing back and forth below you, accomplishing nothing until you move. Gameplay modes aren't very varied, which really hurts the replay. If you're the only one playing, you'll probably end up sticking to the arcade mode; everything else is pointless if you don't have a friend to play with. Example: build up mode is for powering up a character to fight with a HUMAN opponent's powered up character. You can't load your fighter up against the computer in arcade or anything. And speaking of arcade mode, it makes you fight ALL 22 characters, which takes...I'd say around 45-70 minutes, depending on if you die and have to continue, and your method of beating the opponent. Also taking into account the load screens, which are too frequent and long. Actually, if you play through undefeated, you eventually fight all 27 characters. Then you get to see some still images during the credits.

Presentation:1.5/5
Well...this Infogrames version has cut out all the talking cut scenes, with the exception of the tournament announcer, which was left in for God knows why (I mean, if you left that in, why not everything else?). They didn't even care to translate his speech, though I kinda prefer it that way, instead of hearing some bad english dub. The intro FMV is pretty cool though, which introduces all the characters. There's another one that introduces the hidden characters too; you can see that by inputting the code that they GIVE YOU in the game's booklet. The character select screen can be pretty annoying, since it lays out all the full-bodied characters on the screen, instead of using portraits. That's about all the presentation you get in this Infogrames version. There aren't even endings. Just credits. And just a note about the cover of the game; they threw Kid Buu, SSJ 3 Gotenks, and Mystic Gohan on it. They aren't even in the game (well, Gotenks goes SSJ 3 for a couple of attacks)! Which reminds me, they also called the hidden fighter, Gogeta, Vegeto. It makes no sense, but when I think about it, I think they did that so that players not familiar with Gogeta but are familiar with Vegeto (from only watching DBZ on TV) would be less confused of who this is, and figure it IS still some fusion of Goku and Vegeta. It still bother me though.

Overall:3/5
I tried to be unbiased with this review. Hopefully I succeeded.
Bottom Line: If you like DragonBall and don't have a PS2, this is a good fighting game that you should consider buying. It's cheap, and you'll get some fun out of it, and being able to use so many DragonBall fighters. But if you don't like DBZ, this game doesn't have much new to offer over other fighting games. Rental at best for you people.

17 of 23 found the following review helpful:

Wow, they finally got this one converted?Mar 18, 2003
By Andrew P. O'Brien
Got the original Japaneese version of this game a LONG time ago, it's not that bad of a game, as the name states it's 22 DBZ characters including everyone from Goku to Super Majin Buu (No Kid Buu). Basically 2-5 characters from each of the DBZ series.

Game is a simple 2D fighter with a basic 3D background. Unless they totally redid this game (and given the price of $, they probably just did a quick translation) it's nothing to write home about. Each character does basic kicks and punches with some special moves here and there and all characters have a variety of projectile attacks.

Characters can "levitate" or fly, or fight on the ground and you can toss projectiles if your opponent is either above or below you. Pretty simple.

For the price this game isn't too bad. Chances are if the kiddies are knee deep in Dragonball stuff they will add this to their collection, so that's ok, but there are better games out there.

Fighting feels pretty basic and it doesn't take long to figure out how to block just about anything the bad guy throws at you. There's a "Build-up" mode where you take a fighter and as you win fights you "level up" and get stronger with a longer health bar. You can take your fighter to your friends and duke it out with their fighters. Kind of Tomagotchi'esk...

Just remember, you get what you pay for.

Also depending on how much this game has "changed" there should be a code to unlock 5 extra characters. (Young Goku from Dragonball, Mr. Satan (aka-Hercule), and 3 others I can't remember as I write this)

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Dissapointed.....but okDec 22, 2003
By Kenny
I got this game the day it came out expecting a spectacular game......I was very dissapointed.FIrst of all the energy attacks are NOT glorious beams of energy they r these street fighter like fireballs.For me this cost this game a star.The next star was gone because of two things,the graphics and voice overs. The graphics r horrible it looks like a cut out drawing moving on a not very well done 3-d backround.1/2 star gone.Then the voice overs r just......a piece of shi* it sounds like a midgit girl doing the same voice over and over again.1/2 star gone.Even though there r more errors these r my main problems some of u might be like "u cant say that about a dbz game!"ull see what im talkin about if u play this game. but for a diehard dbz fan this game rules!

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Dragonball Z Ultimate battle ( Your turn to save the world)Aug 31, 2003

This game rocks it has lots of characters such as Super Majin Boo, Super Saiyan 3 Goku, the great Saiyaman, Goten and other really great characters.(You have to unlock SS3 Goku By completing the game)
In story mode you fight many opponents some more powerfull than your character although you can go beyond your starting characters' power level such as ascending beyond a super saiyan or you just have fun blasting them to bits!!

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