Hailed as a 3D fighting game, it kinda is just that, or at least as 3D as you're going to get on a 16-bit machine. This game reminds me of the famous Commodore Amiga juggler animation, if anyone even knows what I'm talking about. Apart from pseudo-3D effects, however, it's not a very novel game. The frenetic, button-mashing gameplay is that of most other 2D fighters, though you more or less have a full range of motion and you're not limited to the left and right, back and forth fighting of Street Fighter II or its ilk. I say "more or less" because certainly this game is no Soul Calibur, and you're not going to be seeing 360-degree camera panning as you battle it out with your opponent. But, indeed, the controls seemed a bit wimpy, and, for me, the fighting in Ballz quickly degenerated into a bout of button-bashing or simply kicking my opponent in the head over and over again because I knew that was the one move that would work. The nice visuals and the lackluster gameplay in Ballz seem to balance each other out, however, so that what you're left with is a somewhat enjoyable game.

Play Ballz at least a couple of times, if only to experience the graphics and and to see some weird things going on in the background, though I doubt you'll be coming back to it too often.