Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2

"An excellent DBZ Simulator"

Dragon Ball Z has been around for awhile. I can still remember when I was in grade school and when I first saw it. Ever since then..I was hooked. Many fans including myself longed for a good video game based on the series. It took us a while to get what we wanted since many of the games released had one strength with alot of weaknesses. Budokai 1 had a great story mode, but the fighting mechanics was nothing like DBZ and wasn't very fun to play. Budokai 2 improved on the fighting mechanics a little bit, but had a horrible story mode that took forever to play through. Since you needed to play through the story mode to get all of the characters the game just wasn't that fun to play. Budokai 3 fixed most of the flaws from the past games. It wasn't an extremely deep fighter but it was enough to satisfy me and many other fans. Even people who didn't like DBZ enjoyed playing this game. Budokai Tenkaichi came out and was very different from the other games. It was more of a DBZ simulator since it was fully 3-D and you could fly around while fighting. Even though this is an interesting concept the game just wasn't fun to play for a number of reasons. Many of the characters played the same, the graphics just seemed dull to alot of people, the story mode seemed lacking, and it just didn't seem to be a good "fighting" game. This game changed everything, however, and is loved by fans and people who don't even like DBZ *looks at X-Play*

Story: 7/10
Much better done than the previous Tenkaichi. I can't help but feel that they completely ripped off Budokai 3 but I still like it. The story goes from Raditz all the way through the final battle with Omega Shenron. Along the way you will get to battle through 11 of the 13 DBZ movies, and they even included some "What-If" sagas that you have to unlock by beating certain enemies in the story mode. All of this seems great on paper but there are some problems. Since they included the movies there are ALOT of plotholes. I'm talking about "Yamucha dying in the past saga and then being magically revived in the next saga." It's things like this that make the game fall apart. They also did a poor job telling the story. Newcomers to the series will be utterly lost when they pull off a "Perfect" on an enemy and then in the next sequence they're laying face down in the dirt. Lil' explanation is said why a person reaches a new level either. For example, remember the whole SSJ Goku thing? How much stress he went through to reach the level? Well..they pretty much cut all of that out. Which is why the story got the score that it did. It could've been MUCH better. Instead..They took the easy way out.

Gameplay: 8/10
I love this game's gameplay. They completely polished this game's fighting system from the first game that it amazes me. The game is 100 percent fun and there is even some strategy in the mix. The controls are basically the same as the first game. Now you have smash attacks and different combos. Different blast moves (like Vegito's scatter finger shot), finishers (like Trunks' heat dome), and blast techniques (like Goku's Instant Transmission). They sped up the gameplay too so that it feels like you're playing in the anime as well, and you the backgrounds seem totally destructable (except for a few obstacles) so have fun with that. They now have a new level up system where if you equip potaras and fight people in Story Mode or Ultimate Battle Z you will level up. The highest level possible seems to be 160 but I have yet to get that far (my highest is 122) and that seems to be acquired by equipping some special hidden potaras. Teleporting around your opponent seem to be more reliable but it can sometimes be a little glitchy. You can sometimes let this slide but it might happen more than once during a regular match. You press the button to teleport and instead end up blocking the blast. However in this case..The pros pretty much outweigh the cons for the first time since Budokai 3. Any hardcore DBZ fan will have fun with this game and I mean that.

Control: 7/10
Could be better, could be worse. It's pretty much the case of "the buttons aren't responsive enough when you need it." This game is fast paced meaning that it is tight. One slip up can cost you a bar of health. Which means we need teleporting to be more reliable since it is 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent is you getting hit by a blast, suffering from an air combo, or blocking an energy attack taking off half a bar. Other than that everything seems to be fine.

Graphics/Sound: 8/10
The graphics are superb. I love them since it seems just like the anime itself. Sometimes it's so beautiful that you may just lose focus and start staring at Goku's hair while he's Super Saiya-jin. The reason why this section didn't get a perfect score is because the sound seems to be lacking. I like the music ALOT in the game, but it's not that. It's because of the voice actors. They just seem unexcited to me which kind of ruined the story part of the game. They just seem bored..and that they were just literally reading the lines on a sheet of paper in front of them. It's not as bad as the first Resident Evil, but it's certainly up there.

Challenge: 6/10
In the story mode there are 3 difficulty levels. The first difficulty I have never played on but people tell me that the CPU barely attacks you. The second level is basically normal and the CPU fights back but not very strategically. The third level is the hardest in the game. At first it can seem to be impossible to beat but once you've learned all of the little attacks in this game then you will be fine. Versus mode has Very weak to Normal to very Strong. Very Strong seems to be around the same level as level 3 in story mode, but a little bit more easier.

Replay Value: Well I got this game about a month ago and I'm still playing it. It only took me about a week to unlock everything but if you want everybody maxed out that might take awhile. If you have friends that play this game then it will last for a long time. Other than what I just stated, the game has average replay value. The average gamer will rent this game, finish the story mode in a few days and then take it back without a second thought. However, any fans of DBZ will play this for days on in without even thinking about returning it.

Final Word: The game is good. Go BUY IT!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/29/07