After reading about the sequel to Budokai Tenkaichi 2, I had extremely high hopes, but was really disappionted.
The story may be the worst thing of all. In BT2 you fought just about every single battle, this time, its bad enough they once again haven't included Androids 14 and 15, but they also took out a load of other fights as well. For example, in the Androids Saga you go right from fighting Android 19 with Vegeta to fighting 16 with 2nd Stage Cell. Completely skipping all fights with 17, 18, 20/Dr. Gero and Cell in his first form.
The script is still pretty lame and the voice acting could do with some work. The fact that the characters fighting and those watching will talk throughout the battle usually reenacting the story is pretty cool. Sometimes you will get to watch a small scene that once again reenacts the anime, like Vegeta creating a fake moon in order to transform, but none of these last long enough to give an exciting effect, instead they're just a boring waste of time.
I'll keep using the fight against 19 as an example for how the battles work. You start out as Super Saiyan Goku, but not long in to the fight characters not in the battle talk about what is going on, saying that Goku is weaker and telling him not to use energy blasts because the Android can absorb them. After a while a prompt appears on the left of the screen telling you to press R3, you can either choose to keep fighting as Goku or press it and let Vegeta take over as he does in the show. You cannot go back to Goku after changing to Vegeta. So you have the choice of defeating your enemies with different characters. Not that it really matters who you choose to fight to the end with.
Unlocking characters and new sagas only require you beating each saga, they don't challenge you to find out how to unlock anything, they just give it to you for playing the game. That would be ok if there were at least somethings that took an effort to unlock, but there is nothing like that.
The battles are harder than ever before, with a lot more moves and combos you can pull off, some of which are really hard to do and rely on perfect timing. But you can still easily play the game without knowing all the moves. However, switching the game to easy mode really does make the entire game easy. Most fights can be won on your first try on that mode. But for newcomers you will want to try this level of difficulty at first, just until you get the hang of it, it can get pretty intense, especially against real life human players. I have given this game a difficulty rating of 'Just Right'. But truthfully, it really depends on the games difficulty settings, it can either be easy or hard. If its put on easy it will be easy. Although there are a few battles that may be hardish. Playing with humans can be a lot harder, depending on each persons skill level of course.
If you haven't played the previous Tenkaichi games you will need to check out the tutorial, which is really really long and boring as all hell. But if you have played either of the first 2 games then you can just jump straight into it, although there is enough new content to warrant you going through it anyway.
The addition of night stages and the moon doesn't change a thing. Characters that do require the moon to transform in the anime don't actually need it to be there in the game, yet another promise undelivered. On the plus side, this time the Apes aren't so ridiculously hard to beat.
The controls are pretty good. The game offers more realistic movements, you may actually want to fly under your opponent then fly up behind him to attack and now you easily can, but because of the lock on system its virtually impossible to attack someone by surprise. Although that is reenacting the show accurately seeing as though they can sense where you are, or use a scouter. Still, the freedom you have to move around with is pretty cool.
Most of the stages are brand new or at least revamped older ones. They are all now much better. They also appear to be much bigger, although Atari said the stages were not going to change, but they obviously did, which is great. However, because of the lack of a good story mode they skip many important battles and therefore many stages get left out, such as the innards of buu, although that one wasn't even there in BT2.
Aside from the main story mode called Dragon History, there is also the World Tournament and Ultimate Battle.
The tournament has changed. Now instead of competing in any tournament at any time, they are each only open at certain times. You still have all the old tournament modes. World Tournament is your standard tournament with the ability to get a ring out. World Martial Arts Big Tournament is fought at a different location and is really just like a normal battle, KO your opponent to win. Cell Games is exactly the same as the Big Tournament only at the Cell Games stage with harder opponents and you don't regain full health after each battle. There are 2 new ones, Otherworld Tournament which is like World Martial Arts Big Tournament only with even harder opponents. Yamcha game randomly selects your character and is incredibly easy.
There is however, a free mode, you wont earn money but you can play by yourself or with a friend in any tournament at any time you like. Some of you may think that fixes the problem above but the fact is that you should be able to enter any tournament whenever you feel like it and earn money. It makes no sense to do what they did.
I heard that one of the tournaments were going to have a story for each character, but either that was just a rumour or they promised something else they didn't deliver.
Ultimate Battle livens things up a bit. There are several modes here.
Sim Dragon allows you to pick a character, then gives you 10 days before a fight. During those 10 days you can train, explore, rest and use a senzu bean. You train by choosing either offense, defense, or both. Your health decreases as you train, but resting fixes that up, but keep in mind that for each day you do not train, you get weaker. You may also use a senzu bean, but you do have limited supply of those. Exploring just randomly creates an event, such a secret item being given to you, but actually exploring yourself would have been a much better and greatly needed addition.
After the 10 days you fight an enemy, there is a maximum of 7 enemies to fight. Winning earns you points that can be exchanged for Zenie to buy new items at the shop.
Mission 100 allows you to fight against groups of character in a tag team or single battle. You will get points here too, even if you lose, you will also get a ranking.
Disc fusion allows you to place a Budokai Tenkaichi 1 or 2 disc and unlock a mode from those games. This is for the PS2 version only, the Wii version has an online mode instead, which in my opinion should have been on both consoles. No excuses.
Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 really fails to deliver what it promised and doesn't live up to its potential. Its almost as if the second game didn't even exist. I highly recommend renting this game first.
+ Lot of characters, fun and sometimes intense battles.
- Pathetic story and tournament modes, Missing essential characters, no exploring.
Graphics:
8
Sounds:
7.8
Gameplay:
7.2
Lastability:
3
Overall:
5.5