Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

"Difficult, Glitchy, not as good as B3 (IMO), but still a great DBZ game"

Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (Sparking) has raised lots of hype for DBZ fans. After the blockbuster of a DBZ game Budokai 3 came out last Winter, people were amazed with what this game could offer. And the screenshots seem to promise much. Fully capable flight abilities, destructable environments and damaged characters, yep this really seemed to truly be"THE BEST DBZ GAME"

After having this for a couple of days, I can honestly say that after what Budokai 3 did for DBZ games, this one feels rushed and inconsistant. It's still fun, but not as much as Budokai 3. Of course, this is all my opinion. Here are my reasons.

GAMEPLAY: This is the most general. I think every DBZ game on a console has a few of the following: Dueling (VS), World Tournament, and some sort of a story mode. Here, the story is Z Battle Gate; a mode where you can go thorugh nearly every single fight in Dragonball Z and DBGT as well as the Bojack, Brolly, Janeba, and Cooler movies. That's pretty cool. DBZ is a long story, so there's lots of fun to be had here. You can also customize your characters and gain new ones through means of special items. All in all, the gameplay is pretty solid.

GAMEPLAY-9/10

GRAPHICS: In my opinion, the graphics here were drastically downgraded after Budokai 3. I don't mean to compare the two so much, but personally the characters looked MUCH more like they did in the manga in the last game. Here, everyone has a box-like face. Krillin's head looks like a peanut. Goku always frowns and no one changes facial expressions. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are good for a game. But for a DBZ game, after where we went with BUDOKAI 3 the graphics were very disapointing.

GRAPHICS-6/10

CONTROLS: The controls are very difficult for many to get at first. That's not a bad thing. In this game you can do several things that put you more in the game and are more remniscant of the DBZ story than the last game. You can shoot multiple energy blast, as well as charge and fire a strong one. As well as using standard trademark attacks (Kamehameha, Masenko, Destructo Disk, Crusher Ball, etc...) you can fire several rounds of heavy hitting blasts and some characters can use the Solar Flare technique (Which hasn't been used in a DBZ game since UB:22/27) It takes a long time to get used to the controls. The tutorial isn't as good as B3 since you are told what to do and shown, but you don't get a chance to try for yourself and see if you are doing it correctly. Personally, I changed the controls to match B3's to make it easier. Another cool factor is that you can switch between the english and Japanese voices.

CONTROLS-8/10

DIFFICULTY: This is easily the hardest DBZ game. The reason for this is that besides not being used to the controls at first, when you play Z Battle Gate, your chances of winning depend on your character's strength during that pint in time. For example, remember when Goku got totaled by Vegeta when he transformed into the Great Ape (Oozaru)? Well, that realism is put in the game. If you're in a fight when your person was particualrly weaker than his/her opponent, it's gonna show in the fights. You can pound with your ultimate all day and barely get them down 75% health. It does a great job of putting a sense of danger in the game like the characters felt in the show, but it can/will frustrate you sometimes. Low Class guys like Nappa will have you pissed after a while.

DIFFICULTY-(Based on easiest to hardest)-9/10

OVERALL: I didn't mean to come off as a B3 fanboy. I don't even like DBZ nearly as much as I used to. But Dragonball makes for an excellent fighting game. When you feel good about something, you want to express it. Same goes for dissapointment. This is a good game, but it feels very incomplete. Besides the lackluster graphics, the 'cutscenes' are very disconjointed with the characters just talking (half the time they say the same sort of things: "You can't beat me!/You're weak/ That guy's strong! This is nuts!) I know that's how it is, but the cutscenes in B1 added varity where this one clearly lacks.

OVERALL-7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/05