Another DBZ game... but that's a good thing!

User Rating: 7.3 | Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai - Another Road PSP
I have found that there are very few fighting games for the PSP worth playing, especially since they're probably the best suited type of game for a handheld. Though this does have some pretty irritating weak points, it's still pretty fun to play!

First off, if you don't like DBZ, don't buy this. It's not a technical fighter, it's all about the big, earth shattering moves. You won't like the characters unless you like the show. And so forth... blah, blah, blah.

Graphics: Good, not great. The characters look like should, and there's a decent collection of them. The environments are pretty bland, but I can deal with that. The world map looks pretty bad though. Too simple and blocky.

Sound: It's there. It's not mind blowing. However, I can't get enough of hearing "Special Beam Cannon!" Yeah, Piccolo!

Gameplay: If you're played a Budokai before, you know the drill. It works very well, mostly because it's simple and accessible, and you can pull off great combos and special moves often enough to make everything exciting!
The "Another Road" story mode is decent, 'cause it's not just the same old story lines regurgitated for the umpteenth time, but the story is pretty weak, and I really don't care about it in the least. That hurts the whole package. That and the fact that there's more loading time than play time. Plus, the whole world map sucks. Just plain sucks. The enemy avatars are just constantly shooting ki blasts at cities (for some reason, YOU can't shoot ki blasts, which makes no sense whatsoever), and you have to stop them through fights. Doesn't work for me, because I just couldn't care less if the cities get destroyed. It just doesn't add anything to the game. It could have, and should have, been set up like Budokai 3; a great big world map with a lot of stuff to do. I'm pretty sure the PSP is powerful enough to do it, so they could have at least tried it; a failed attempt would be better than this. The leveling up stuff works, but only barely, mostly because it's not that much fun, and you don't really ever feel that much more powerful.

Overall: A decent, fun fighter. If you like Budokai games (oh MAN, how good was Budokai 3! They just should've done a port!), you'll like this.