Normally I'd make jokes about balls, and dragons, before leading onto the main part of the review and then going out with a bang by poking fun at one of the main Dragon Ball Z characters. But at risk of getting formulaic, or generic, I've decided against asking questions such as "Do dragons really have balls?"

Super Dragon Ball Z is another 2D/3D fighting game set in the Dragon Ball universe. Unfortunately it's not a Dragon Ball RPG, something I know that fans of the series are desperate for - but I digress. Super Dragon Ball Z has nothing to do with the Budokai series either, which AceGamez has reviewed in its various incarnations - I personally reviewed Budokai 3 and I liked it a lot. Instead, this game is an arcade port from those Japanese arcade machines in, well, Japan. It's not quite as deep as the Budokai series - it's fight after fight and there's no exploring islands in flying mode either, as with the Budokai games. Super Dragon Ball Z was actually headed up by one of the guys partly responsible for the brilliant Street Fighter II - and it shows, too.

Before you get playing any of the main modes, such as Original, which is the arcade mode you'll find in any other fighting game, or ZSurvivor, which is like the survival mode of any classic fighting romp, you need to create a character card. Basically this is like your passport to fighting - you choose a character - Goku, Cell, or Trunks, the guy I picked - to name but a few, then you a name and you've got yourself a character card. All you have to do now is fight, fight, fight, and through fighting you gain EXP. When you have enough EXP, you can come back to the card creation place and buy new skills for your character; each new skill goes on your card and there are quite a few empty slots just waiting to be filled with lovely new abilities. Earning skills is mostly done though getting battle EXP during long and fruitful fights against your Dragon Ball foes. However, throughout the Original Mode and ZSurvivor, you can pick up Dragon Balls. Get seven of them and then go into the Summon menu, where you can summon Shenron the dragon to grant you wishes. Some wishes come in the form of rare skills, which just add to your character card, but I'll leave the secret wishes for you to discover for yourself!

The actual fighting in SDBZ is so polished and superbly crafted that I simply cannot drag myself away from it. There are so many moves that you can pull off by just rotating your analogue stick and pressing different buttons, and it's easy to see that the developers have gone for the simple but effective approach. Of course, knowing when to use your moves is the part you have to master, because for every offensive attack there seems to be a defensive one to counter it, and if you're not careful, the clever AI will counter all your attacks and come out on top. Of course, there are devastating attacks that take some mastering, and you can only use the mother of all moves when you have your power bar full - you may even have to purchase your special from Shenron the dragon, but that's all I'm saying! Although the game isn't quite as arty or fluid as the Budokai titles, flying everywhere and pretty much fighting out a cinematic scene, its arcade roots are definitely part of SDBZ's charm. You can perform fantastic jumps, and tapping the jump button on your way down causes you to hover in that position for a while. This makes for some nice airborne battles and the high jumps allow you to dodge some forward projectile moves too.

Super Dragon Ball Z is a 3D game, even though it only looks 2D. You'll be fighting in one direction for a while, until your opponent strafes a third of a way around you, and then you're suddenly facing him, fighting in one of the other three-dimensional directions. The level design is gorgeous to say the least - again not as arty as Budokai, but the cel-shaded arcade roots leave the game looking very Dragon Ball Z, yet still very old school all the same. True to the cartoon, you have levels covering large mountains, grasslands, wastelands, King Yemma's Palace and Planet Namek, among many others. On your fighting adventures you may come across destructible objects, like lampposts or mountains, for example. That's right, mountains! You can jump on top of them too, but if you get your enemy against the wall of a mountain and pound it until there's no tomorrow, you can expect that mountain to shatter. The same goes for walls, and all the destruction adds to the overall fighting experience, ensuring that no two fights will be the same.

Aside from Versus, which you can only play against a friend, Original mode is the main mode. You're presented with fight after fight, across many different stages, earning a Dragon Ball for each successful win. The first person to reach two wins is the overall winner of the bout, and although this mode starts off fairly easy, it gradually gets harder until you're fighting Cell, who is probably the hardest character to fight in the game, next to Frieza and Goku - and Piccolo, hell, they're all quite a challenge, but not quite as hard as spelling their bloody names! This mode just never grows stale and it's a great way to earn Balls to summon the dragon, to get wishes granted and also to earn EXP to build your character. ZSurvivor is my favourite mode, however. Much like traditional survival modes in other fighting games, you fight a character to the death, then another, and another, until you run out of health. However, the twist here is that at the end of every fight you are presented with a wheel of fortune style spinning wheel - seven Dragon Balls and a light spinning around really fast illuminating them. Each ball you can land on has an effect on the match you're about to fight, except one, the gain Dragon Ball modifier, which gives you a number of Dragon Balls to spend later on. The other six consist of things like a certain amount of health recovered (which can be vital if you're running low on health and cannot survive the next round without it) or a percentage increase in your attack power, or a bonus that increases the EXP you gain, meaning that ZSurvivor also makes for some great EXP gaining.

Graphically, SDBZ really excels for an arcade game - as I mentioned before, the old school anime look really does the game wonders; it doesn't only look nice, it looks pretty authentic too. Special moves, or every move for that matter, always produce some kind of special effect. Whether it's a special laser power with sparks-a-flying, or a special sword attack with blades-a-swinging, you can always guarantee that your eyes will be dazzled by everything that is going on. To top off the graphical goodness, you even get those Batman style >SLASH!< and >BOOM!< splashes as you really gut your foe to pieces. Comical cel-shaded goodness with a hint of arcade - absolutely superb. Then you have the audio, typical Japanese synths with your crazy looping beats. Yes, it can get repetitive, but for the Dragon Ball style in music, it can be forgiven. All the dialogue is in Japanese, so you don't have any English voiceovers like you get in the cartoon, unfortunately, but for all the moaning sounds for getting hurt and the grunting sounds for hurting others, the sound on offer here is as sound as a pound!

I almost gave Super Dragon Ball Z a 10, and that'd be saying something, as I'm not even a fighting game fanatic or a Dragon Ball Z die-hard fan. The only thing holding it back from a full 10 is the lack of online play - I'd like to see a Dragon Ball title online, as would thousands of others. The other thing lacking is maybe a tag-team mode, or a mode where you can set up your own matches - I want to go against him, and want to play as her, and I want to play in this arena. It'd be nice to go against your own cards too, train up your guy and then fight against him as the AI takes control of your baby. Still, everything this game offers is sheer quality; the fights are sometimes epic, sometimes short and sweet, but you'll never have two fights the same. The character cards have you continuously training your new characters up, while the EXP system perfectly compliments the cards, meaning that you always choose wisely when it comes to buying skills. The ZSurvivor mode is excellent, and playing against a friend with the card that he's brought over from home is also possible, making Super Dragon Ball Z a super fighting game, no matter what your preferred genre of gaming, or preferred animé series. And if I can't convince you then Goku should be able to… oh, hang on…

What's that you say, Goku?

You're going to kill me? But why?!

For defiling your name with my filthy mouth? But I only spoke your name because I was hoping you'd have a word with the readers of this…

What? You're going to rip me limb from limb using your divine and destructive powers? Yeah, right…

[Dex? Ed].

[Dex! Ed].

[Dex! Come back here and finish this review! Ed].

[Wow, I haven't seen him move that fast since I tied a fiver to the back of my car and drove past his house… Ed].

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).