Finally, a Dragon Ball Z Game that Gets It Right

Author's Rating:

Pros: It's hard not to love this game if you enjoy the television series

Cons: For everyone else, it's just a so-so fighting game

The Bottom Line: 
For true fans of the television series, this is a perfect game, and for everyone else, it's just plain average, so it gets four stars.

Author's Review
If you've read my review of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3, then you know I haven't been a fan of the video game series so far, despite being a tremendous fan of the television program. I'm pleased to tell you that this DBZ fan has at long last found a Dragon Ball video game I can sink my teeth into.

However, I regret to inform you that if you're not a fan of the television series (or even if you're just a casual fan, if there is such a thing when it comes to Dragon Ball Z), then this is probably not the fighting game for you. Unlike whatever number Tekken they're up to now, for instance, most of the characters handle very similarly, and there's not a lot of depth here for a fighting game, even though you can play in some of the largest 3-D levels I've ever experienced in a fighting game. Much of the fun in this game comes from re-enacting the classic battles from the television series just as they happened. In fact, certain characters are given special moves exactly for that purpose (for example, Chauzu has a finishing move called "Goodbye, Mr. Tien" that's essentially a suicide attack where he blows himself up, which you have to use in order to win a fight against Nappa, since as any Dragon Ball Z fan knows, on the television program in the first season, Chauzu blew himself up to try and defeat Nappa).

So let me break the game down for you into the good and bad (as it's certainly not perfect):

Graphics
The graphics are eye-dazzling and filled with plenty of colors. In particular, the characters have a unique appearance that makes them almost look like hand-drawn animation cells. There's also an amazing movie in the beginning with the kind of visuals that you expect from a game that prides itself on cut scenes, which doesn't really serve any purpose towards the plot, but is certainly enjoyable to watch. That's not to say I haven't played fighting games with much better graphics than this, but I couldn't have asked for much more out of this game.

Music
This is one of the weakest qualities about the game, as the music really doesn't suit the show, and is often not even very action-packed. One song in particular sounds almost like smooth jazz, and it's way too upbeat and sappy. Thankfully, you can always just put the game on mute, and have plenty of fun with it while listening to whatever you consider more appropriate. I should mention, however, that the voice acting is great, using the actual actors from the television program.

Gameplay
This is what it's really about in any game, especially a fighting game. And this is where the game excels beyond its predecessor. Although it's a fast-paced game (in fact, more so than the prior Budokai), you don't have to rely on intense button-mashing. In fact, using physical attacks and combos is not a great way to take off damage in this game. Rather, you will primarily rely on energy-based techniques (and you won't have to memorize a complicated series of buttons to use them, they are all done the same way for each character, and it becomes second nature once you learn how to use the techniques).

It's also a fighting game that relies heavily on timing. In order to use the devestating energy-based techniques that take off so much damage, you have to build up ki, which can be done by either physically attacking your opponent (one reason to use those weak attacks, besides stunning the enemy) or charging it up (the ki will replenish itself much quicker than doing nothing, but you're essentially a sitting duck while you charge up your ki, so you'd better be hiding behind a rock, far away from your opponent, or charging up your energy while your enemy is already lying on the ground from your last attack).

And you can make full use of your terrain, a fully three-dimensional environment, which unfortunately is limited by invisible walls on the borders, rather than a circular world in which you come around the other side. The cool thing about the terrain is that you can fight in the air (you can fly for as long as you want), on land, or even underwater (it's always fun to send your opponent plummeting into the water and watch the splash). Another good aspect of the terrain is that you can blow up the huge rocks and trees around you with energy attacks, or better yet, by tossing your opponent into them and watching them explode. It gets a little old after awhile, but it certainly helps the feel of the show translate into video game format.

Finally, I should mention a major difference from the previous Budokai, which I know many people do not like, but I think is a big step in the right direction. No longer do you have transformations during a fight (such as into Super Saiyan status with the flowing blond hair). Instead, you have to unlock seperate versions of each character. What I like about this is that you could play as Goku in Super Saiyan mode and not have to worry about changing back to normal when your energy runs out (it may not be as consistent with the show, but it's more fun to play).

Modes of Play
As with the previous Budokai games, there's lots of different modes of play, which don't do anything dramatically different. Right now, I'm mainly taking advantage of the Z Gate, which enables you to reinact the classic battles from the show (and unlock both items to customize your characters with and a LARGE amount of unlockable characters, including such obscure enemies as Guldo, remember him from the Frieza series before he got killed off way too easily?). The only gripe I have with the Z Gate is that they totally skip over critical plot events, and send you into the middle of a scene, so that without having seen every episode of Dragon Ball Z, you probably won't understand the context of the fight (if that matters to you). This is one of the main reasons why I say that this isn't a fighting game for the casual Dragon Ball Z fan.

A great thing about the Z Gate for serious fans of the television series is that they finally got the power levels right. For instance, going up against Vegeta as a giant ape with Goku will be next to impossible, and your best bet is to keep running, but when Goku faces an opponent whose power level was vastly inferior on the show (such as Nappa), you'll feel the difference. To make up for what therefore becomes certain easier fights, you have to win at times by using a certain special move (for example, as I mentioned earlier, Chauzu's "Goodbye, Mr. Tien" technique).

There's also the World Championship mode, which allows you to go up against randomly-selected characters (whichever ones you've already opened anyway) over the course of several rounds to become the World Champion. I'm not sure if there's something about this mode that I haven't quite figured out yet, but I will say that the ring-out feature seems slow to respond (in the prior Budokai games, when you knocked your opponent out of the ring during this mode of playing, you instantly won the fight, but now it seems like they have to stand around outside the playing field for awhile before it registers).

And then there's the mode of playing that the game is clearly intended for, one-on-combat with your friends. And if you're much better than your friends and need the handicap, you could always let your buddy use a customized character (or you could just give your friend Goku Super Saiyan 4, and you can use a lousy Saibaman, and not stand much of a chance).

Difficulty
When you first play the game, try not to get discouraged that you'll have to play Z Gate mode on easy, because it's downright impossible when you don't know what you're doing. However, certain fights aside (often the ones where you have to try to survive for a certain time limit by running the whole time), once you get the hang of it, it becomes tremendously easier. Fortunately, there's three different levels of difficulty for you to play around with, and I still haven't needed to use difficult mode (although I'm getting there).

All in all, this is a great game for those obsessed with the television series or even for some casual players providing they've got a group of friends over. As a single-player game for the casual Dragon Ball Z fan though, I wouldn't bother if I were you (which I'm not). Perhaps the next Budokai will be even better, and will be fun for everyone.