Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 Review

Atari and Spike have once again delivered the goods for Dragon Ball Z fans everywhere with their sophomore effort, Budokai Tenkaichi 2. Quite a few licenses have had shoddy games attached to them, but Atari has consistently shown that they care about Dragon Ball Z, and continue to release quality games (if you ignore DBZ Saga that is).

There is too much story to cover here, but it is delivered far better this time around. In the first game all of the fights in each saga were barely connected, without any real sense of what was going on. Thankfully there is a lot more narrative text and voice work, character interaction, and more cinema scenes.

Spike has improved the control during fights and upgraded the combat system with a lot more moves, more combos, including in the air, and more attacks that you can chain together. They smartly did away with the free-look camera and you can now rotate your view 360 when not locked on. When locked on you can only flip the camera from side to side, but that is adequate to get the camera away from a wall. Dashing also seems much easier to control this time around, no more careening wildly.

If you pull up the Skill List you will see it is now packed with attacks and techniques, instead of just major Ki and Blast moves. Rushes can now be followed up with a Heavy Finish, or a Flying Kick, and a new close move, the Step-in, lets you avoid attacks and then follow up with a Rush or Smash attack. It's also much easier to pull off a Smash attack, Lift Strike, or Ground Slash due to the redone Smash gauge (now a charge meter), allowing the player to pull off some great new moves including air combos.

The Ki-powered moves have gone through slight changes, but they remain functionally the same. Something new with the blast gauge is Transform D. Yes, all you Dragon Ball Z fans, you can now transform into Super Saiyan forms for added power. The old Finishing and Super Finishing attacks are labeled Blast 2 and Ultimate Blast, respectively, and another, good change is that your Ki gauge is now split into five sections, and the Skill List now tells you how many sections you need to perform each move, instead of some obscure number. (In all my years as a gamer ladies and gentlemen, I have never read half a page of a game review without understanding a single-fucking-word. Well, I guess there is a first time for everything. - Ed)

The downfall of the fighting engine is that the Skill controls are virtually the same for each character, so the diversity only comes from each characters different attacks and abilities. And while having the choice of 120 characters is immense, since they are virtually the same, monotony may set in.

Also new to this version is experience, or EXP, where when you win battles your characters level can increase, making you even stronger. EXP is gained in both the Dragon Adventure and Ultimate Battle Z modes.

Dragon Adventure is the story mode of this iteration, and Spike has done away with the gates. Each saga now has a new 3D world map, where you fly from location to location and zoom down to meet with friends, fight for EXP, Zeni, or Z Items, buy and sell Z Items at Baba's Palace, or continue the story. If you explore and use Z Search you may also come across some hidden locations. After completing story points you will then be returned to the world map, often with a new character/s and new points on the map to explore. While this new setup is good in concept it feels a bit disjointed, and the game loads constantly. Too bad you couldn't just fly from one place to the other in real-time. Another problem is that there are no on-screen indicators directing you to either story or optional locations. You have to look on the mini-map and aim your arrow in the right direction, flying blind until you learn the map.

You can now use customized characters in story mode, which is something I craved in the first game. Also new are Tag and Free Battle Modes that add a nice change of pace. For Tag you will be able to swap characters on the fly while fighting, and Free is a last-man-standing affair, with a group of characters

Next we have Ultimate Battle Z. This time, instead of a 100 opponent ladder, you now have "courses," or columns of opponents you must clear, Mortal Kombat Style, with either normal or custom characters. I feel UBZ is an excellent way to develop fighting strategies since your opponents get harder after each win. After each battle you first get graded in four criteria, and each one determines your total Fighting Point, for the Battle Record, and second, you receive EXP. As you pass each course not only will your character get stronger, but you also obtain rare items or open new courses to play.

Dragon Tournament has three locations: World Tournament, Cell Games, and a special version of World Tournament where you face Hercule at the end. Each difficulty has a certain number of rounds you must win, and you can play with up to eight human players, which is quite fun. Successfully winning each tournament not only unlocks higher difficulties and arenas, but you also get quite a bit of Zeni, which in turn you can use to purchase Z Items at Baba's Palace. (I wonder if Babel Fish would help. -Ed)

Dueling still has the same modes, but is augmented with the new Tag and Free battles, and you can alter fight parameters in the new Battle Settings menu. In addition to Duel Time and Com Level you now have Item Found, Referee, and Transformations. There are also five new Maps to play on: Kame House, Glacier, Ruined Earth, Planet, and Dying Namek. Each one is a great addition to the original 11, which have also been expanded and updated for your gaming pleasure. Unfortunately, playing with two players gets old pretty fast since the fighting engine just isn't deep enough.