DBZ - Raging Pride

Having played this game, I have only one thought on my mind. Someone gather the Dragon Balls and wish for Shenlong to remove this game from existence!

There were many failings in this game, the first being an over-reliance on dialogue leading to a lack of actual gameplay. The dialogue itself employed ellipsis every few boxes and physically made the player wait in several spots for what I can only assume was supposed to be dramatic effect and emphasis. The font itself was illegible, despite having patched my RPG Maker 2003 to eliminate any issues with the default font. Judging by the fact there is a Fonts folder included with the game, it would seem that this is a custom font the creator actively chose, wherein the Ts look like Ls and it's impossible to discern the difference between lowercase As, Es, and Os!

The title is further hindered by a lack of direction. In many cases I was unsure where to go or who to speak to in order to advance the plot and continue with the game. This is inexcusable, and on multiple occasions I had to speak to every person I saw and try to enter every area I came across, just begging for something to happen!

Visually, the game is an absolute mess. There are Legacy of Goku rips, mixed with RTP style edits, as well as cameos from characters such as Edward Elric, and other video game and anime characters that were seemingly downloaded from Charas-Project which further clashed. Some of the sprites on screen were actually painful to look at.

The one saving grace, in the graphics department, was pixel art imagery depicting various events. These had been traced from actual screenshots of the anime, and were likely commissioned, but were of a high quality none-the-less.

The battle system is the DBS for RPG Maker, and utilized Supersonic Warriors sprites, again with a complete disregard to whether those sprites fit any form of theme. The only options were to Punch and Kick, as well as a Power option with no discernible purpose or function. Fights were dull, I found myself mashing space bar just praying they would end, and enemies had ridiculous amounts of HP, extended the fights beyond any reasonable length.

There was no enjoyment or pleasure to be found from booting up Raging Pride. There was nothing that could be salvaged. The creator claims, on the page for the game, that this is a serious attempt to make a fun title that's true to the source material. In trying to stay true to said source material, the creator forgot to make an actual game!

If you want a hard lesson in what not to do when making a game, look no further than Raging Pride for a prime example of basic game design rules, laws and principles being thrown out the window in favour of fanboyism.