Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2

"Best Dragon Ball game so far"

THE GOOD:
The use of about 125 characters (including character transformations) make this a very fun and repayable game over and over.

Unlike Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi which was the first of this series this one allows you to transform during gameplay making it more realistic to the anime.

Tag Team Battles are one of the best thing about this game. They allows for various tag teams and make for some long battle.

THE BAD:
Tag Team battle don't allow you to use any "double team" attacks which would allow you to combine to character's attacks at once.

As usual the AI/COM isn't challenging even on the hardest mode. Something should really be done about that.

SUMMARY:
The plot is pretty much the same as other Dragon Ball Z games so if you've played those you should pretty much know the whole story and what's going on. If not then I'll fill you in:

Goku, a saiyan from the planet Vegeta goes to earth as a baby and when he is an adult he learns his heritage and becomes a Super Saiyan. Throughout his life he encounters various villains he pretty much want world domination and anything related to it.

Those are the basics which are what the game's story mode is about. Of course it has "What-If" stories which are a really great thing in my opinion because they give you the chance to step away from the usual stories which have been seen throughout the games various time along with the anime.

The game works like all of the other Dragon Ball Z games out there. It is of course a fighting game and I think it's the best choice for gameplay as anything else would probably turn out horrible.

The whole Tag Team Battles aspect of the game is probably the best thing to happen to one of these games. This allows you to either pair up any two characters for a battle or to pair up FIVE characters. The reason I like it so much is because it makes some long battles and it make for some "classic" battles. Only thing that this needs is for characters to be able to do some double team attacks. That would make this mode PERFECT, in my opinion.

The graphics of the game aren't the best but overall I'd say they stand up to some of the current ones. Of course, given that it is somewhat Cel-Shaded makes it not look so good.

Voice acting is done by none other than the group down in Texas which does all the voice acting for the series, it makes the game all the better with voices you can recognize. And to "shake" things up a bit the game even included the Japanese voice acting who also do the series acting. That is a good idea because you get the acting from both sides to tell which one sounds better or if you want to hear the game in the original language it is meant for.

I must say that the music is very pleasing to hear for battle music. It doesn't include any vocals and it would most likely appeal to most audiences/ players. Of course it does contain some battle music which doesn't suit the whole them of the games but they are alright.

I'd say that this version is just an expansion on the previous games since it just added more characters and changed up attacks. But so far this one IS the best out the there because of the amount of characters it contains and it of course adds to the repetition of playing the game often.

The game I would say could last you up to 150+ hours because it includes many of the characters and many different things you can try to do. For an average gamer the story mode alone could last you up to 20 hours. Of course for the hardcore gamer this is a different case. I wouldn't say it's addicting because it doesn't get you to hooked into playing but when you do play it, it's kind of hard to put down for the first couple of months you play it.

I probably don't have to recommend this to any hardcore Dragon Ball fan. But I recommend this fore those that like the typical fighting game as it includes all of the aspects and make it an interesting game to play for a LONG time.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/07