Ahh..DBZ.the anime that gave ass-kicking a whole new point of view. One of the most famous animated series across the earth , DBZ has captivated the hearts of all the little violence lovers out there. But the question is now this..does the game live up to it’s hype? You be the judge as I give you my insight on DBZ: Budokai.
Graphics and Sound
Sadly and yet gratefully the strong point of this game, in this category DBZ: Budokai delivers, and delivers hard. The character sprites in this game look so much like the original people that I felt like I was infringing on Akira Toriyama’s creation. Basically, the character sprites and environments hit on perfectly. Smooth motion physics, facial expressions, all kinds of goodies, Budokai has it.The sound of this game is great, using sound effects from the anime and meshing them in finely. As for the voiceovers.eh…it up to you gamers to decide if it’s a good thing or not, for this game uses the current American voice actors and uses a mixed version of the American DBZ’s dialogue. My opinion is, that it’s a suck-fest, but yours might be different, so I won’t say anything more.[cough] sucks-ass [cough].what? I didn’t say anything! Anywho, G&S are greatly done in this game.
Gameplay
Oh man.why did it have to come to this. Let’s start with the set up of Budokai. You got your [Story Mode] which follows along with the story of DBZ, but a groovy additive to this is when you beat story mode, you can go back and play as different people (so know you can see what would happen if Vegeta beat Goku and everyone else. Then you got your [Duel Mode] which is basically fighting against your friends or against the computer, and of course there’s [Practice Mode]. Then there is [Tournament Mode] where you fight in a.well tournament against other fighters, and win prize money. Prize money is used in Edit Mode, where you can edit characters with skills obtained from money or from Story Mode which is pretty groovy with all of the different skills you can obtain.
Ok, now for the fighting.I’m gonna have to pull an Ace Ventura on this one [Takes in a large breath of air] The fighting is terrible, the controls are about as responsive as a slab of beef, the moves are the same with all of the characters just with different names and are very limited, you can perform a special move after a combo but that’s just it, you have to put in a button combination to do the special move instead of the traditional D-Pad input, for example: Punch, Punch, Forward + Punch, Punch, Ki Blast Button and that’s one of the difficult moves! The enemy’s AI is primitive, they just block until your done then they’ll do just about the same combo over and over again according to your current position, and basically respond to your controller input, really no challenge at all, just aggravation. You can’t fly, you can only knock someone up into the air or become knocked up into the air, and that’s how you fly, you can’t even jump! There are no combos so this game is only a button-mashing FRENZY!! (Axtuse gasps for air). There, did that cover it? The only pro in the fighting is with some characters and the ability to increase their fighting power, which I thought was pretty nifty.
Overall
This game was all bark and no bite. It looks and sounds fantastic, but plays like a pianist with no fingers.Another thing was the set-up, stuff like the menus, the narraration, everything.it’s too damn childish! If you just HAVE to play this game, play is against a friend, I found this more entertaining than fighting the computer. If you love DBZ, give this game a look over, and maybe rent it, but I highly recommend NOT buying if you’re just looking for another fighting game to add to your repertoire.So I think that I’m gonna pull a Muten Roshi (That’s Master Roshi to all of you USA DBZ Heads out there) and stick to the nudie magazines.oooh! That’s nice.