Tenkaichi changes a lot in the series, for some better and some worse, but it's still an interesting game.
Right, first off is the pretty cool Z Battle Gate. In here, you can choose from lots and lots of different story modes and sagas that happen in the TV series, even touching on some of the DBZ movies, DragonBall and DB GT. Mainly, though, it focuses on the original four sagas of the TV series. First off is the Sayain saga. This is a great way to start things off in the game, and get used to the controls in the first fight against Raditz. R1 for jumping into the air and flying... L1 to lock on... and the rather annoying fact that you always have set moves, unlike Budokai 3 (which you could customize them however you want) which require you to press L2/Triangle/Up all at the same time, for instance. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's all fine, once you're there.
The second bad thing, that I have noticed about Battle Gate, is those cut-scenes. I was kinda expecting the Budokai 1 like cut-scenes, which were really cool, and accurate, to the TV series. Instead, these cut-scenes aren't really that dramatic at all - just two characters talking (the two which are about to fight the match) in-game. Nothing dramatic. They tend to stand there... talking... apart from the few decent ones like Baby Vegeta's ending, for instance. It just seems a little... rushed, and gives that sense of 'just get on with it', when if you wanted to do that, just skip the cut-scene. Another bad thing about Battle Gate are the stories other that the four main sagas (Sayain, Namek, Android and Buu). These are movies, for instance... but instead of the strength of some fair few fights, there is only one lone fight in the whole saga part. One fight, at one stage during that fight, from the movie. Janemba only fights Gogeta, in the game (in the HyperBolic Time Chamber, which is also wrong - they fight in HFIL/Hell). Janemba's fight should be against Vegeta and Goku, as well, and if the game had him, Pikkan. However, the good side of things are that the main sagas of the TV series are very full - Frieza's saga is pretty huge, with Dodoria, Zarbon, the whole Ginyu force and all the forms of Frieza in action. Cell's saga is a pretty impressive 30 battles long! Again, though, some things aren't great.
GT and DragonBall are mentioned a slight bit... but... in very little bits. Baby's saga is only when he is in Vegeta. That's not necessarily bad, but he only has one fight, in his saga on the game, against a Super Sayain 4 Goku. The same for Super Android 17 - he has a long fight against Kid Goku too, not just a Super Sayain 4 Goku. At least some things are really accurate - like some battles require you to finish the enemy with a final attack, like Vegeta's Big Bang Attack against Android #19. These battle conditions can be good... but also bad. Those very irritating survive battles are some of the worst. It's all very well being accurate and all, but those are just plain hard. It's from a normal fight... to suddenly a dreadfully difficult survive until time runs out fight... which are normally for one minute to two minutes - but that's easier said than done. Two of the hardest fights were on timed ones - Goku against Oozaru Vegeta (or Great Ape, as the game calls him) and Hercule against Kid Buu. They really do pull out all of the stops to kill you before the time expires. Overall, though - Z Battle Gate is quite cool, and I like it, but does have some very big busts (like those mentioned earlier and DragonBall finding under blown up stuff).
On Multiplayer, though - this game holds its own! Upon fighting a rather hilarious fight against my friend, with Chaotzu against Chaotzu in the city, blowing the fully destructable buildings and environment with 'Goodbye Mr.Tien'. Man, that was dead fun! Again, with Janemba against Super 17 in the mountains, my friend getting very irritated with me (Super 17) absorbing all of his ki beams and ki blasts, and then coming up to pound me, only to be energy shielded into a mountain was great stuff. That Verticle split screen is much better than a horizontal split too - for you can see the characters and fight even better than a horizontal split. In Duel mode, you can choose from a hugely impressive 50 characters, or about 90 if you include all of their transformations. Speaking of which, those transformations... the previous Budokai games allowed your character to transform into Super Sayain, and such, in battle. However, now the action isn't as fast-paced as you have to select the transformed character before battle, rather than do it in the battle, itself. It depends on your view; you could see this as bad, or good. Preferably, I would have liked the option of both being available to me. Whilst on the topic of speed, you might as well know that Budokai: Tenkaichi isn't as fast-paced as Budokai 3 at all. It's slightly slower, due to the small amount of ki in your ki bar, smaller health bar, fully 3D arenas and non-transformation allowed in battle. Heh, it may be slower, but the game is still quite good. A cool feature, once you unlock it, is the Password screen, in Duel Mode. If you built up a character on Budokai 3's Dragon Arena mode, you can type the password in Tenkaichi, allowing access to that built up character... to some extent. Cool!
The World Budokai Tournament mode is back, as you'd expect, in this game. Nothing much has changed here - Novice, Adept, Advanced and the Cell Games modes are still here, all as cool as ever. Now, the major good change to this mode is the arena, itself - now your character isn't thrown out of the ring as soon as your opponent bashes you across the arena edge in mid-air; now you can fly out of the ring all you please! Your character is only 'Ringed Out' if they touch the grass, or the small wall which stands at the bottom of the stadium stands and crowd. The major bad thing about this mode, however, is that you don't win any Zenie from completing the Tournaments. I liked the sense of achievement... and cash, after successfully completing a tournament, so I could spend it on Capsules. Since there are no capsules in this game, anymore, there is no real need for any Zenie, so no money after tournaments. Instead of capsules, there are Z Items, which are used to increase the health, defense, speed and statistics of your characters (the characters already have all of the moves they need).
The last mode is the quite funky Ultimate Battle mode. In here, you can battle up to 100 opponents! You choose any character to start with, and then you work your way up through a large list of fighters, with your character starting at rank 101. Each battle gets increasingly harder as they opponents are more and more powered-up. You gain points from winning these battles, more if you perform finishing moves to defeat them, etc, and you loose points if you get defeated. If your points drop below 0, then your out. Other than that, the points really do nothing. It took me a while to reach rank 1, and it took a fair while, but the challenge was worth it. Other modes in the game aren't playable, but they are they for your entertainment, such as the Z Item mode, the Practice mode and the cool Character Profile option, where you can read accurate profiles on all of the game's characters.
All in all, Tenkaichi is a great game. It has everything you could ever want for fighting challenges in the DragonBall Z Universe. It has tons of characters to play as, from the TV series and the movies, and has some very free arenas to fight in. However, in comparison to the previous Budokai games, Tenkaichi slows things down a bit, and maybe a little too much. The free fighting is beautiful, yes, but there are still some things that need to be smoothened out, that aren't. Such glitches are the English voicing - which sometimes suddenly changes into the Japanese voicing (like on Trunks' Finish Buster attack), and the fact that the game sometimes freezes on the character select screen. It's a real good game, though - it just needs some things fixed such as the ability to transform in battle. When everything is fixed, and when the cool cutscenes are added again, Tenkaichi could then proclaim itself the best DragonBall Z game ever. Possibly.
Grapics: Sweet, lush and almost exact to the TV series characters, just with more shine!
Gameplay: Seriously DBZ fighting, flying and punching action that is oh so sweet to the series. Battle Gate is lush.
Longativity: To complete everything fully, you'll have to fight some immense fights and really scour everything.