First of all, I've been following the series for about 10 years now. I have to say that Akira Toriyama is freakin awesome!!!!! I first saw DBZ when The World's Strongest first aired on Cartoon Network and I've been hooked ever since. The first Budokai game I played was Budokai 2. I totally skipped the first one but when I was half way done with Budokai 2, I decided to buy the first game. I love the cutscenes that the original Budokai had, so I was a bit disappointed when the second version didn't have them. I love the inprovement of the graphics on the second version. Although I didn't like the fact that I had to go through so much just to beat the game and then have to start all over again just to get to 100%, but the fights were awesome and so were the special attacks. I also loved how Budokai 2 had improved on the energy attacks (like the Kamehameha), it was so much easier and faster than in the original Budokai. Overall the game was great but there was something missing. When Budokai 3 was released I must of rented the darn thing about 6 times. I finally got my lazey butt up and went to the store to buy it. I was in awe to see the improvements they had made with this game. The graphics were a lot better, the gameplay was a lot faster, the transformations were awesome, and the new characters (like Broly) made the game more complete. I was a little bit disappointed with the way they handle the more powerful attacks like the Spirit Bomb. I did not like the fact that you had to have your character go into hyper mode and connect a hit in order for Goku to drop a Super Spirit Bomb on Kid Buu, but I was not complaining as much until I found that you really could not go airborne as the game so much advertised. Don't get me wrong, Budokai 3 is the best game I've played so far and probably will be for years to come. Which brings me to Budokai Tenkaichi. I've been waiting and counting the days until this game was finally released. I've been calling Gamecrazy to see if they got the game shipped in for the past four weeks hoping that I could be the first one to get my hands on it. Well, I saw a lot of footage on the internet and I was kind of skeptical about the whole thing after not being able to see a single transformation other than Goku powering up to kaoken in all of those videos I saw on different websites (and believe me I looked at a lot). So, the game was finally released on Oct 18,2005. I went to Hollywood Videos and try to rent the game before I bought it, and every single copy was out on rent. For a whole week, but finally I was able to get a copy at another store. The first 2 days I had the game I probably played the game for a combined total of 23-24 hrs. I beat the game the first day and I was very disappointed. I'm missing about 12 characters still. I have to say that I waited for this game for months and when I finally got to try it, the game was awesome at first. Then I noticed that as I got further in the game, my worst fears were realized. At first I was blown away by the graphics, the freedom I experienced by taking off into the air at any time, the new combos and the magical surroundings. I felt like I was part of the sagas. But then I was crushed by the fact that I could not go Super Saiyan in a single battle. The computer did that for me as I made progress. I kept telling myself that maybe there had to be a way to get a set of portara earrings that resemble the breakthrouhg capsule and I looked and looked and nothing. So I kept telling myself that there had to be a way to transform in one single battle. I finally gave up and found out that the reason why this game had so many characters was because you have to pick each and one of them individually already in a transformed state. THAT SUCKS!!!!!! Yes, Tenkaichi has better graphics than the previous games, it has a bigger fighting area but it is very limited, and it has new characters that we hadn't seen in the previous games. But the fact is that Atari promoted this game so much that people could not wait for the release of the game. I felt like I was lied to because everything they virtually promised to deliver did not come through on their part. The reason why I still keep playing this game is because I love the series so much and I'm such a big fan. I hope that if they continue to make more games (the promoters or whoever it is that puts so much money into making and promoting this games), need to stop lying to the public about what they promise and deliver a game that resembles the series. But still, this game is a lot of fun to play.
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Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is an action game that falls under the category of 3D fighters. It is developed by Spike and published by Atari. The previous three Budokai's were developed by Dimps, so this game is a wh... Read Full Review
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