Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Review

Dragon Ball Z Budokai is in many ways a real treat for fans of the television series.  The game captures the spirit of the series, especially in its Story Mode which follows the events of the show from the Saiyan, Namek, Android, and Cell Games Sagas.  During the course of the Story Mode you'll be treated to long cutscenes interspersed with fighting action that lets you take control of the heroes of the series.  Not all of the interactive sequences are fights - there is an occasional mini-game style level.  For example, in one scene you must hold down and line-up an enemy so that he can be blasted by an ally and in another you must make your way through a series of training session challenges.  The game's developers have gone to great lengths to preserve the feel of the series, signing the same voice talent used in the American version of the show and using much of the original music.  Playing through the Story Mode not only allows Dragon Ball Z fans to take part in the show, it allows you to unlock characters and combos for use in the game's other modes.  You can eventually unlock over twenty different fighters, and some variations of a couple of the characters.

Once you've completed the Story Mode you'll probably spend the most time playing the game's World Tournament.  This is a three, four, or five round competition in which you guide one of the game's characters in duels against a random selection of opponents.  Coming in first or second rewards you with the game's currency, Zenie, with the amount determined by the difficulty level chosen.  This Zenie can then be used in the game's store to purchase special abilities or combos (called capsules) for your character.  Capsules can be traded via memory cards, so if you have friends with the game you can try to make a deal for some of the rarer capsules.  Some capsules are restricted to characters of a certain race, but for the most part it doesn't matter too much as to which character you use the capsules with.  As a result, you can have different characters that behave identically in fights and only differ in their appearance.

The game also provides two additional modes of play, Duel and Practice.  Duel Mode is a single fight between two players or against the computer.  You can even let the computer control both fighters so that you can see the best tactics to use in a given match-up.  Practice Mode allows you to test a character's moves versus a computer opponent.  The computer opponent can be customized to fight back at various skill levels, or to just sit there while you practice different attacks.  It's a nice mode to let you get the hang of the game's controls or to test out a customized character.  However, you don't really need to use this mode when starting out because the game's fighting action uses a simple control scheme and is pretty basic.

When in fight mode you use four basic buttons: punch, kick, guard, and Ki Blast.  Ki is the game's energy source, and is used to launch ranged energy attacks and to power special moves.  Ki is replenished during a fight by successfully landing blows on your opponent.  The punch and kick attacks can not be directed high or low, and each character comes with only two different punches and kicks.  The combos are unleashed as a series of button presses (for example, punch - punch - punch - Ki), but the game does not always register button presses.  You'll often find yourself missing a button from the combo you were trying to launch, or launching an unintended combo.  This makes battles a somewhat random affair of lucky blows and blocks.

The game tries to mimic 3D combat, but in reality is a 2D affair.  There is a dodge move that will have you sidestep a blow and move behind your opponent, but the game's tendency to lose or delay button presses makes it too unreliable to be effective.  You can also hit an opponent into the air, but they will just hang there until you move to meet them.  There is no way to direct attacks up or down or to move vertically on your own, making the whole vertical element a pointless non-factor.

Graphically the game stays close to its cartoon roots, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.  If you're a fan of the show, then you'll appreciate how the game's graphics mimic the characters and environments of the series.  As a next generation console game, though, the graphics look plain, flat, and dated.  The characters are very two-dimensional and simple, lacking the details packed into the characters in most fighting games these days.  The backgrounds are even simpler, lacking detail and using very limited color palettes.  I'm sure that the fans of the TV series appreciate that the cutscenes look like they are straight out of the show, but they probably wouldn't have minded it if the fights used truly 3D characters and arenas.

When everything is taken together, Budokai really provides a lot for Dragon Ball Z fans.  If you're an aficionado of the series, then you won't be disappointed with the quality of this title. However, as a fighter the game falls short of the top titles in the genre and will more than likely be too simplistic for fighter fans.  How much you like Dragon Ball Z is a pretty good measure of how much you'll like this game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 69%.  Dragon Ball Z fans will be pleased, fighter fans should look elsewhere.