Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

"The ultimate DBZ game? YES!"

GAMEP-LAY: Wow! This is truly the ultimate DBZ game! The 1st thing you will notice is the HUGE cast of fighters, there are about 60 different characters and plus 30 forms that means you have 90 characters to choose from!

The stages are a lot bigger than before, you can fight in the air, on the ground, or even under the water! Plus everything is fully destructible(You can find power-ups by destroying mountains, buildings etc..)

The controls are easy to learn, square for physical attacks, triangle for KI blasts, Circle for guard, L1 for detecting your opponent's KI, L2 for charging, R1 Flying, R2 Landing.

This time they placed the camera behind the player, its kinda annoying at first but you will get used to it.

Unlike B1,2,3 there is NO IGT (In game transformation) you pick your character's form before the battle begins, that's actually a good thing, no more fusions will lasts only 3 minutes!. Ultimates got even better, you don't have to watch the same long cut scenes each time you use an ultimate, the reason why they shortened them so that the battle keeps its fast paced action & to make them dodge-able.

There are several modes. Z battle gate is the game's story mode, here you can play over 100 DBZ story based battles, the cut scenes are not as long as in B1 but still satisfying. Ultimate battle mode puts you in a series of 100 fights, you have to make your way to the top. World tournament mode, you start with the novice & you unlock harder difficulties as you win them. Dueling mode, allows you to play against your friends with your customized characters. Practice mode is where you raise your skills against the AI.

Finally you have the Evolution Z mode, here you can customizes your characters with capsules you have collected. You can use Z items to increase your character's Stats such as health, defense, attack, KI etc..

GRAPHICS: This is the best looking DBZ game, using the cel shading once again, the characters look awesome,& they added the new Battle damage (changing the appearance of the character after taking damage)

They used in game graphics for the cut scenes. The frame rate is excellent, the fast paced fighting runs smoothly with no slow down.

PLAYTIME/REPLAY VALUE: The story mode is fairly long, there are over 100 battles. You have 90 characters to unlock, plus over 200 Z items to collect. Multiplayer will keep you busy a long time, there is no online play, but the variety of gameplay modes makes up for it.

BUY OR RENT?! BUY!!!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05