The solid gameplay is complimented by some great presentation, which makes this game enjoyable to Dragon Ball Z fans and
Having a Dragon Ball Z game on the go is a big plus, you can play it where ever, whenever, but bringing a game that is essentially based on the PS2 game comes with a few shortcomings. First off, some of the elements that added some great depth to the combat of Budokai 3 are gone. The teleporting is still here, but the energy beam struggles are gone as well as the melee struggles. Still its quite impressive to have Dragon Ball Z on the go, even if the combat isn't quite as deep.
Although the combat (as previously mentioned) isn't quite as deep, its still simple and a lot of fun. The game controls similar to the PS2 Budokai games. There are two melee attack buttons, a ki button and a guard button. The square and triangle buttons are for melee attacks (square being weak strikes rapid strikes and triangle being stronger, but more slowly performed attacks), circle button is ki, and the X button is guard. You can perform a lot of different combo's using the different attacks. On average, each character has 40 + combinations and attacks for you to play around with, but for the most part you'll pretty much be button bashing.
Among those 40 + combo's and attacks each character has 3 signature moves, such as Vegeta's Galick Gun or Goku's Spirit Bomb. More specifically, there are 2 signature attacks and then another more powerful signature move (e.g. Super Sayain Goku has Kamehameha Super Dragon Fist, and his more powerful signiture attack the Sprit Bomb). The main mode in Shin Budokai is the "Dragon Road" mode, which consists on 5 chapters based on one of the Dragon Ball Z movies. I haven't seen the movie, but I’m assuming they fleshed out the story, as the Dragon Mode will take you about 7-12 hours to finish, and I’m sure 90 minutes of a movie couldn't convert too that long of a game. After every battle your ranked on your performance, and if your a perfectionist, you'll probably want to go back and get a better ranking after you've finished Dragon Road, which could probably add a few extra hours of gameplay (obviously it depends on how well you played through the mode initially).
There are however a few other modes. Arcade Mode, which is a mode where you battle against AI controlled opponents (collecting Dragon Balls as you go along), Z-Trail, which consists of Survival and Time Attack modes and a training mode. Obviously Dragon Road is the main attraction here, but you may get some fun out of the modes in Z-Trial and if your a hardcore DBZ fan, you'll probably want to collect all the Dragon Balls in Arcade mode, but unfortunately most of the wish sequences are pretty lackluster. There’s also a network battle, but unfortunately no online play.
In previous Budokai modes, there was a mode where you could shop for capsules that would let you customize your characters abilities, and now its been replaced by a profile card shop. Essentially, a sticker shop. Yeah. With the money (or "Zenie" as its referred to) you win in various game modes, you'll be able to buy stickers for your profile card. Fun. Seriously though, this mode is needless to say pretty lackluster, and really won't keep you interested in it for more than a few seconds (if that).
The Dragon Road mode starts off pretty easy. The opponents don't really try to dodge any of your energy attacks, and are relatively easy to defeat. When you get up to mid chapter 3, the opponents become much, much more challenging. You'll be lucky to hit them with a signature energy attack without dazing them or anything like that. Additionally, some enemies start off with more health and ki bars than you, making it even trickier to defeat them. One of the highlights of Shin Budokai is the graphics. Simply put, the graphics are stunning for a PSP game. This is mainly thanks to some really great special effects used on all the energy blasts and such. On the whole though, all the cell-shading looks clean and the character models and backgrounds are quite detailed. But you'll notice that when the camera closes up on the character models the cell shading does get a little messy, and as previously mentioned the energy struggle from Budokai 3 has been taken out of the game, which is a shame seeing as how amazing the energy struggles looked. Still, the graphics in Shin Budokai are top notch.
Sound wise, not as impressive. Although the sound does a okay job at complimenting the battles, the lack of a voice over component really hurts the Dragon Road. The entire story is told by text, and seeing that there is a lot of dialogue before each battle, you'll probably want to skip right to the battle and skip the dialogue. If i wasn't interested in the story line (which to be honest, i lost towards the end of the game because of the lack of voice over) i would of skipped all of the dialogues. The characters still give battle-cries throughout the battles, and the tunes that go with the battle, although aren't terribly good, are decent enough. Overall, the sound isn't all that bad, its just a shame no voice over component wasn't put in. We've seen it in games like Raw vs. Smackdown! 06 and it would have really been great in here.
If you’re a Dragon Ball Z fan and you own a PSP, you should definitely play this game. It’s not exactly an amazing fighting game, but its definitely a game that Dragon Ball Z games will love. Gamers that own a PSP that enjoy fighting games on any level should probably still check out this game, although it’s probably best you play it before buying it. The solid gameplay is complimented by some great presentation, which makes this game enjoyable to Dragon Ball Z fans and fighting game fans alike.