Prepare... To face the most powerful Dragon Ball Z heroes and villains.
User Rating: 7.5 | Dragon Ball Z: Budokai PS2
Whether you hate it or love it, the Dragonball Z series is one of the most popular shows ever. Everybody was so excited when Budokai first came out on Playstation 2. The excitement soon died down however, as soon as the game came out. Dragonball Z Budokai makes for a decent fighter, though it has many flaws. The good: The story mode is a DBZ fans dream. It shows the story of DBZ from the Saiyan saga all the way to the Cell saga. The cutscenes in-between battles explain the story, occasionally stopping to let you fight. Hercule's Legend is pretty funny to play, especially when you defeat Super Saiyan 2 Gohan and you think to yourself: "LOL, that would never happen in the show." The amount of characters in the game is also a plus, around 20, maybe more but i'm not exactly sure. Each character has his own set of abilities and special attacks to use. DBZ fans will recognize attacks such as the Spirit Bomb, the Wolf Fang Fist, and the Kamehameha. The character's voices are authentic, meaning the person who voices that character in the show voices the character in the game. The bad: The gameplay is the first thing you'll notice is a bit off. Sometimes a string of punch and kicks will deal more damage than a super combo that is incredibly hard to pull off, not to mention that your opponent will probably easily block or dodge it, leaving you wide open for an attack. The World Tournament brings a level of frustration, especially when you are wiping the floor with your opponent and they hit you once therefore knocking you out of the ring causing you to lose the match. Fair, huh? I wish there were more modes to play in this game, the story mode is short, and unless you have someone who knows how to play you'll get bored pretty easily. Gameplay: Story mode has got to be one of my personal favorites (and maybe yours too), because it almost perfectly retells the story of the anime from the Saiyan Saga to the Cell Games. And when I mean "almost", it does tell the story as it is, however some parts of the story can be slightly re-done or missing. For example, instead of having Goku and Vegeta stand on different platforms the first time they battled, they had both of them standing on the same ground. And Trunks' confrontation against Frieza was pretty disappointing. Even with some slight changes and overexaggerations, the story mode manages to give that anime-style feel to the game. The tournament mode is perhaps one of the most challenging of all the modes. Much like in the Virtua Fighter and Toshinden series, your alternative objective to winning and advancing to the next round will be to knock your opponent off the ring. Of course, your opponent will do anything he/she can to knock you off the ring. The controls are ten times better than all the previous Dragon Ball games from Japan, but nowhere better than the current popular fighting games. Button mashing at its finest. You'll find yourself pressing a few buttons just to pull off your favorite signature move. Whether it's Goku's Warp Kamehameha, Vegeta's Big Bang Attack, one of Mr. Satan's idiotic pranks, or Yamcha's Wolf Fang Fist, it'll be a little difficult to pull them off. But after getting used to the controls, you'll get used to them, and you'll be playing like a pro in no time. I think that's one of the most original ideas in fighting games. Instead of using the D-Pad then a punch or a kick button, you gotta enter a combo to unleash a special move. Graphics: Although the graphics have improved over it's PS2 predecessor, it's not really all that appealing to the eye. Don't get me wrong here guys. The "enhanced" graphics truly blend in with the environments and the characters totally match their anime counterparts, while some of the stages look pretty bland. Sound: The sound effects are totally similar to that of the sounds you hear from the series. From huge ki blasts, explosions, collisions, to exchanging fists in hyper mode. And the music score used for this game, fits the game's atmosphere perfectly. Some people won't like the fact that the original dub opening theme "Rock The Dragon" was used for the intro of the game, but when the story mode is complete, fans will be pleased to hear that the instrumental version of the Japanese first season DBZ opening "Cha La Head Cha La", will be played as the ending theme. Conclusion: Dragon Ball Z Budokai may have its flaws, but it's still an amazing anime-based game nonetheless. It's great to know that the Budokai series, handles the DBZ license with care. As a long-time fan of the Dragon Ball series, words can't express how thankful I am of Dimps and Atari for making such a great fighting game for us DBZ fans. So if you're a DBZ fan and you own a ps2, this is the one to own.
