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 Ok,
you want the story on whether or not Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is
worth your time and money, right?
We all know Dragon Ball Z is a huge anime license with legions
of loyal fans. We also
know that many Dragon Ball Z games have come out in the past and none
of them have done the series justice.
So what's the deal with Budokai?
It’s a fighting game. An
extremely frustrating fighting game.
Dragon
Ball Z: Budokai focuses on three chapters from the show.
There's the Saiyan Saga, the Namekian Saga, and the Android
Saga. Players have the option of playing through several modes, but
the best one is the story mode which focuses on key events in the
aforementioned chapters. The
story mode is pretty entertaining for a time, but it really functions
best as an introduction to the game.
Players will learn all the details of the game and by the time
all the chapters have been completed, a host of extra characters will
be unlocked and you should have a pretty good understanding of
how the fighting engine works.
While
the story mode is fun, it is really short.
It's possible to complete all the chapters in just a couple of
hours. One thing that
helps this is the fact that you can replay all the episodes again from
another character's perspective.
For example, in the Saiyan Saga, Goku and Piccolo team up to
defeat Raditz. The first time through, you play from Goku's perspective.
The second time, you play as Piccolo.
This is certainly a welcome feature, but unfortunately it
doesn't make the story mode that much longer.
 Other
available modes are two-player duel, practice, and world tournament. While the others are self-explanatory, world tournament is
the heart of the game. You
pick your favorite Z fighter and enter the world martial arts
tournament in an effort to be crowned the world champion.
It really is just like the show.
You fight in the same arena and even the announcer's voice is
the same. That may sound
great, but the fighting engine just isn't good enough to keep the game
interesting. In fact, it
can get downright infuriating.
The
main problem with Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is that you spend all
this time getting acquainted with the game in story mode, but then
everything you learned gets taken away in world tournament.
All the moves that you learned are gone.
While they were given to you in story mode, you have to earn
money to buy them in world tournament.
So imagine handing people their asses left and right in story
mode. You're throwing out
Kamehameha waves like there's no tomorrow.
You're teleporting all over the battleground and just totally
whomping ass. Now imagine
entering world tournament and all your moves are gone.
It’s almost as if your character becomes broken.
Now you have to win the world tournament with a broken
character. Try not to get
jealous when you see the CPU characters pulling off all your favorite
moves either. Should you
actually manage to win the tournament, you'll finally get some money
to buy back all the moves you thought you'd already earned. But it's not that simple.
You can't just walk into the skill shop and purchase the moves
of your choice. That
would be too easy. Instead,
you have to buy a capsule that contains one random move for a random
character. Worse yet is the fact that you can keep getting the same move
over and over. There is a
capsule that lets you see what you get before you buy, but because
there is so much available, you have to leave and re-enter the shop
countless times before your desired item shows up.
This gets quickly gets old. Plus,
the most expensive items are really lame.
For example, I bought all 7 of the dragon balls because the
game promises something awesome will happen when you own them and
summon the dragon like on the show.
 When
I summoned the dragon, all I got for my hard-earned money was the
chance to unlock all the moves for one character.
I was really disappointed because I felt this was something
that should have been available from the start.
Street Fighter would not be the game it is today if it
had made you spend hours on end earning the money just to unlock moves
for the characters.
Another
glaring flaw with the game is the arenas.
In story mode its not such a factor, but in world tournament
you are always fighting in the same arena.
The problem with that is nobody likes seeing the same stage
over and over and the arena is very small so ring-outs are extremely
common. Add to this the
fact that you have limited abilities while the CPU has every move in
the book, and you can start to get an idea of how hard this game can
be.
Once
you have some moves in your arsenal, things aren't necessarily clear
sailing. You can pull off
some decent attacks now, but the execution of them is poorly
implemented. Take Goku's "Warp Kamehameha" for example.
You have to hit the punch button four times followed by the
energy button to execute this move. What sucks about this is that if you miss any of those four
punches, you are left wide-open for the enemy to blast you right out
of the ring. Every major
move in the game is like this. You
have to do smaller attacks in a certain order to end the combo with a
bigger attack. You can't
just do the bigger attack without building up into it.
Because of this, most matches in world tournament end from
somebody getting countered and blown clear out of the ring, and most
duel matches just end up being complete button-mashing fests.
 While
the gameplay is less than stellar, let me just say right now that the
graphics, sound, and presentation are all outstanding in this game.
Everything looks exactly like the show and even the voice actors used
in the show are in the game with the exception of a few secondary
characters. Menus, art,
and the intro movie all get you primed and ready to play.
I've rarely been as excited to play a game as I was when I
first put Dragon Ball Z: Budokai in and watched everything
start up.
Despite
all that, great presentation does not make a great game.
It almost feels pointless to mention the graphics and sound at
all when the gameplay is so lacking.
I hate to say it, but I just can't recommend Dragon Ball Z:
Budokai.
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