Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Cartoon Network’s relentless advertising of their new browser-based MMORPG FusionFall worked on me! The game shoves over a dozen Cartoon Network shows from the last decade through an anime filter and links them to a shared universe facing an encroaching evil… very much like Smash Bros or Kingdom Hearts, actually. You can sign up and play with limited access for free. Unlimited access goes for $6 a month.

As the game begins, Dexter (from Dexter’s Laboratory!) gets your avatar set up and then Dee Dee, of course, screws around with the buttons and sends you to the wrong time period or something. You meet up with Numbuh Five (from Kids Next Door! Which I hated!) and Ben 10 (the older Alien Force version!) for some preliminary instructions on shooting and targeting. It’s all action, not turn-based.

The premise is that some crazy space goo monster king has invaded, spawning Fusion monsters that must be eliminated before the entire world gets Fused. The monsters have also created foul versions of the CNU characters, and these seem to be reserved for boss encounters. In fact, at the end of the tutorial, you must help Dexter bring down a Fused version of Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls. Now anime-hot! Beating her grants you your first nano, which are chibi-fied CNU characters that float around and give you special powers… like the mags from Phantasy Star Online.

From there you’re dropped into the first hub world, free to run around, interact with other players, and pick up missions from folks like Numbah Two, Eddy and Computress.

More impressions and screenshots after the jump.

To be honest gang, I’ve never played an MMORPG before. Unless Puzzle Pirates counts. So I’m kinda digging this. Being a longtime fan of most of Cartoon Network’s properties, I’m impressed with the usage, voice work, and the depth of the catalog (they’ve even included forgotten CN shows like MEGAS XLR and Juniper Lee!) Right now, I’m not really interested in forming a party; I’m just buzzing around solo on the simple missions and shooting down low level roaming goo monsters for experience points. I’m already Level 2!

I bought the retail boxed copy, which comes with a hilarious CD that contains a PDF guide and a link to the FusionFall website, nothing more! Browser-based game, you see. I did have to install some silly browser plug-in, but once that completed the game has been fine in Safari on my 1.8 GHz 2GB RAM Leopard iMac. The advantage of buying the retail copy ($20) is that you get two exclusive outfit/weapon packs, plus a code worth four free months of full-access play. I’ll see how far I can get on the free play, and then activate my code.