Dragon Ball Z: Mini Warriors

Dragon Ball Z is one of the most well-known anime series in the world, as well as one of the few that managed to gain so much popularity outside Japan. Hence, everyone is aware of Goku’s deeds, and probably most children have reenacted one of those epic fights in their backyard. On the other hand, it’s pretty tough to portray those encounters in a video game.

Miniature versions of legendary heroes

Dragon Ball Z: Mini Warriors is a 2D fighting game that allows you to play as a variety of characters from the anime, including names like Goku, Vegeta and Piccolo. As the name clearly implies, you play with miniaturized versions of the characters, which look pretty much as you would expect. On the other hand, the encounters can be just as much fun, at least if you learn the moves.
Not all the characters are available from the start, on the other hand, since some of them have to be unlocked first. To do this, you have to beat the AI in the arcade mode, which is not at all an easy task. In fact, it takes a fair period of practice before you are able to understand the mechanics behind the combat. The bad part is that once you learn them, there’s almost no challenge left.

Charge your power to 200%

As for the actual combat mechanics, you only need to use two or three buttons, since there’s nothing too exciting in this regard. You can either block, perform a ranged or a melee attack, as well as charge your powers for a special move. The charging can go up to 200% percent, which is when the special attacks comes in. Still, most of the combat is pretty boring, unfortunately.
The graphics are not exactly bad either, but there’s not much to see. The arenas are mostly empty and boring, which means that the fight is the only thing you can look at. Some of the effects look pretty nice, such as the classic charging flames, but everything becomes repetitive after only a few minutes of gameplay, regardless of the character you choose. In addition, the AI is very difficult to beat, which means that you are stuck with a few characters until you learn to read the AI's moves.

A promising concept that needs more work

In the end, Dragon Ball Z: Mini Warriors is a bit too repetitive and too empty at the moment to be fun for more than a few minutes at a time. On the other hand, there’s a lot of potential here, especially if the developers keep working on it.