An Educated summary of Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
What you'll notice right from the beginning is a change in fighter perspective, instead of a paralax styled side view, it is now a third-person over-the-shoulder view. The button interface has also been dismantled and put back together for the better. Instead of two seperate attacking buttons, punch and kick have been melted down into the final product that is the hand-to-hand combat button. Joining it are the Ki blast, gaurd and evasion, and dashing button. Then we have the shoulder buttons, these allow for raising/decreasing in altitude, as well as adding special effects to attacks such as Super punches and super blasts i.e. Goku's khamehameha. This new setup requires some serious getting used to, especially if you are a fighting game connoisseur.
Joining the usual cast from the previous three titles are over thirty new characters who are making their first debut in Tenkaichi. Such characters include Chiaotzu, Janenba, Super 17 and Guldo.
This game does an excellent job of emulating all of the television series familiar flashes, bangs that all DBZ fans have come to love. Accompanying the SFX are the same BGMs that have been in the past three games, these blend right into the fast paced gameplay with fast guitar riffs and techno beats. Although some of the recycled sound loops tend to become irritating especially after long rounds with friends, or against the CPU player.
Modes are not scarce in this game either, you will be pleased to find a wide array of modes like those found in the other titles. A version of story mode, versus play, training, character customization and tournament play. The story mode plays much like that of Dragonball Z Budokai 3 aside from the fact that the story branches off into changing character battles and sagas.
Everyone is familiar with the sagas as well, Saiyan saga, in which you vanquish Raditz for the umpteenth time, up to several movie sagas never seen in a videogame. In the dueling mode you can choose to play against a friend in the Player vs Player option, play a computer or watch two computer characters duke it out. The tournament mode is a carbon copy of the previous games, except that you can assemble your own tournaments by choosing which characters face-off, as opposed to 5 random battles.
Although this game has its fair share of ups and downs, it's good strengths are executed so well throughout the game, that the downsides won't dissapoint even the pickiest of game critics. In conclusion, I recommend this game to anyone who would like a trip from the conventional fighting game and is in for fast paced action.