The start of a new era...
But boy was I wrong! If anything, the control/fighting system has been greatly improved for the better, I can think of very few things wrong with it.
The graphics are top notch, with the characters looking almost identical to their cartoon counterparts. Beautiful colours on every character, with rich gorgeous environments. Who could ask for more?
The visuals are very spectacular, and still keep me in awe. This definately a game worth buying if you're a DBZ fan or not. Due to the Character Illustration mode, new DBZ players can become accustomed to each character by reading a short biography about each character in the DBZ universe.
The controls are slightly difficult to get the hang of, as everything is very precise and you cant just start a fight and begin button mashing, which can be a good thing, because it forces you to be more strategic in your fights.
The voices are all done by the original japanese/american actors. Although the music does over lap the voices mostly, this problem can be solved with a little tweaking of the sound settings.
The music itself is quite bland, nothing new or original. Personaly I much preferred the Budokai 3 music/soundtrack.
Each battle is fast and intense and requires a certain degree of tactics and patience to obtain victory; as you could find yourself trying to outsmart your opponent.
The AI in the game can be very annoying mostly, as they are programmed to use their most powerful attacks when they become available. In this case the programmers made an error and made the default Ki blasts slightly stronger then the physical attacks, so you'll find yourself deflecting alot of Ki blasts most of the time. That aside, the AI isnt too smart, so you can easily get the better of it.
Ultimate Battle and Z Battle Gate mode are awesome, both modes are extremely challenging and will test your fighting skills to the very limits!
My greatest issues with this game are that their is no autosave feature, or transformations. When going though any of the modes you will have to save the game yourself by going into options and doing it. The transformations in all the previous budokais where one of the main highlights, by simply choosing which transformed state of a character to use gets quite bland, and takes away the thrill of attaining a new level of power in the midst of a battle. I'll take into consideration that in B2+3 the transformations made barely no difference to the physical damage dished out by your character, but with a new game and new developers they could have made the transformations harder to reach and to make the opponent wet his/her pants when you did transform.
In conclusion, apart from some minor hiccups, this game is the best DBZ game to hit PS2 ever. That is until Tenkaichi 2 comes out :P