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Dragonball Z: Budokai – PS2
The commercial for Budokai claims that this is the best DBZ game to date, and while that’s not much of a claim, I guess they have a point. Better than not mentioning it at all. Probably most of the credit for the improvement goes to the fact it’s on a PS2, whereas many of the previous DBZ titles have been on some form of GameBoy. Thus, we are allowed better sound, a bigger screen, 3d characters, large fighting environments, and more game to play in general. With all the hype around this game you would think it was one hell of an improvement, and although it’s not necessarily a BAD game, unless you’re a die-hard fan you’re gonna be hurtin.
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Depth
I gotta start with this category, just have to. I know it looks like it’s just a fighting game, but it’s got a few tricks up the sleeve. Naturally, you play through the events of the cartoon series, starting at the Saiyan series and ending at the death of Cell. This is split up into 3 chunks of episodes: Saiyan, Namek, and Android. Along the way you watch a lot of cut-scenes, unlock TONS of new skills and a good number of new characters as well. Once you beat all these you can go back through again and play through the story as different characters and through all new events you didn’t get to even view previously. Further into the game is the World Tournament… incredibly frustrating way to win Zenie (currency) where it doesn’t matter how good you are, because they’ll never kill you. Not once have I been killed in a tournament match… every time, they knock me out of the ring, which is WAY too small. Finally there are options to customize the skills each character goes into battle with, purchase new skills ranging from special attacks to fiber jackets, and last but not least another humorous section of the game where you unlock and play as Hercule (Mr. Satan) through a large number of bouts in a row.
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Gameplay
Worst part of the game. It claims the game supports flying, it claims you can do counter-attacks, and it claims you can block. The way to fly: get knocked into the air by an opponent, from there you have no way of going higher or lower, also making it impossible to dodge up or down, thus increasing the chance you’ll get knocked out of the ring. Counter-attacks: the only time I’ve ever seen the word counter is when I kicked them while they were down, wanna explain that crap? I countered their nap with a Hercule special? Blocking: not at all, I’ve held my guard up during the weakest attacks, and maybe 5% of the time it worked, the rest of the time after one light kick it said “Guard Break!” Only thing I can say about the actual fighting is that the combos are OK, and the majority of the special attacks ARE worth seeing over and over again… no matter how many times you have to play to do it.
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Presentation
This including graphics and sound, they did VERY well. If the fighting section of the game wouldn’t have screwed up the overall score, right now I would be ranting about how presentation was the icing on the cake. Especially if you’re a die-hard fan, and aren’t annoyed by the cheesy narrative featured in the cartoons, you’re gonna love this. All the same voice actors are back, including the narrator, with catch phrases up the butt, and while it’s not perfect and could’ve probably been duplicated on a PS1, the graphic are fun just because it’s DBZ in 3D for the first time ever. That’s all I can say, just overall, they did a really good job with this, especially in the cut scenes, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen Gohan hit level 2 and blow a hole in somebody’s chest… it still gets better every time.
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Overall
They could’ve done better, could’ve bumped up the replayability and trimmed off the frustration levels, but like I keep saying if you’re a die-hard fan this will at least calm your cravings until they release a new game. If you’re NOT a die-hard fan… first of all… it’s not just a kid's cartoon - there are characters with real emotions, and this game isn’t necessarily crappy, but it might just not be for you.
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