Almost There Atari, Almost There!
First I'll review the audio. Music is more on par with the traditional anime that new mixes created just for the game. You now have the option of switching voice acting over to Japanese which is a nice plus for american fans who haven't been exposed to it. It truly is an experience. The menu's are voiced over, as was B3, but lack the ability to turn those voices off without turning the SFX and in-battle voices off. All the classic SFX from the anime are used for the fighting and flying. Truly, the best sounding DBZ game experience to date.
Next up are graphics. Amazingly, the characters look even more anime-like than B3. The energy effects are dead-on. The ordinary ki blasts have variations depending on character, including color, size, and sparks. For super saiyan 2 characters and what SS3 there are, actual blue lightning crackles around the character. The more powerful blast attacks are well rendered, along with ki struggle animations. Although, its hard to truly appreciate the ki struggles since you'll be spending more time rotating the joysticks than watchint the screen. Rush animations and the semi-burst zone sequences execute smoothly. All the action occurs very smoothly and crumbling debris breaks and falls quite accurately. The Camera angles can be adjusted for 3 different preset views, but you'll find that only one of the three is worth using. The camera can become awkward at times, but this is very rare. Arenas are quite huge in this game, both in width and depth. The scenery is beautifully animated, but sadly less of the landscape is traversable than you think. However. that fact won't become an issue if your engauged in combat. Cut-scenes are small, but animated quite nicely. You'll find yourself skipping through them, so it's not a big issue. The CG opening is absolutely awesome, but it's the only time you see such effects used; how dissappointing. Visuals are definately the highlight of this game.
Now onto the gameplay. Sadly, this game takes much more time to get used to than B3 does; almost rightfully so. There is a tutorial mode for learning the controls, but it's not interactive like in B3; a poor choice by the developers. Since flight is much more free in this game, you need to learn how flight works and the accompanying lock-on system. Lock-on can be switched on and off during battle to allow for exploration of the large arena. You'll use the trigger buttons for ascending/jumping and descending, while the control pad or analog stick with fuction as forward, back, right and left. Dashing at high speed is confined a face button instead of double-taps on controls; this is a plus. Melee attacks are confined to one button this time, but it seems to fit best for the DBZ theme. Attacks can be executed fast and each character plays slightly different from the other. Although special attack commands are the same for each character, utilizing them effectively between the different fighters becomes an acceptable challenge. Some characters don't flinch when attacked by normal melee and others fire more ki blasts faster or slower. Charged ki blasts, another nice feature, travel at different speeds and some characters actually get a stun effect from landing a charged blast. Comabt in this game is far from simplified. Evasion techniques are both easier and harder to pull off. While you can fly out of the way of all attacks, the teleport dodge has become even harder to time. The special evasion techniques are spread across the dash and guard buttons, making it harder to press the right button when in a tight spot. One problem with lock-on comes in from evasion. Side-stepping is the easiest to use, but most characters will turn too quick for you to retaliate. Also, when in a specific vecenity to your opponent, you automatically lock-on, and are forced into side-stepping unless you quickly lock-off. So if you think you're going to fly off from an opponents assault, think again. When sent flying by an opponents full-power strike, a small combination of buttons, prompted at the bottom of the screen, allow you to pick yourself back up and dash back at your opponent. These button presses are extremely hard to time, and most often your opponent will dash in to keep you flying before you enter one button press. Two more factors can really screw up a player. Unless you're locked on your opponent, you won't be able to execute special ki blasts; no pot shots via kamehameha. The next is that if you get close enough to your opponent, you automatcally start moving towards them, ascending or descending accordingly. You can't fly straight over or under them, which makes this flight system not so free. Charging up to max power mode requires enough time to charge uninterrupted, which can be half the battle. AI opponents don't stay down long and prefer to use long ranged assualts to stun you, before closing in. Some won't even close in. The favorite techniques really aren't worth the game space and provide only temporary boosts in power or defense. Although some do simply charge you ki back to 100% or even to Max power mode. Fighting in this game requires skill and patients.
The games AI requires special mention. Sadly, the AI is very cheap. Often the enemy will spend time far away from you and shoot dozens of ki blasts at you. Other times, opponents close in and pound on you mercilessly. They have a tendency to take cheap shots whenever you unsuspectingly leave yourself open. The AI is quite beatable, but mostly through the cheapest methods.
Content is a BIG plus for this game. With about 50 fighters and 90 forms, you pretty much have 90+ different fighters. Some might seem repetitive, but you'll find your favorites and learn they are quite distinct. All the available fighting arenas come unlocked standard, and there are 11 of them. Most of the characters are unlocked through the story mode, which features about 100+ fights, multiple chapters, and varying conditions on winning the fight. There are even some bonus fantasy storylines to unlock and play through. There is the standard versus mode for playing against friends and the CPU. The world tournament is back with various difficulty levels There are character illustrations that are unlocked as you collect characters and forms. This option only serves as brief background story on the specific characters for players not familiar with the DBZ mythology. You'll see fighters in this game that have never been playable in previous games, but you'll notice that some more unique fighters were left out in turn. The character building system is much more flexible than the official Budokai games. Z items replace capsules and are used to build up stats of characters instead of customizing available techniques. Each character has an individual default stat setup that reflects their natural ability. Even when maximized, the fighters have big differences in power. Different forms and more powerful Z items can be created through Z item fusion, which is limited to the amount of "Z fusion " items you have. The worst part of the character building system is that there is no shop for buying Z items. you must earn them by completing fights in story mode and winning the world tournaments. There is a new battle mode called "100 fighter bracket." It's roughly a survival mode, but your survival isn't based solely on winning and losing, but by points collected and lost as a result of winning and losing. The points are best described as extra lives. The dragon balls are much harder to collect in this installment. During story mode fights, be on the look out for dragon balls in the rubble you create. Once unearthed, you have to land on the ball to collect it. That might sound simple, but between trying to create rubble and picking up the ball while struggling with an aggressive CPU opponent, you are more likely to end the match before picking one up. If you do manage to pick the ball up, you then have to win the match according to the criteria.
This game has a lot of material in it, and definately doesn't dissappoint DBZ fans. For those outside the Fan Base, this game may seem quite awkward for a fighter. This game is certainly worth looking at for fighting game enthusiests, but probably a keeper only to DBZ fans. Don't trade in B3 for this, because there is a big difference between what each one offers. With this installment, lets hope the next true budokai may finally be the ultimate DBZ fighter worthy of the DBZ fans and fighting genre enthuiests.