A title such as this is often hard to review...
Gameplay:
First things first, this game has a ridiculously high learning curve. For a game in this day in age, this is the type of game that will be a complete hit or miss with most people. If the player manages to overcome the high curve, and the pains from flinging one's arms aimlessly at the screen, then he or she will be rewarded with a very frustrating difficulty level. Once a considerable amount of time has passed within the game though, there is a whole lot of reward to reap out of this title. For starters, the training option is very thorough and precise as to the controls of the game. While the way that it was executed is somewhat complicated to follow, the training really gives the player the barebones to how to begin to master the game. As mentioned before, my arms hurt after the first couple of hours, expect some pain to come out of this, but for those who don't like the notion of having to do physical movement there is also the option to play the game with either the Classic controller or the Gamecube controller (including the Wavebird obviously). The only drawback to these two options is that the buttons are not explained anywhere other than for the Wii remote, so figuring out the buttons for the regular controllers will merely steep the learning curve even farther. The main reward for using the Wii remote is that you will be able to feel proud that you have mastered a completely different system which is truly unique: shake the Nunchuck to perform some actions, shake the Wii remote to do others and use a combination of the aforementioned to perform special attacks. I must say that the Nunchuck will feel very unresponsive at first, but just as every other new generation title, it's merely a fact of getting used to or getting around the controllers (aiming the Nunchuck straight down or up works better to fly than thrusting it up/down). The experience is definitely much more immersive than any other fighter game that I have ever played, and more often than not, I confused the buttons in my left and right hands (their actions that is). Eventually though, as the game progressed I felt much more comfortable and I was able to pull off amazing combos with the right timing. One of the few issues that I noted with the game is that there is a collision detection bias, meaning that the CPU will often hit you from a distance farther than their punches reach, yet that never seems to happen to the player. Also, it is very easy to get stuck in corners of the level specially when starting off as the coordination required to aim your punches and look at the environment doesn't develop until quite some time into the game. As for the difficulty level, there is a level adjustment, but at times it seems that 1 is far too easy and the jump to 2 is considerable (easy and normal respectively). There is also a 3 difficulty setting for all those hardcore fans that feel that the game is not challenging enough, but I would say with great confidence that level 2 will provide more than enough difficulty: I felt very frustrated at times as I saw the CPU rip right through me over and over again and often with the same pattern attacks. Again, being able to overcome this seemingly impossible to overcome obstacle really rewards the player satisfactorily. To add to the collision detection error though, there is also an instance where charged smashes clash: these could have been polished up a little bit in terms of execution. For example, when a high hit intersects with a low hit, the characters merely flinch and a white bash appears at the top and lower parts of the action; it would have been nice to have seen both characters take damage and fly outwards. The devil is in the details, and overall if you start looking too much into details you will find out that this game can be improved to superb levels. Nonetheless, the gameplay is really solid and let me emphasize very rewarding. There is a simplicity to the controls but with that simplicity the developers have managed to make a more complicated system: easy to learn but hard to master. Graphics:
Although overall this game looks very well and the cell shaded art is performed magnificently, all it takes is a small glance at some of the textures used in the levels and it becomes noticeable that other than the characters there really aren't any outstanding graphical elements to the game. This should be taken with a grain of salt, though, because most of the time the player will be focused on the action and not the level, and all of the power ups, attacks, effects, and waves of different characters are very well realized. Every now and then there will also be an astounding Blast that will riddle the whole screen with colored strays that will not fail to disappoint even the hardcore fans. All of the effects are nicely executed and are deserving of praise. On the other hand though, I did find some issues when the camera closes up too much to the player and the character goes into "ghost" form (you can see through it), the framerate lagged during those instances and didn't stop until the "ghost" effect stopped. This doesn't happen often enough to detract from the gameplay but it does happen, and I'm not too sure whether it’s caused by hardware or software conflict. Also, it is very obvious that the Wii version is a straight port from the older generation consoles, since there really doesn't seem to be anything that would graphically push the Wii hardware. Overall though, the graphics won't disappoint unless you have an issue with cell shaded art.
Sound:
All of the punches, blasts, and yells sound amazingly in a surround environment, but sadly there is no true surround sound support for this game. While there isn't anything completely revolutionary or astonishing about the effects in the game, they are all well performed and add just that much more to the gameplay. As would be expected though, some of the rhymes for the menus in the game are short and repetitive, and to add to that nuisance, there are characters in each menu and they do a lot of talking... and I mean a lot. This is fine, but sometimes it gets in the way of the gameplay and in some few instances there are the characters that have a very obnoxious voice and listening to it every time you need to access an item can be frustrating. There is also a very nice feature though, that allows for the Japanese dub to be used, but I found that this was even more obnoxious in many more places than the English dubs. During battle, the background music will not stand out very much, since most battles are fast paced and riddled with punch and blast noises, and that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Some of the tunes are ports from the original series as well, but they have been altered usually in some way or form. The narration is probably one of the better done voiceovers and all characters have voiceovers during their scenes in the story mode. This is both a good thing and a bad thing because while they used most (if not all, I'm not too sure) of the original actors, sometimes the acting seems forced and again, sometimes the player might not want to hear a particular character's voice. All scenes are completely skippable though, and you can advance through the text without listening to the voiceovers as well. Value:
There aren't any original clips from the series in this game like there have been in past instances, and as a matter of fact, in many parts the plot of the sagas has been changed or altered in order to make it easier to follow. Sadly though, there is a lack of development of plot, and often I found myself wondering what happened to character A or where did character B come from or what was character's C function (I'm not a hardcore DBZ fan but I've seen a fair share of it and I still had some issues following the story). Also, the only characters to appear in the mini cut scenes are those in the game, and the scenes are very slow paced. This could be a turn off to many players to just skip the scenes and start fighting, but for those who like Dragon Ball this might not be too big of an issue. There is also a ridiculous amount of characters, and although many of them are just modified stats characters, the difference still feels like a completely new character. For example, Trunks is somewhat of a weakling at first (with his sword), then the second Trunks (no sword and able to go Super Saiyan) is very nimble and strong. Super Trunks is completely bulky and horrendously strong but also much slower than any of his other versions. Of course, most players will probably opt for the strongest characters in the game, but there is a fair chance to match up mismatched characters as well (except for Hercules... he is far beyond useless). Also, in an attempt to level out the playing field, there is a new "leveling" system that allows for the player to equip items to the characters that will allow the character more Attack, Defense, etc and also some items that have special effects like Energy consumption halved and what not. Along with these items there is a new Z-Item Fusion function that allows for the fusion of different items to allow for new unlockables (mostly characters), but the whole system seems awkward and helps more to detract from the fast paced action rather than to add to it. Thankfully, most of the times are paired up with their respective fusions, but expect to spend precious time searching for the right items to pair up for that one enhanced character (like Ultimate form Frieza or Meta Cooler). In conclusion, Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is a very fun and addictive game, once the steep learning curve has been overcome. It is nice to see that the Wii hardware is really starting to pick up with games such as these, and this game delivers a moderately polished but highly fun product, that if you manage to get a couple of friends into, you will have endless hours of fun. Even for a single player game, there is plenty to do, and I must say that after 20 hours of gameplay I have barely hit the 50% mark in the campaign mode. This game is definitely worth giving a try and a must buy for anyone who loves Dragon Ball, fighting games, or merely wishes to experience some of the fun that the Wii is making possible.