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A good game with some major control issues

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 61 / 68
Date: October 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi.

INTRODUCTION:
I have long been a fan of the Dragon Ball Z series. The series has a "love it or hate it" reputation, but even those who do love the series aren't afraid to say that a lot of the games based on it haven't exactly been that good. The Budokai series is a major exception to the rule. Its two-dimensional fighting action has been nothing short of excellent, and definitely one of the best Dragon Ball sub-series of games. In 2005, Budokai Tenkaichi was released, which totally reinvented the Dragon Ball Z fighter. Did they do a good job. To find out, read on!

OVERVIEW:
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi was released in October of 2005 in the United States. The game features several characters available right off the bat, as well as many more characters/forms that can be unlocked. There are many different gameplay modes.

REVIEW:
I had some doubts about this game, and some of those doubts I was right to have. This is a good game, but sadly, lots of little problems kick it down a notch. Let's check out the pros and cons of Budokai Tenkaichi.

-THE GOOD:

-THE GREATEST GRAPHICS EVER SEEN IN A DRAGON BALL Z GAME. EVER. This game's graphics, particularly in the opening intro, are nothing short of excellent. I have mixed feelings about cel-shading, but this game does cel-shading better than any other game on the market at this time. It's the ultimate triumph for this graphic style

-EXTREMELY INNOVATIVE. Previous Dragon Ball fighters restricted you to a two-dimensional fighting plane. But here, you have huge, three-dimensional arenas, with tons of different and interesting locales to battle in. This game makes every effort possible to capture the free-flowing, fast-paced battles of the anime, and it succeeds beautifully,

-YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO HEAR THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE VOICES FOR THE CHARACTERS! As a die-hard fan of the uncensored, unbutchered Japanese version of the series, I can't tell you how happy I was to discover this.

-LOTS OF DIFFERENT GAME PLAY MODES. With all the different game modes, this is a game that is likely to hold your attention for a long time, should you be able to get into it.

-TONS OF UNLOCKABLES. Dragon Ball games always have unlockable stuff, and there are a ton of hidden things in this game, including many more characters than just those initially available.

-CHARACTERS ARE IN THIS GAME THAT WERE PREVIOUSLY NOT PLAYABLE IN ANY OTHER DRAGON BALL GAME! Granted, most of them have to be unlocked, but it's just awesome that so many of these characters, deprived of their place in earlier games, get it here. It's about damn time we got a Dragon Ball game that lets us play as Chiaotzu! Likewise, the ENTIRE Ginyu Force is here! There are even little-known characters, like Janemba, the villain from the twelfth movie. Furthermore, the game also boasts a few original series and GT characters. With all the different characters and forms of them, there are close to a hundred different playable identities in the game!

-THE BAD:

-PLAY CONTROL. I understand that the game maker wanted to be innovative, but the controls in this game just aren't that good. They take some major getting used to. Even I, a veteran gamer, had a big problem adjusting to them. Most of the flaws in this game stem from the control issues.

-THE ACTION IS TOO FAST-PACED! I understand this was done in an effort to capture the feeling of the anime, but combine it with poor play control that is extremely tough to grasp, and the end combination is NOT something desirable.

-THE COMPUTER IS TOO DIFFICULT TO DEFEAT. Granted, this is mostly due to play control issues. However, it is still a key issue. In the story mode, because of all these little problems come together, it must have taken me ten tries just to defeat Raditz! Now that hurts.

-IT IS UNCLEAR HOW TO UNLOCK/OBTAIN THINGS. I understand why the unlockables remain a secret; it adds some fun to the game. However, many different items/skills/etc. must be obtained in the various game modes, and it's confusing as to what does what, and how it must be obtained.

-THE STEEP LEARNING CURVE MAY TURN AWAY POTENTIAL PLAYERS. The control issues are obviously the biggest factor to blame for this, but just the same, I wish they would have found a way to make the game more accessible.

Overall, I think that this game is a very mixed bag. Where it succeeds in one area, it fails in another. If you're a die-hard fan of Dragon Ball Z, definitely check the game out, but I strongly recommend you try before you buy.

EDITION NOTES:
At the time I write this review, the game is still fairly new and fairly popular. You should have absolutely no trouble finding it in any place that sells video games.

A few faults but otherwise a good addition to the DBZ lineup

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 24
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Let me tell you this straight: This is NOT a DBZ Budokai game. Yes, it has the Budokai name, but that's because it simply had the Budokai license slapped on it for its US release. Forget everything you knew about the Budokai series, because this game's entirely different... which may be a good thing or a bad thing.

Probably the best thing of this title is it features the Japanese voices for the game, so you get to pick whichever you prefer. Longtime fans will probably enjoy hearing many of the original voices, such as mainstay Masako Nozawa as lead hero Goku(and Gohan.. and Goten... and Bardock...), as well as regulars such as Inuyasha's Takeshi Kusao, One Piece's Mayumi Tanaka, Rurouni Kenshin's Hirotaka Suzoki, Cowboy Bebop's Norio Wakamoto, and Sailor Moon's Toru Furuya and Yuko Minaguchi. Not to mention many of the voices, including Daisuke Gori, Hikaru Midorikawa, Toshio Furukawa, and Bin Shimada have provided voices for some of todays top fighting franchises, such as Dead or Alive, Tekken, and Soul Calibur. It's one huge reunion. Characters also have different abilities. Goku, for example, can use Kaio Ken to power up or Solar Flare to blind an enemy so he can get a hit in(ironically though, Tien or even Krillin for that matter, DOESN'T have Solar Flare) In his SSJ mode, he could use Instantaneous Movement to teleport safely behind an enemy and avoid their attack, leaving them open to a crushing blow. Fighting is fast paced and occurs on land, in the air, or even underwater.(apparently everybody can hold their breaths really well). The main mode retells most of the stories, as well as a few movies and some of DB and DBGT. There's also some extra fighting modes, as well as an improved customization menu that even lets you help unlock more characters. There's also some pretty neat character pages for every person you've unlocked, which provides history and attack info and even lists who does who's voice for both the English and Japanese versions. In appearance it seems like the perfect DBZ game... all is not well, however, as there are also quite a few negatives.

First, the controls are very poor. Yes, you heard me. It doesn't matter whether you know what the buttons do or not. They are horribly jerky and unresponsive even after you finally understand how to perform each move. For an example, when I press left, my fighter should go left, NOT STRAIGHT TOWARDS THE ENEMY! The music is also annoying. It's the same stuff we've been hearing since Budokai 1 three years ago... shouldn't we at least get a few new tracks? Story mode's cutscenes are also pretty dull, they're similar to the ones in B1 where two characters would chat right before the battle... unlike B1 though, it doesn't have extra scenes that attempt to copy the anime series.

All in all, DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi is a very mixed bag. Some parts are great, but a few areas could be improved upon. I'd honestly suggest renting first in case you don't like it, because some may be disappointed, especially if they are expecting this to be "Budokai 4." Still, for me at least the positives outweigh the negatives. I'll be playing this for quite some timie, even with more big hits coming out soon.

DragonBall Z Budokai: Tenkaichi

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I personally have loved all the DragonBall Z Budokai games that have come out, with their action, destruction, and fun, but this game was not at all what I expected it to be.

One very annoying thing about this game is the fact that you don't get to transform while fighting a match. While in battle you can't turn your character into a Super Saiyan, or transform him. To play as a Super Saiyan or transformed character, you must choose them. This was something that extremely upset me, for all the DragonBall Z games alowed you to transform while in battle, but after a lot of effort, any true die-hard DragonBall Z fan can shake it off.

Another thing that minorly upset me about this game is that when performing a Finishing Move, it is not as detailed or as "cool" as it was in the previous game, DragonBall Z Budokai 3. This was not a very big problem, but it annoyed me to know that the previous game has something the new game doesen't.

Apart from that, another fault greatly upset me about this game is that they added unnecessary characters to the game that did not play a big role in the series, and took out extremely important characters. For example, they put in characters such as Evil Buu, Jeice, Saibamen, and Burter, characters with very small roles, and left out characters with huge and very important roles such as Omega Shenron, Uub, Pan, and the original Baby.

The game's controls! I have played every DBZ: Budokai game, and none of them had jerky controls like this one! I would press the button combination to teleport out of the way, but instead, my character would just stay there! This game is not the kind of game that you will win with some good old button-mashing, so you would need cooperative controls to win! To add to that, some characters are almost impossible to defeat, and with the control problem, it just adds to the difficulty! This was a major flaw in the game, and it greatly upset me.

The cutscenes! Before this game came out, I was hoping it was going to have some real cut-scenes from the series, but it has nothing of the sort! Instead, the two opponents just mock and taunt each other before the fight, and at the end of the fight, the winner just says some more celebrative taunts! Even the the first DBZ Budokai had this, and it also had some make-shift cut-scenes unlike this one. Hoepfully the next installment of the DragonBall Z Budokai series will have some "real" cutscenes for a change.

The last insult that I can throw at this game is that it was way to short for my liking. The game took me two days to beat, and I was hoping for at least a week of gameplay. If you are a die-hard fan of DragonBall Z, then you would probably not get bored of the game as fast as I did.

Now since I have completed insulting the game, I can move on to praising and acknowledging the good parts of the game.

One thing that I really liked about this game was the fact that you can destroy the environment around you, and that you have quite a lot of room to move around in it, unlike the previous games when you are limited to fighting in a tiny area. Also, in this game, you actually "face" your opponent. When fighting, you see the fight from behind your character like when you play an adventure game, unlike the previous DBZ games in which you watch the fight from the side.

Another good thing I can say about this game is that it has loads of characters, even if many of them are unnecessary. For example, the game finally put in Dodoria, and Zarbon. It threw in Janemba too, a character that shows up in DragonBall GT! This game provides you with about 60 characters, and 90 if you count all of the characters' forms and transformations. That adds some fun to the game having that many characters (although it annoys me that the game is missing some of the major characters)!

Lastly, if you are a true DBZ fan, and I mean a true, die-hard, and like 100% in love with DBZ, you might want to play the game with the characters talking in the original way; in Japanese. It's kind of interesting if you would want to check it out.

Now here is something about the game which will please some people because it would add a challenge to the game, but it might annoy people who want to get through unlocking the characters faster. Now in this game, unlike all the previous ones, you don't just beat the game to get all the characters. As you play, you will earn earrings which you can "fuse" together. Two earrings that can be successfully mixed will either make an item that you equip to your character, or it will make an actual character. There are about twenty characters in the game that need items to be fused to make, and they are mostly the strong and good characters. So try to find the earring combinations if you want to unlock all the characters!

That's all I have to say about the game, but this game was definetly not what I expected for the fourth installment of the DragonBall Z Budokai games, but it wasn't that bad either. All I can do now is twiddle my thumbs, cross my fingers, and hope for a good fifth installment of the DBZ Budokai games.

Rating? 3.8/5

Recommendation? I think that you should rent the game first before buying it, just in case you regret buying it like I did.

Overall It's GREAT!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Overall the game is great but it has a few problems. I'll go through the Pros and Cons next!

Pros:

The graphics are AMAZING, especially the intro part!

There are a TON of characters to play as! You get ALL The classic heros AND villains in all their forms like Goku, Vegeta and Gohan, most of the androids(accept for 13,14 and 15). You get Cell and Frieza in all their forms, you even get Cell in his super perfect form, which has the best attacks like the death beam and the spirit bomb. You get GT characters like SS4 Goku, SS4 Vegeta, Super 17 and more. You get the less common characters, as well, like Jenemba. You also get ALL the fusion characters.

There are TONS of modes to play in-like story, duel and world tournament modes.

Cons:

Some of the GT characters that were featured in Budokai 3, like Omega Shenron and UUB, you don't have here.

The music, or some of the music, can be quite annoying and doesn't really fit.

One of the classic battle grounds, like the desert (there is a desert but it's night time there), is not how it usually is.

Overall, the game is really good, I had fun. The biggest con was not having Omega Shenron to play as.

Big Letdown

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: November 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a very big letdown. I'll start with the no. 1 problem first. The controls. I'm a fighting game vet but I've been on training wheels for the past 2 weeks trying to get use to these contols. They're are too many skills that must be mastered and the learning curve is TOO awkard. This is like trying to learn Tekken 5 and MK Deception at once. Normally to fix this issue you can resort to the training mode. Well the tutorial is completely useless. It shows you how to execute all the moves. Sounds helpful right? But, you get no hands on training! It is all done for you, which resorts in about 2% training value if you don't have a VERY good memory, which also results in a very speedy purchase of a strategy guide. The difficulty is another thing, but it wouldn't be so difficult if the controls were better. The plus side the overall scheme catches the DBZ feel and backgrounds are completely interactive which will resort to using special skills such as sensing power levels. There is also a variety of ways to utilize energy attack. Power beam struggles are closer to the show in this game then in any DBZ fighting game. If you exaust your energy gauge you become extremly vulnerable to any attack. The actual fighting is also captured greatly as well. You can send your opponents crashing through mountains and fight under water. There is a host of secrets and characters to unlock Since the controls are so frustrating I might never unlock all these. I'm a big DBZ fan I don't give ratings no lower than 3, but I don't see myself keeping this game for to long. If your a fan your most likely going to buy this anyway but be sure to buy a strategy guide with it. Trust me your not going to pick this game up with out it. If your not a fan I highly recommend renting this first.

A lot of fun but not everyone will aprove.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a blast to play. The learning curve for previous budokai gamers will be high. The buttons can be switched but the default works the best for me. Very fast paced fighting, much closer to the show than previous games. Problems begin with no transformations in the gameplay. All powered up charachters are available but as seperate playable charachters. Also the dramatic cut scenes are gone. This may dissapoint some fans while others will be happy to see them go. Dragon Rush, so the paper, rocks, sicssors aspect is gone. A similar attack can be done via combination of attacks strung together. Free roaming through completely destructible stages are the games strong point. The story mode while not on par with Budokai 1 is still very respectable. With a few minor flaws and learning curve that is tough, the game will be a welcome addition to the DBZ collection of console games.

Crash, Bang, Pow, Kamehameha!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow this game is awesome but, there are some disapointments but let's start with the pros. First of all, there are over 50 characters. Yes, Hercule is in there but he will serve a purpose. Now the modes are what really make this game exciting, but I won't spoil too much, just the stuff that you'll first see. Ok, the best mode is the Z battle gate. what it is is just a story mode that has movie stories, show stories, and other stuff. Just select a battle, listen to a cutscene, and fight. Next is the world tournament, which needs no introduction, has 4 modes novice, adept, advanced and one I won't tell you. Next is Practice, which has practice, where you can fight a cpu and not die, and tourial (sorry if I spell it wrong) where you can learn how to play. After that is Ultimate Battle where you can fight 99 other people so you can get rank #1. Evolution Z is a customizable mode where you can upgrade your character with portara. Fuse portara, and you can unlock SOME characters (most you unlock in z battle gate). Dueling (what I should've put first) is where you can pick two characters and fight (yes it's 2 player). The final one is Character Illustrations. It is a not needed mode that let's you see Ilustrations of characters that were from the series.

Gameplay 9.2

Graphics 9.0

Sound 9.0

Value 9.6

Tilt 9.7

Average 9.3

this is an exellent game with some issues. RECOMMENDED if you are a dbz fan

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

ISSUES:
The soundtrack sucks, its the same as all the other budokais, they sould change it.
The computer always does the same moves and its annoying.
You can't transform during the battle, you have to choose your transformation wen you pick your character.
The cameras sometimes get on my nerves.

GOOD POINTS:
This game is very fun to play in its 3-d arena and with awesome graphics but like every other video games it isn't perfect.

Please Don't BUY This Game, unless you like JUNK

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: November 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First and fore most, This will never be a True Budokai game. I say this because the graphics are like the Sagas game just a tad better.But we all Know Sagas was junk too. The controls are really slow, I would press block and it would hold it until the comp stop hitting me and i had no way of fighting back. This is the worst Game they have made for the DGZ series. The game features ways to fuse capsules together,though this sounds pretty cool it's Lame. There are really no good points to this game except the CG demo in the begining. That was the only thing I liked about the game. If they could have used the Last Bodukai as a reference and just added different stories they would have gotten a A+ but this is at best a F-. If you like fight twenty matches just to beat Raditz once than this game is for you. If your a true fan RENT this FIRST to see how bad it is. You might not be a fan of the Kamahamaha after this.

Atari really has outdone themselves with Budokai Tenkaichi!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is probably the best DBZ title to come out on the PS2. Known as DBZ: Sparking! in Japan, Budokai Tenkaichi is a fresh fighting game that allows freedom of movement around huge levels and is probably has the fighting system that is the closest to the DBZ show. You can play as 60 characters, 90 if you count transformations (which are separate characters themselves and not actual skills this time around. Trust me that's a good thing. I'll explain later), and fight in fast paced action.

Graphically, the game is pretty nice. Not the best cel-shading I've seen, but definitely not the worst. Also, many small touches make the graphics even better, such as correct auras, electricity in the auras, and other small stuff.

Gameplay is much different from the other Budokai games. Along with the larger arenas, you fight from third-person perspective, with the option to freely move about the stages. It's really cool, but you can't go in and play the game like before. The control scheme has been changed up to the point where you won't know what the heck you're doing if you don't learn about them. They fit the game pretty nicely, but at times they can be somewhat clunky, but not to the point where it's super horrible. Also, characters are noticably different from other characters, save for a few that are super similar. The difference in characters, free-roaming, and speedy gameplay adds up to quick thinking and strategic measures at a bit of points.

Sounds are really nice. I'm not going to get into this but nice sound effects all around. Music is exactly from the older Budokai games, so don't expect any new tunes.

Overall, if you're a DBZ fan, it's a must buy. If you like fighting games, a bit passable, but can be fun.

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