But this simplicity also means that the action quickly starts to wear thin. The simplicity of the control scheme makes it easy for anyone to jump in send their opponents flying through the air, through the nearest building or into the nearest mountainside, and it is a kick to fill the screen with the blazing energy of Goku's kamehameha, Tien's tri-beam, and all the other flashy super and ultimate attacks you can so easily perform. Standard melee combos can be dished out with one button, long-range ki blasts can be fired with another, super attacks are performed by pushing the right stick in one direction, and the even more powerful ultimate attacks are done by clicking the right stick.
All the moves are incredibly easy to pull off. The combatants all soar effortlessly in all directions through large, three-dimensional environments, and the blistering speeds with which they move around make controlling them a pleasure. Little has changed with regard to the fighting mechanics since the first game. The rest are recycled from the original Raging Blast. And of the 14 environments in which you can do battle, only four are new for this sequel. The only real difference is in the super and ultimate attacks they have at their disposal, but these, too, are largely the same for many characters, even if the names and animations associated with them are different. All the characters handle almost identically and have functionally identical melee attacks and combos. But since the differences between one character and the next remain mostly cosmetic, this does nothing to address the shallow gameplay. It adds 20 characters to the roster, bringing the total to 90, which sure sounds like a lot. Raging Blast 2 feels more like a modest expansion of the first game than a full-fledged sequel, which makes its $60 price point pretty tough to swallow.