There's a strange sense of nostalgia in "Dragon Ball Breakers. If you, too, grew up watching Toonami marathons on listless, amber-tinted elementary school afternoons, there's a good chance that your newborn video game diet consisted of half-baked, low-budget anime games; "Naruto" and "Dragon Ball" were all over the neighborhood Blockbuster had piles of them lined up. So please don't take my warm feelings about "The Breakers" as a recommendation. It's not a very good video game, but if you're of a certain age and temperament, its frustrating ways may bring you joy.

Over the past 30 years, there have been Dragon Ball RPGs, Dragon Ball Kinect adventures, and Dragon Ball card battles, but "The Breakers," from Namco Bandai, brings all that Saiyan-ness into uncharted territory.Dead By It is an asymmetrical one-versus-all multiplayer game in the tradition of "Daylight" and "Friday the 13th. One player controls villains such as Cell, Buu, and Frieza, taken from the Dragon Ball canon. The player controls Cell, Buu, and Frieza, villains taken from the Dragon Ball canon, and attempts to hunt down and exterminate those of us playing as innocent bystanders. The eight civilians in the match do not stand a chance, no matter what diabolical galactic deity is scorching the skies. Our only offense is to run and hide, power up the McGuffin in the center of the map, and bring everyone home safely.

The Breakers comes on the heels of an unexpected cat-and-mouse multiplayer renaissance, with a surprisingly strong package of Evil Dead game adaptations coming in May, and a Texas Chainsaw Massacre tribute on the way! . While "Dragon Ball Z" may not have the harrowing horror of its licensed brethren, lurking around Freeza can be ridiculously fun, especially with the right group. Unfortunately, "The Breakers" is completely ruined by the camera and controls.

The map is vast and players glide across the terrain. The movement has the eerie floating feel of a vintage MMO, incompatible with the close-knit rocking motion that makes the dramatic "Dead By Daylight" so enjoyable. If a cell spotted me, I usually escaped by using one of the abilities to fly at terminal velocity to an adjacent section of the map.

The game is excellent from the villain's perspective--maybe just because it's fun to make the earthlings run for their lives--but it doesn't hold a candle to the mastermind's intrigue like other great one-to-many experiences. There are no mind games, no misdirection, no opportunities for troubled creativity. The Breakers understands the form of the genre it is imitating, but loses sight of its essence.

Nevertheless, there are enough endearing episodes here to distract from the sloppiness if you are a "Dragon Ball Z" fan. The development team doesn't skimp: you can loot the saccharine beans that give players extra lives, or the gloves that give unlucky onlookers Vegeta's Gallic gun. (More impressively, all survivors are equipped with a meter that charges up several levels as the team approaches the climax. When the meter is full, they can temporarily inhabit the "soul" of their chosen Dragon Ball Z protagonist and take the fight directly to the predator lurking in the ether. It's like when Pac-Man eats a power pellet and devours a ghost. He had been running for his life throughout the game, and now Majin Buu must fight Piccolo, who has been powered up.

Unfortunately, the combat in "Breakers" is atrocious. The sighting reticle is automatically positioned over the enemy in view, which certainly makes it appear as if the opponent is in full range of fire. Then, when you release the Kamehameha on cooldown, you are pulled into an illusory cutscene before releasing the Kamehameha, giving you enough time to dodge your opponent's reflection in the reticle. It is a truly bizarre system. Because "The Breakers" doesn't seem to offer an option for that.

To make matters worse, since every battle takes place in such a large multiplayer arena, everyone is given enough mobility to skulk away. While the idea of your team jacking into the lore of "Dragon Ball" like Neo in "The Matrix" and turning the tables on Perfect Cell is incredible, "The Breakers" is too confusing and messy to make the most of its drama.

Like many Dragon Ball games before it, "The Breakers" makes a futile effort to justify its place in Akira Toriyama's story. Apparently we are lost in some sort of time-space glitch, with villains like Cell plaguing us once again, even though he was dead and gone at least before "Super". That's why filling up the meter can magically transform you from a rudderless earthling into Piccolo. Compared to "Dead by Daylight," I didn't have as much trouble explaining that I was being hunted by both Freddy Krueger and Nemesis in "Resident Evil 3," and I found the storyline hard and engaging.

Naturally, "Breakers" uses this groundbreaking excuse to cram as many Dragon Ball characters into its source code as possible. From the usual heroes like Goku, Krillin, and Bulma, to characters whose names are known only to the most wounded and sick of DBZ (mixed in with the pig boy from Turtle Island)

(Okay, I'm that sick guy: his name is Oolong)

to inexplicable combat and uninspired mechanical depth. Despite this, there is something stubbornly appealing about The Breakers. Perhaps it is the fact that any character creator can create a spiky-haired, big-eyed goofball Goku look-alike who came into this world to escape from someone who is trying to kill him. When Buu makes his coup d'etat, he turns you into candy and swallows you whole.

The strength of the admiration the "breakers" have for the Dragon Ball universe was not unquestionable. However, it was simply let down by jerky mechanics and repetitive hide-and-seek that was tedious and toothless. It's like being stuck in a filler episode forever.

In other words, this is a Dragon Ball game.