Atari really dropped the ball with the "Greatest Hits" version, but at least it's still a fun game.
+Best in the Budokai series
+Good amount of characters
+Fast pace fighting style
Cons:
-You're going to be screwed if you buy the "Greatest Hits" version, like I did
-Doesn't make sense that Hyper Mode can out "punch" any character, even SSJ4 Goku
-Dragon Universe is a nice try, but poorly done
-Dragon Rush is basically a guessing game, that backfires most of the time
-SSJ2 Future Trunks?
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I'm going to start off with a bit of a disclaimer: If you ever plan on buying the Greatest Hits version of Budokai 3, make sure you get the right one, have them open the case, stick it in a PS2, and make sure it's the one with the speical features. Now I can forgive Atari for accidently putting the regular Budokai 3 in the Greatest Hit case, but they lose favor with me for not giving much effort for trying to fix this problem. Atari didn't even distinguish between the misprogrammed Greatest Hits case and the newly fixed Greatest Hits case.
But enough about that. DragonBall Z Budokai 3 is the third installment of the Budokai series, and it's hands down the best, but far from perfect. As usual you can equip each fighter with different color capsules. Red capsules are the ability capsules, they let you pull off all the cool moves. Equipment capsules are the green capsules, they give your fighter extra attack power or more defense. Item capsules are the yellow capsules, and they can be used during battle, they can give you more Ki energy, or more health, among other things. One of the things I found weird was that Future Trunks is able to go SSJ2, now correct me if I'm wrong, but in the DBZ series, Future Trunks only achieved Ultra Super Saiyan, which is between SSJ1 and SSJ2, very strange. The Dragon Universe is poorly done for my taste, you do get to fly around from place to place, and even find the dragonballs, but you can't walk around in any of the cities or towns, basically you have the characters figure pop up on screen, they don't even move, and a talk bubble pops up, then they speak. It's really non-interactive and the story is rushed through to the end, which makes it very cut and dry.
Hyper Mode, a new addition to the game fighting engine, in which you can preform special moves and Dragon Rushes in this state. Now, what I don't get is why stronger fighters, such as SSJ4 Goku, can't even touch you in this state, you still lose health when they attack you, but you can easily break up their onslaught and make it hard for them to make a comeback. Once in Hyper Mode, you can launch a Dragon Rush, in which your opponent has to guess which button you're going to push before the entire attack is complete. That's cool and all, but it becomes repetitive, and 95% of the time you're not going to completely a Rush, especially against the AI. But I actually learned the pattern of the AI and can block most of it's Rushes, or complete most of mines. The character selection is great, you can get most of the Heros and Villians from the DBZ saga, and some from the movies and GT saga. DBZB3 is a great game to fill most of your DragonBall needs, but in the end it leaves you wanting more.
_Donn