Dragon Ball Z: Sagas

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas

Ironic that the cover art is a perfect showcase of what the average play session of this dreadful Dragon Ball cash-grab will go down.

Genre(s):	Action-adventure Beat'em up
Rating(s):	T (Teen)
Platform(s):	Nintendo GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox
Release:	March 22, 2005
Developer(s):	Avalanche Software
Publisher(s):	Atari
Series:	Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas is an action-adventure game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Atari. It is the first Dragon Ball Z game to be released on a non-Japanese console, the Xbox. It was also the only Dragon Ball Z game to be released on the original Xbox.

Gameplay

Sagas has fighting-based gameplay with new abilities becoming available via upgrade. There are three basic fighting styles: Melee, Combo, and Ki. Melee attacks are often swift and leave the opponent temporarily stunned. Combo attacks are several consecutive punches or kicks to the opponent which may contain up to 10 hits. Ki attacks are energy blasts that rely on a rechargeable meter for power. The most powerful ki blast is the "Special Move" found in the first level.

Why It's Going Super Sayan (In The Worst Way Possible)

One of the main problems with this game is the extremely clunky physics of the game since they make the gameplay, the combats, and even the controls are clunky and unresponsive, that doesn't help that the game uses an unadapted engine (See WIGSS#4).
- Not to mention that due to how clunky the physics are, it completely ruins the game and makes it is a tedious game with horrible controls and clunky combats, but that not even the absolute worst part of the game, all of the reasons why it's a wasted potential and why the game had a lot of problems will be explained below.
- Also, the game feels like a random clash of ideas that didn't go well due to how horrendous the execution is, It's also doesn't help that if the controls and combats were a little better, then the game might have probably been decent or at least average.
The controls are absolutely horrible, clunky, slippery, and even unresponsive as they are so clunky that it's making the difficulty extremely unbalanced at times (See WIGSS#15), this also is the main reason why this game is not only a wasted potential, but also one of the absolute worst games of the Dragon Ball Z franchise.
- This is especially a problem with the combats and the boss fights too, as the controls and physics are so bad that the combats are horribly delayed, and would even make the bosses stupidly harder than they already are, kind of like in Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles, but in an even worse way than that game since at least that game wasn't so bad, but this game, however, takes this flawed way too far.
- The controls are also so unresponsive that it can even cause some cheap deaths that make some levels a horrible nightmare due to how long or how tedious and poorly designed they are, since the level design is not adapted to the abysmal controls, not to mention that it's even making some of the bosses even harder because there's also the unresponsive combat and this can cause a lot of cheap deaths since the bosses can kill you very easily in this game, not even Dragon Ball GT: Transformation had this problem of the controls being unresponsive to this extent, despite that gape being decent and not bad.
- The jump is a noticeable example of how clunky this game is, as it is extremely delayed and feels like it takes almost one second to jump, which is already a bad sign because the game is already clunky enough to make the controls and combat being very bad and even some of the worst in the Dragon Ball Z franchise.
- Not only that, but they are extremely delayed too, which makes the game harder than how it was supposed to be, since when the combos finish, it takes at least 1 second to move again, making some of the enemies extremely annoying to deal with, and is the main reason of why this game is ruined!! Not only that, but the jump is also delayed to the point of being annoying, this combined with unresponsive controls even make this game an absolute nightmare to play at worst.
The camera is extremely awful and very loose as it is either too zoomed to your character or the enemies or it's zoomed extremely far from your character, this is especially noticeable in the boss fights, as it is where the camera is at it's absolute worst in the game, despite being extremely bad already.
- It also doesn't help that you can't even control the camera and that you can only see the level based on what the camera angles offer, so you will likely do some cheap deaths at times, or doing jumps to land on where you didn't wanted to.
- The camera is also so bad that sometimes it can even make you get horrible cheap deaths in the boss fights since a kind of like in Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout (another abysmal Dragon Ball game), the camera angles focus on the ground and sometimes you can barely even see your characters when he gets beaten up, which make the bosses even worse than they already are.
The game uses an unadapted engine for the level design and the controls, as it uses the engine from Tak and the Power of Juju, which was more adapted for the platformer genre, and that game is a far better game than this by the way.
- Despite this, the graphics are absolutely bad and it looks like a Nintendo 64 or early Dreamcast game rather than a PS2/GameCube/Xbox game (See WIGSSITWWP #8).
The game has so many bugs and glitches that is one of the main reasons why this game is so bad as you can sometimes glitch up the textures, the graphics are not only bad, but also glitchy at times, and you can even get some glitches with the horrible hit detection, in fact it's on par with Skull Island: Rise of Kong and Sonic '06 level of glitch (even if they came out later than this).
- In the Android Saga, after Vegeta defeated Android 19, Dr. Gero still fired at Goku until he died, forcing him to retry the entire level, this is a horrible glitch that can happen very easily and makes this game an absolute nightmare to beat due to these awful glitches and the unbalanced difficulty that is mostly because of the clunkiness of this game.
- Having the players that are invisible at times, which is not only a horrible glitch, but also makes this game almost unplayable at times, and that is also one of the main reasons why there are so many problems with the gameplay.
  - The most notable example of where this glitch happens is with the final boss Cell, which is even one of the worst bosses of the game due to this alone, as you can become invisible extremely easily in this fight, which makes it hard to beat Cell after this glitch happens, it's so easy to do it that sometimes that can happen 90% of the time, and no, this is not a joke.
- There's even a glitch that makes you get opponents stuck in your hands when you accidentally charge your kit for transforming to a super saiyan, this makes the boss downright impossible to beat and the only option is to reset your console and do an entire level all over again, how is this even possible?!
- Sometime, the opponents' health never goes down, which make the boss fights even worse and this can happen a lot, especially with the Cell boss at the very end of the game.
There's a multiplayer mode, which while somewhat fun, has some problems that make it still not very good and even downright terrible, as the camera is so awful that this problem itself ruins the mode.
- First half, due to the awful camera control, you can't even control it in the multiplayer mode due to the screen being far from a character, this essentially makes the multiplayer a nightmare at worst due to the terrible camera that makes this game one of the few beat 'em up that is not that fun with 2 players.
The gameplay is extremely repetitive and feels like a chore at times due to how clunky the physics and controls of this game are, you also do the same thing over and over, for all of the 19 levels of the game, they could have done some mini-games after a level end or at least doing a bonus stage for breaking a bit the repetitiveness of the game, it doesn't even help that the level is horribly designed and sometimes extremely long since some levels take 30 minutes to beat.
The escort level is some of the worst levels in the game history and even the absolute worst level in a DBZ game. For example: You escort the Dende or generic robot to safety and you need to protect him to complete without any damage, but due to how horrible the level design is, how awful the controls and camera are, and how hard this levels is, the escort levels are nearly impossible to complete.
The graphics are absolutely awful and some of the worst in a Dragon Ball game made in the 2000s, if not the worst, since it's got poorly made texture, bad modelling of the characters and horrendous lightning that make the game an eye bleeding game to look at, in fact it looks more like a 2000 Nintendo 64 game or at least a Dreamcast game rather than a Xbox/PS2/GameCube game released in 2005, it doesn't help that even the first Dragon Ball Z: Budokai looks better than this and it was made in 2002.
- The characters models doesn't even look like they come from an official Dragon Ball Z game, since they are so blocky and poorly modelled, that they look like bootleg doll instead of actual characters from the anime, kind of like in the first Naruto: Ninja Council game released in 2003.
- The color palette is terrible and is the main reason why the graphics look this bad, since it's almost colorless and makes the environment look flat and boring, it doesn't help that the lightning is so awful that it makes the game looks like a fifth generation console game rather than a 6th one.
- The textures are even worse than the graphics themself since they are so badly done that they can sometimes glitch out and even make a lot of glitches happen, this is not helped that when they are destroyed by a Kamehameha, they look like they destroying in a non-natural way, in comparison, the first Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi also came out in 2005 and got much better textures than this, and that game also got good graphics for the time so what happened here?
- The backgrounds are also not very good, despite being a bit better than the other graphics parts and being faithful to the anime, as they are quite lacking in details and look like they come from a Dreamcast game.
The combat is downright awful, boring, and even delayed too, as the fighting mechanics are extremely repetitive, it's had horrible hit-box (see WIGSS#10) and the enemies are harder to kill because of that, not to mention that the combat is extremely unresponsive and clunky too, kind of like in Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus, but these games were not to that extent of awful combats that are horribly delayed.
- This is especially a problem with the horrible bosses of this game that are very overpowered and can kill you easily due to how clunky and unresponsive the combat is, and the combos don't even help.
- The combos, as said before, don't even help the combat from being awful and they are horribly delayed to the point that you should never use them for beating a boss or even some enemies, since the animation of it ends in like 1 or even 1.5 seconds, which is a horrible delay and can be compared to Bubsy 3D level of horrible delayed controls!
- Even worse, the combat is quite slow and feels like a chore to beat up the enemies at the time due to the fact that the combat is not only unresponsive, clunky and delayed, but also quite slow to do and it's not helped with the combos as said before, same for the hit detection.
The hit detection is absolutely abysmal and is the main reason of why the combat is so poor, since it will be glitchy at times and even will not hit an enemy correctly, in fact it's even poorly programmed since hitting an enemy is quite hard due to how awful the hit detection is and how delayed too.
- Even the textures had horrible hit detection, since they are so glitchy that you might even pass through some of them or sometimes miss an obstacle when you hit it, but due to how bad the hit detection is, it doesn't.
- Sometimes, the bosses also have this problem since they always teleport themselves and when you try to hit them, you will fail to attack them due to how horrible the hit detection is.
False Advertisement: The game claims to be "A free-form sandbox game", but instead, it's a linear beat 'em up game with almost no exploration whatsoever due to tons of invisible walls and the linear level design.
The difficulty, despite appearing easy at first, is quite unbalanced due to how horrible the controls and hit detection are, to the point of making some missions nearly impossible due to either the horrible glitches or the terrible combat, in fact it's even worse than in the first Legacy of Goku game (which is also a bad game, but still better than this).
- One of the best examples would be in "The Final Showdown" level that is some of the absolute worst examples of how bad the difficulty spike is, as Cell takes a long time to take down, sometime his health never goes down or the glitch can completely kill your fight.
- The real reason why the combat is this bad is not, because it is hard to use it intentionally, but because of the fact that the hit detection is what makes it hard at times or even because of the awful enemies' stats balance, this make the combat difficulty unbalanced and tedious too.
Certain bosses cannot be damaged unless the player has Super Saiyan (or Super Namek in Piccolo's case) activated. Because those modes deplete your ki gauge quickly, those battles end up mostly consisting of swinging away at the enemy to refill the gauge, making them some of, if not the worst bosses of the entire game, and likely one of the absolute worst parts of the game.
- This is made even worse with the fact that the game doesn't even tell you this and you could easily not know that, being killed by these bosses and having to restart the entire level all over again, it also doesn't help that it's an upgrade that needs to be unlocked.
The soundtrack, while decent, is pretty generic which is shocking, since the Dragon Ball Z franchise is known for it's amazing soundtrack, some of the songs are quite repetitive and you sometime would even forget that the music play, especially for the boss fights part where the music is so generic that it can be forgotten easily that the music play.
There's not any checkpoints in the game, which mean that if you die in a level, then you have to restart it all over again, which is incredibly annoying since most of the levels are incredibly tedious and some of them are horribly long.
- This is especially a problem with the levels that are not just a fight and either a long or very hard level or even both, there's no exception, not only this is a cheap tactic to make the game longer, but that will make the game even more tedious, much like Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles.
The flying in this game is a joke, since it looks great on paper, but then when you get to use it, you now see that you don't actually fly, but rather rest in the air, which make it almost useless with the exception of when you need to use it to collect the collectibles.
When you collecting the collectibles or you're doing to complete the mission, Bulma pops out of nowhere, it's really annoying to hear her talking everytime you play.
Missed Opportunity: Similar to The Sopranos: Road to Respect, it could have been an amazing open world game where you get to explore the world, however instead its a linear beat 'em up game.
The roster is quite lackluster due to the fact that there are not many playable characters and also because most of the time, the characters are just colors swap or skin changes, thus making the roster pretty small, even Ultimate Battle 22 had more characters than this.
- Not to mention that despite having lot of swap of characters in it, they all play the same with almost nothing to make them stronger, making this a real missed opportunity.
Adding to the previous pointer, all of the characters play the same, with no differences in their moves set, the only thing that change is their attacks' animation, or sometimes they slighly had more or less powers than the other, making the characters' stats lackluster too.
- Even worse, some of their different animation make them even worse to play as, such as Gohan for example, since due to the fact that he doing uppercuts, then he had even worse hit detection and range, no, this is not a joke.
The special moves like the Kamehameha look like pathetic energy balls that can be seen on a generic fighting game rather than a DBZ game, and all the special moves look the same, although that problem isn't as bad as it was in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 for the PS1.
The bosses are terrible and some of the worst you will ever encounter in the entire video game franchise, if not the worst, to the point of being atrociously abysmal to fight, with them often making horribly strong moves and some even making you glitch the game due to how poorly programmed this game is.
- Raditz is the first boss, and he's already an awful boss due to the horrible camera and also the fact that it's hard to attack him unless you don't do a combo on him when you get to track him. Also, doing a kamehameha is absolutely useless in this fight because he will dodge it no matter what. The best way to beat him is to repeat your attacks until he dies, even if he's not the worst boss of the game.
- Nappa is also an annoying boss that takes horribly long time to take down, even if you spam your attacks without doing combos. It doesn't even help that he can take you down easily to the point of making this fight a nightmare, not to mention that if you die, you have to restart the entire level all over again.
- Vegeta is an absolutely annoying boss. That is where the real nightmare with the bosses starts since he is so hard to attack, since he dodges you very easily and can take you down very easily. He also takes a while to be down due to how underpowered you are. This is not helped by the fact that much like all of the other bosses in the game, he always teleports for dodging your attack, so he is really painful to beat.
- Recoome is a very annoying boss since he always teleports himself, almost constantly blocks your attacks, and he can take a long time to beat if you do it in the normal way. The best way to beat him is to try to never finish your combos to make the fight faster.
- Jeice and Burter are also pretty annoying to beat since they are two and one of them could constantly throw projectiles at you, making the fight horribly hard if you didn't get the upgrades, not to mention that they can last quite long, like 4 minutes, although they aren't the longest ones to beat.
- Captain Ginyu is not the worst or hardest boss of the game, but he is still a bit annoying since he takes a long time to take down and he can easily be dodged, making the fight very boring and almost useless.
- Captain Ginyu as Goku is much worse than the main Captain Ginyu character, as he always teleports himself and can kill you easily. He is also hard to attack, since he moves fast and can block your attacks a lot, making this fight really tedious.
- Frieza with his two forms is incredibly tedious since it is basically a survival boss, but the problem is that once again, it's a very annoying boss, and you can easily get killed by Frieza. The only way to make the boss easier is to try to do the stuck in the ground glitch, but even that is very hard to do, and Frieza would sometimes attack you when you were doing that bug.
- Frieza's final form is where you need to be in super sayan mode; otherwise, you can't damage him, which is incredibly annoying, and if you aren't in sayan form, then you can't damage him, and he would not take any damage, not to mention that he is once again very fast and can dodge your attacks easily.
- Soba and Yardrafts are also very annoying bosses that always teleport themselves, and attacking one of them is incredibly hard because of this and the fact that they move horribly fast, not to mention that the camera is even worse for these bosses, making them a real nightmare at best.
- Android 17 is pretty easy, but he can still be annoying to fight since some of his attacks are almost impossible to dodge, and he can kill you easily with some of the attacks, although he isn't the most annoying in the game and is likely one of the best bosses of the game.
- Android 17 and Android 18 is basically endurece combat since first you fight Android 17 a second time, then after that, Android 18 comes and you need to fight her too, and they all are at their full health bar and they aren't as a duo like in the earlier duo bosses. This makes it for annoying fights if you do not have that many upgrades.
- Android 19 with Dr. Gero is a very laughable boss and is extremely easy, that is all we can say.
- Android 18 is another easy boss that is almost impossible to lose to since you can go under your super-sayan form and beat her in only 1 minute since your attacks are very powerful.
- The second fight with Android 17 is a bit annoying since he can take a long time to take down and his attacks are stronger than the last time you fought him, not to mention that your attacks had a hard time hitting Android 17 due to the terrible hit detection, although the camera here is a bit better than with the previous bosses.
- The first fight with Perfect Cell, despite not being as bad as the second fight, is still incredibly annoying since Cell can kill you easily due to the poor hit detection that makes attacking him really hard, not to mention that he takes a lot of time to take down.
- Perfect Cell (the second fight) is the absolute worst boss of the entire game since he takes a horribly long time to take down, has attacks that can kill you in just a few hits, and blocks your attacks an awful lot to the point of making him nearly impossible to beat. Not to mention that, as said before, there's a horrible glitch that makes your character invisible and makes the fight impossible after that, his attacks also are horribly hard to dodge due to the fact that they are very fast, so you will have a hard time avoiding them.
  - Not to mention that you need to be in super-Sayan form to damage him, and even with that, it's sometimes impossible to do so due to how hard he is to take down. Also, even in super-Sayan form, it is almost impossible to take him down.
The level design is horrendously terrible and is either generic and bland or sometimes extremely horrible and can get some of the levels very confusing to navigate, or some levels that have an atrocious amount of fake difficulty into them either due to poor enemy placements or the horrible camera. The levels are so bad that it makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus level design is a masterpiece by comparison (although that game's level design is quite awful and very unbalanced too), not that the sub pointer will only focus on the levels where it isn't just a boss fight, since we can see why they are bad in the bosses' pointers.
- The Arrival is a generic level that can be completed in just 5 minutes as there's not so many enemies and the level itself is extremely linear, which, while it's nothing wrong to do linear stuff, here it is abused to the extreme since the only thing that makes the level longer is the fact that you need to kill all enemies to advance.
- The Mighty Nappa is extremely confusing and an overly awful level, as there's a lot of enemies that block too much and could kill you easily due to the fact that you have a horrible hit detection, and with Gohan, the hit detection is even worse than with the other characters, not to mention that, as said in the bosses' pointers, Nappa is a bit annoying to fight, so if you die, then you have to restart the level all over again. Not only that, but some of the objectives are pretty confusing too.
- Journey to Namek is an annoying level once again since you need to find the 7 Dragon Balls, but the problem is that some of them are barely visible, and you could easily forget one and have to backtrack somewhere to find the one that you forget, not to mention that there's also enemies that are very annoying to deal with since their projectiles are horribly annoying and you can barely see them coming, so it's made this even worse.
- Tyranny of Frieza is extremely long, lasting 20 minutes, and once again, the enemies are annoying to deal with. Some of the collectibles are also horribly annoying to collect and are poorly placed, even more than the previous levels, and due to how much of a joke the flying in this game is, they are harder to collect.
- Future of Trunks is a very boring and repetitive level since you always have to kill enemies, and the level once again lasts longer than it should have been. Not only that, but some of the enemies are pretty hard to attack and are a bit annoying to deal with due to the awful hit detection, making the level harder than it supposed to be, and as said before, there's not any checkpoints in this game.
- Last Hope is extremely frustrating and tedious since it's filled with a lot of enemies that are annoying to deal with once again; they are mostly the same too. Also, there are some annoyingly tedious platforming sections that are bad because of the horrible controls that are clunky, and they make these much more annoying, not to mention that the level once again lasts horribly long and is even longer than Future of Trunks, as it lasts 30 minutes.
- The Androids is somewhat decent in comparison to most of the levels, but the problem is that the enemies you have to fight are mostly the same, which makes the level a bit repetitive.
- Super Sayan Vegeta is a restrictive level that is tedious because of the fact that there's at least three enemies, and if you're busy fighting one, due to how restrictive the level is, then after or even before you beat that specific enemy, they can hit you and damage you, making killing an enemy an absolute nightmare.
- The Time Chamber is extremely bland since you just have to move until you win the level, and after that, it's finished, not to mention that the level could have easily been taken out of the game and nothing would change.
- Imperfect Cell is an annoying level since there's both Cell (the reason why he's a terrible boss is said in the bosses' pointer), and the level itself is just the usual enemy beating that is, of course, repetitive, and the fact that you had to beat Cell not once but two times doesn't help either, which makes it an incredibly annoying and painful level.
- Super Sayan Gohan is mostly the same thing as The Time Chamber, in which that level was bland, and here it is again really bland and even repetitive, although it isn't as horrible as the next levels.
- The Cell Games is just a level where you must beat all of the Cell Juniors, but the problem is that due to the delayed controls, they mostly hit you before you finish your combos. The worst is that you have to stun them before beating them, making the level extremely annoying and almost useless to include, other than pad out the game length.
Some of the levels are horribly long or extremely confusing to the point of making them harder for almost no reason, since some of them last 20 to even 30 minutes, and due to the horrible problem of the lack of checkpoints, then it makes these levels nearly impossible to beat due to this.
Not to mention that despite how already bad the bosses are, they always teleport so that they dodge your attacks, making them even harder and extremely annoying to the point of being horribly tedious to fight and even being some of the worst bosses of a Dragon Ball game.
Extremely short length, the game can be finished in only 2 to 3 hours, especially if you remove the cutscenes from a playthough, not to mention that there are barely any replay value.
Not any replay value, with the only exception being to replay the game over or with the multiplayer or with different characters, but the problem is that due to how bad the game is, then you likely never replay it with another character, it doesn't help that all the characters play the same.
Aiming your special attack such as the kamehameha is sometimes annoying or tedious since it actually aims the enemies and sometimes it doesn't even aim the direction you wanted to throw it, while it makes easier to kill the ennemies, if you had to destroy a wall and that you had to beat lot of enemies, then it will likely aim the enemies and not the walls, making it annoying.
Some of the characters are really overpowered or even underpowered, such as Broly that is very overpowered or Gohan that is very underpowered, making the game balance even worse, although due to that Broly is somewhat fun to play as.
The game is an example of an extremely wasted potential as this game could have been really good or even one of the best DBZ games ever made, but due to how bad the controls, the combat and the level design, it ended up as an incredibly painful game to play with so horrible design that makes it near unplayable and even one of the worst games of the franchise.
Overall, due to how terrible this game is, it is considered to be one of, if not the absolute worst Dragon Ball games ever made along with Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo and Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu, since the game was so poorly received due to the glitch that make some levels harder than they supposed to be, the awful level design and the horribly clunky controls and physics, not only that, but to some, it's even one of the worst games due to how bad it is, thus it nearly killed Atari license for the Dragon Ball franchise.

Redeeming Qualities

The voice acting is really good, and these cast are from Funimation.
The opening animation is amazing, thanks to Masahiro Shimanuki, who's is the supervisor from One Piece.
The story is really faithful to the source material from Anime counterpart, as it adapts the plot from the anime, howewer even Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku does it better despite being a Game Boy Advance game.
Despite being generic at times, the soundtrack is still somewhat decent and there are still some amazing music in some parts of the game.
The cutscenes are very good and faithful to the series, complete with great animation and voice acting with the narrator doing an excellent job.
While the gameplay is bad, the gameplay of Broly is somewhat fun and is the main reason of playing this game, since he is very broken and can kill the bosses really easily, despite being a negative point for being overpowered.
It is the first beat 'em up game of the franchise, meaning that it spawned other beat 'em up games, such as Dragon Ball GT: Transformation that was an improvement, despite not being the best game of the franchise.
Nice box art, much like all of the DBZ games.
While the execution was really awful, at least the idea of making a 3D beat 'em up with sandbox element in the Dragon Ball franchise, especially DBZ, was a great idea, but this game wasted it's potential due to the many issues that we're talked about.

How To Fix The Issues

First, you would need to make the controls much better and less clunky, so the game is more playable and having less unbalanced difficulty.
Make the difficulty more balanced, so that it's not hard for the wrong reasons and having fake difficulty.
Make the bosses teleporting less, so that they are less annoying.
Make a release outside North America.
Make the level design much better designed.
Having the hit detection to be more decent to make the game having a better combat system.
Having checkpoints in the levels so that the levels aren't horribly hard.
Having more playable characters so that the roster is better than what we got.

Reception

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas received negative reviews by critics and extremely negative reviews by Dragon Ball Z fans, they criticized the level design, the gameplay, the graphics and the bosses, on Metacritic the game had a score of 48/100^[1] for the GameCube version, 49/100^[2] for the PS2 version and a 51/100 for the Xbox version.^[3]

The players and especially the DBZ fans consider this to be one of, if not the worst games of the entire franchise, with them often reviewing the game negatively and criticizing nearly every part of the game.

DX said that the game had lot of decent ideas, but the execution was horrendous and gave the game a rating of "Rest in Piss" (one of the ratings that he gives in his reviews).

Trivia

This is the first Dragon Ball Z game to be released on an Xbox console.
Vegeta and Nappa have alternate colors in the opening cinematic.
A Semi-Perfect Cell is called "Imperfect Cell" in this game.
This is one of three games in which Future Gohan is playable with one arm, the other being Dragon Ball Legends and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (DLC).
Masahiro Shimanuki was the animation supervisor for the animated intro. As he had spent most of his time working on One Piece by then, the characters look very Oda-esque.