Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai - Another Road

"One for the fans, but not many others."

Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai 2 is the sequel to the successful Dragon Ball Shin Budokai on PSP (surprisingly enough). Although this game features some improvements, it is still quite similar and overall this one is only for fans of DBZ or big fans of the first game.

Graphics: 8/10
They look great, as they did in the previous installment. To be brutally honest, they look basically the same, which is by no means a bad thing. A step up would have been nice though. One of the additions which can help the graphics in a way is the Camera Angle option, which helps give the game a feel of the the Tenkaichi games, while still keeping the feel of Shin Budokai. There are 15 different settings for the camera angle, 0 being flat, 15 being at about 60 degrees round from the characters. While fighting, the graphics look great. However, when on the World Map in Another Road mode, they aren't nearly as good.

Gameplay: 7/10
The game returns with the Arcade mode where you fight a series of computer controlled opponents in a row, being healed after each battle. The Challenge mode also sets different challenges for the player to achieve while playing the game. However, the biggest difference is with the "Another Road" mode, which is the Story mode of this game. Whilst the menu of battles going from left to right is still there, they are played differently.

After a battle is selected, the player is taken through lots of text/speech (which can luckily be skipped) and is then taken to a map of sorts. You then choose your mission, and then you appear on the World Map. Once here, you then fly over to your designated target, touch them, and then you play a standard DBZ battle. Although this brings a breath of fresh air compared to the last game, it can get quite repetitive. It is a good idea, and fans of the series will like it due to the resemblance it has to the TV show. When you are on the World Map, missions will be assigned to you, as well as the main mission. For example, your main mission may be to defeat Dabura in a battle. However, an extra requirement will then appear to tell you to not let any city's health get below 60%. Yes, there are cities that you have to protect too, which the enemies that you are trying to fly to are destroying. Again, it is quite inventive, but overall is quite unimpressive. This game, in my opinion, is also quite a bit harder than the first game.

Sound: 7/10
A lot of sounds from the previous game has been re-used, and the voice acting is still present. Overall, it's fine. Nothing massively impressive, but it isn't bad either.

Replayability: 8/10
This game is good, and especially if you are a fan of the DBZ games and TV series then you will enjoy this game. Once you unlock more characters, they can be upgraded with with cards, which again is a new system, that adds a decent amount of replayability to the game by making you want to collect all the cards and have the perfect setup for your favourite characters. There are new characters to this game, but some have been taken away from the last game, so the amount of characters is roughly the same again.

Overall: 8/10
This game is great for fans, but not necessarily so for others. The increased difficulty also has an effect on the fun factor, and the repetitive type of play on the World Map also doesn't help. However, the fact that the main point of the game, the fighting, is still there redeems the game from being average and makes it good fun to play. If you were a big fan of the first game then I would recommend this game, but if you haven't played the first or if you are unsure about this game, I would seriously recommend renting it first or buying the first game instead. Of course, all of this review is my opinion, so if you are brilliant at the first game the difficulty might not be an issue.

I was a massive fan of the first game and couldn't wait until Shin Budokai 2 was released. However, it seems to have been a bit of a letdown. I can't stress enough that this game is great, although it may seem that I am piling on the negatives about it. Overall it's a good game, and it should definitely be considered by fans of the series.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07