Raging Blast 2 [UPDATE 2-Trailer]

Well, I'm not too hyped up for this one seeing as how the first one was so fundamentally flawed. Hopefully, it'll drastically improve the gameplay like Tenkaichi 2 did, but I have my doubts, seeing as it's almost guaranteed to be Spike who's developing it. At least the graphics and art style has been improved. It looks like they got the right idea by taking some queues from Burst Limit's art style. Also, judging from the picture, it looks like the game is going to be released this year, at least in Japan anyway. If not this year, it'll probably come out early next year for the West.



Click the link below or just right click and select 'View Image' to see the entire picture.

http://pici.se/pictures/HZGMwJDRE.jpg

I already said it multiple times, and this just proves me right so far. This will be another 3 part series same as Tenkaichi.

The question of if it will follow the same road and turn out awesome by the third game... that stands to be seen. If people say RB2 is better then 1, then we may have hope. If we're part at two and the game still sucks however... yeah, this series may be lost then.

YAY!!! I mean um... I was wondering what we'd get next; Burst Limit 2 or Raging Blast 2. Looks like it IS the latter. I'm happy that its RB2 cause while it was nowhere near as good as the Tenkaichi series, it wasn't as much of a disappointment like Burst Limit was. The only things I liked about BL were the art style (graphics) and the main theme. I genuinly had a fun time playing RB.

Things I want for RB2;

- Every single Tenkaichi game (including RB) had the controls drastically changed, please stop doing that Spike!

- Those beta PS2 graphics we got in RB1 were really disappointing, especially after BL's amazing look. Fix it!! (Although it looks like they have/are!)

- Allow us to more easily link combos, just make it the Tenkaichi style combo meter. In RB, the combo counter would often reset at random intervals (I saw it happen more than once and it was really annoying).

- NO MORE COLLECTING STARS. Seriously, that was one of the most tedious and unfun things to do. Some of the conditions were just plain wrong, like the one where you had to deflect 50 ki blasts and the oponent wouldn't shoot any unless you were unready to deflect them. That and RB didn't say you'd fulfilled certain conditions often. So no more stars please.

- No more stupid trophies. For example, even though I got it after a million tries, that one where you had to fulfill about 50 conditions in the Score Attack battle was frustrating beyond belief. Then there was that "All Ruined" trophy where you had to destroy every single destroyable object in every single stage all by yourself (opponent destroying objects didn't count towards the trophy). Nuff said! And the online titles were just crap and unless you had a trophy boosting partner, they were impossible to obtain. So no more crappy trophies like those ones.

- No more weird character ommisions. For example, where was Ultimate Gohan in the last game!? And Dabura, and Supreme Kai, etc.

- Change the health and ki bars. The design and layout sucked in RB.

- Stages. While they were big, they were still too small!! I HATE those effing barriers so effing much. Take away the barriers, make the stages even bigger and make them looping ones like the world maps of the Final Fantasy series. Also, BT3 had some amazing new stages like Grandpa Gohan and Goku's house (Mt Paozu) but the new stages introduced in that game weren't in RB! RB didn't give us any new stages, sure some like the city stage had a massive redo, but they weren't new.

- PLEASE bring back the manual lock on/off. That was one of the biggest WTF's in the series. I mean, that was the whole darn point of the Tenkaichi series engine (playing hide and seek). Bring it back so we can explore the stages.

- No Zangya hurt me in the last game. Bring her back and I won't destroy the Earth.

- Even though I know it'll never happen ever, give us the choice of Ocean Dub voice actors.

- No more crap DLC. I mean, who really wanted custom characters? You can just make those yourself. Give us good DLC, but don't pull a Street Fighter 4 and charge us extra money (up to 20+ dollars or pounds) for stuff thats already on the disc.

I might think of some more later!

The two things they really need to do that they haven't already are:

1) Fix the camera. I played the demo and saw people play the game on YouTube. The camera seemed to magnetize towards your character's crotch.

2) Like Nikku said, allow the player to lock-on or lock-off. That was a major part of the camera problem.

Other problems to be fixed include:

i) Allow players to fight vertically. It's just stupid that you can't punch or blast someone directly above or below you. This could be fixed by allowing the character's body and camera to rotate. If they don't want to do this, I guess they're thinking the player will get motion sickness or confused like in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.

ii) Fix the environments. I hate that the ground looks quasi-realistic. It should look like something from the Dragon Ball world, like the characters do. Having cel-shaded characters fight in a non-cel-shaded world is very clashing.

iii) Create-a-character. I'm one of those people who think it'd be neat, but most people I've talked to about it feel it's a must by now. And really, how hard could it be?

*Nods head*

Agreed. I've got some more stuff;

- Speed. They drastically slowed down the characters for Raging Blast, probably to create the "illusion" that the stages were bigger than they actually were.

- Bring back the moves that were taken out of BT2 and 3. There was no excuse for shortening the character movelists. For example, why couldn't we do the full 4 hits of the Heavy Finish combo ender?

- Fighting vertically. Like Son said, its sucks basically. I don't recall it being as bad in the previous Tenkaichi games, but in RB it was extremely bad. And unless you wasted precious ki charge dashing towards your opponent (who's suddenly right above you), it took you over 20 seconds (dashing normally) to reach your opponent. Then they would probably just dash towards the ground and thats another 20 seconds of time wasting. This one ties into the previous bullet point I guess, but just please Spike, fix it, fix it now!

- Create a Character. It's due. Its long overdue. People would LOVE Create a Character. It would be something for people to use who don't wish to, or can't, get Dragonball Online. And give us the opportunity to make several different characters, cause if Yugioh Tag Force 4 for the PSP lets you make 200 different decks, then a next gen game should be able to top that. Tag Force 4 is for the PSP btw. Don't pull a Mortal Kombat Armaggedon and only let us have 1 CaC. Oh, and let us mold the character's hairtsyle as well, that would be incredible and it would finally let me be able to fight as my own created comic book and manga characters in a game.

- No more Conditions to fulfull in a story mode battle. They were random in RB and it got so annoying. Example; in one story mode battle, my character was performing his Ultimate Move when the condition "Use your Ultimate Attack!" popped up. It didn't register, even though I was sitting through the animation of the move and long before the attack had finished, the condition buggered off. So annoying. Take them out please.

- Costumes. For example;Goku's costumes. Goku has 6 different costumes in RB. They are all variations of his orange gi. Thats so boring! Its nice that they put the Turtle, Kaio and GO! kanji's on 3 different outfits, but its too much the same. Then its his Android/Buu saga attire which is just the first 3 costumes with a different sash and larger V neck shirt. Then slightly tattered organge gi and finally really tattered orange gi. Why not give us the chance to simply alter his orange gi in a possible customisation mode.

Give us some different costumes like in BT3; where's the Yardrat outfit? The Saiyan Armor? The end of Z blue gi? All that he had in the previous game! And memory constrainst excuses don't work here because the Dead or Alive series has over 20 costumes for each female character and at least 7 or 8 for the males. And thats on last gen systems!

And people like Vegeta or Trunks, they just get a part of their costume turned black! Since BT1 they've been doing that and it sucks and is lazy. In BT2 and 3, sword Trunks had jacketless as an alternate look. Why did they simply turn his jacket black in RB? Give us Bojack movie Trunks as an alt for fighting Trunks. Give us the infamous Badman shirt for Vegeta, give us Goku's black/orange jacket with green pants! Give us something different, give us actual alternate costumes and not slight palette swaps ya lazy bastards!!

I'll inevitably think of more points soon!

Just a little update. Here's a link to more photos of the actual gameplay. They're huge, but not scans for once. As you can see, it's the same level from the demo. Not that it's a surprise that Spike is once again recycling stages.

http://images.saiyanisland.com/showphoto.php?photo=6535







Here's the link to the last image:

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/108/1088539/dragon-ball-raging-blast-sequel-in-development-20100510095448978.jpg

Nice! The graphics look like the FMV intro of DBZ Infinite World. Nice to see that Spike actually tried with the graphics this time round! RB's graphics were piss poor.

Also, expanding on what Son said; the backgrounds. When Dimps decided to switch the graphics from realistic to cel shaded for Budokai 2, they also redid the stages to make them more anime-ish and it absolutley worked. Tenkaichi has had realistic stages since BT1. Even if it's just once, I'd like to see cel shaded backgrounds.

Graphics that would work really well with a DBZ game would have to be Dragon Quest VIII graphics! I'm still blown away and amazed by those graphics to this day. The scenery and characters blend together perfectly.

I also hope that Spike don't recycle the same old stages from RB. They pulled that little stunt with BT3; aside from the new stages, the only thing that changed with the returning BT2 stages was the new barriers. Those effing barriers... The returning stages didn't get any bigger, there were no new things in the stages, nothing. Just new barriers.

As for your last comment, they are definitely going to have all the previous stages. It's what they did with Tenkaichi 2 and Tenkaichi 3 and like I said in my previous comment, if you look at the background of the new screenshots, it's the same freaking level from Raging Blast 1. I never bought the game, but I played the demo a lot so I can recognize that stage when I see it. I'm pretty sure that's also the same Namek stage from Tenkaichi 2, Tenkaichi 3, and Raging Blast.

Do yourself a favor. Wait at least until November next year. That's when Raging Blast 3 will be released. They're obviously doing annual releases like EA Sports and Activision games.

Also, about the background stage graphics. If you try to make something like that look realistic, it's going to look like crap when you're a developer who isn't exactly talent-laden. You've gotta stylize things. If you do that, it'll always look good. Just look at The Wind Waker. Heck, Super Dragon Ball Z made the backgrounds look like the manga, not the anime, and it still looks okay (not that great, though because it looked cheap to begin with).

Here's a screenshot from the first Raging Blast two compare the background stages. It looks like they may have added a little detail to the rocks, but it still doesn't look good to be honest.



I will say this though. Frieza looks pretty darn good.

I posted the trailer for the update in the OP.

Hmmm... Well its a good looking game (Like the first RB should've been), but its just a little fighting seen in the trailer. I really want something (even if its just one thing) big and exciting that hasn't been done before in a DBZ game. Something we've never seen before and not a what if character. Come on Spike, you can do it!

I already said this, but i will say it again... One of the biggest DB trademarks was the fact that the characters were able to destroy the scenarios... in this games you drop a massive energy attack to the ground and nothing happens :S It always give me a wrong sensation.. it was anti-DB like...lol
For me scenario interactions are one of the most important things in a game, and not even B. Tenkaichi did it well (But at least they tried)...

That's the main problem with the DB videogame franchise. Dragon Ball fighters are made solely by people with very low aspirations. Think of it as the equivalent of the guy who wants to be a cashier, a food-bagger, or a cart-pusher when he grows up.

All it takes is one developer with high aspirations to make a video game based on a popular anime, and make it with a lot of quality and creativity like Rockesteady started with Batman: Arkham Asylum, then the rest of the publishers will want to jump on the bandwagon, like Activision with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Sadly, seeing as how Namco-Bandai is the publisher of pretty much all major anime/manga videogame franchises, I don't see that happening in the near-future. They're going to continue to annualize the franchise with shovelware-updates that make Madden games look creative.

Bandai isn't involved with the Tenkaichi/Raging Blast series though are they?

They did the Budokai series and Infinite World. Spike is behind Tenkaichi and Raging Blast. Not that, that seems any better.

No, you have it mixed up. Namco-Bandai publishes all Dragon Ball games. They've done it since the early NES games...well Namco did before they merged anyway.

Dimps developed the DBZ fighters from the 2.5D perspective. All the Budokai games and Burst Limit were made by Dimps.

Spike developed the Tenkaichi series and the Raging Blast series.

What does this mean? It means that Namco-Bandai goes out and finds a developer to make them DBZ fighters. At first they went with Dimps, then they went with Spike once the Budokai games started getting stale.

Apparently, Spike's games made Namco-Bandai enough profit for them to give Spike the go-ahead for a Raging Blast 2.

If Raging Blast 2 makes them enough profit, they'll make a Raging Blast 3.

This viscous cycle is not going to end until people get it through their heads that these games aren't being improved enough to be worth yet another $60 entry price.

I just want to yell at these people that keep saying "Guys! If we buy this shoddy game, Namco-Bandai will have more money to give to Spike to make a way better sequel!!!"

No! They are not going to give them more money for a better sequel. They already have their plan set out from the beginning. They have Spike intentionally remove basic aspects and all those characters from the Tenkaichi series. They do this so they can have a selling point for sequels when they gradually reimplement some of those features. You know why? Because it's cheap, meaning more profit since these idiots will buy the sequel anyway, right? I'd do the same thing if all I cared about was the bottom line profit for the fiscal year.

You think Spike takes a year to make these games? lol! I bet they work on these 'sequels' for a few weeks before moving on to the next project. Namco-Bandai just holds the product back because if they pumped out a new game more often, people wouldn't buy it as much.

I'm just basing this theory on the fact that it took Bungie a year of crunch-time to make Halo 2 from the ground up. So how long could it possibly take to switch matte with gloss for the character textures and put in some characters that were already in the engine from the Tenkaichi games? All that's left is to animate a couple moves, make a level or two, write a few generic J-Rock tunes, and prepare free DLC which is just characters already in the game with moves that you can already add to them in the game without the use of the DLC.

Also, here's the E3 2010 trailer and some screenshots.




http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/73729/dragon-ball-raging-blast-2/images/dragon-ball-raging-blast-2-20100616023055823.html


Check out the amount of dislikes the video got. That's a good sign at least. I'm glad a lot of people who bought RB are mad about this as well.

Also, note the 'new' characters they are flaunting.

I see.

Thanks for clearing that up then.

{Damn it... Son has figured out our plans...!}


Heh... you can just bet that the "new" characters in RB2 will just be a ones that were in BT3 but not RB1.

Nikku wrote:{Damn it... Son has figured out our plans...!}


Heh... you can just bet that the "new" characters in RB2 will just be a ones that were in BT3 but not RB1.

Likely.