Customer Reviews

Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Let me tell you this straight: This is NOT a DBZ Budokai game. Yes, it has the Budokai name, but that's because it simply had the Budokai license slapped on it for its US release. Forget everything you knew about the Budokai series, because this game's entirely different... which may be a good thing or a bad thing.

Probably the best thing of this title is it features the Japanese voices for the game, so you get to pick whichever you prefer. Longtime fans will probably enjoy hearing many of the original voices, such as mainstay Masako Nozawa as lead hero Goku(and Gohan.. and Goten... and Bardock...), as well as regulars such as Inuyasha's Takeshi Kusao, One Piece's Mayumi Tanaka, Rurouni Kenshin's Hirotaka Suzoki, Cowboy Bebop's Norio Wakamoto, and Sailor Moon's Toru Furuya and Yuko Minaguchi. Not to mention many of the voices, including Daisuke Gori, Hikaru Midorikawa, Toshio Furukawa, and Bin Shimada have provided voices for some of todays top fighting franchises, such as Dead or Alive, Tekken, and Soul Calibur. It's one huge reunion. Characters also have different abilities. Goku, for example, can use Kaio Ken to power up or Solar Flare to blind an enemy so he can get a hit in(ironically though, Tien or even Krillin for that matter, DOESN'T have Solar Flare) In his SSJ mode, he could use Instantaneous Movement to teleport safely behind an enemy and avoid their attack, leaving them open to a crushing blow. Fighting is fast paced and occurs on land, in the air, or even underwater.(apparently everybody can hold their breaths really well). The main mode retells most of the stories, as well as a few movies and some of DB and DBGT. There's also some extra fighting modes, as well as an improved customization menu that even lets you help unlock more characters. There's also some pretty neat character pages for every person you've unlocked, which provides history and attack info and even lists who does who's voice for both the English and Japanese versions. In appearance it seems like the perfect DBZ game... all is not well, however, as there are also quite a few negatives.

First, the controls are very poor. Yes, you heard me. It doesn't matter whether you know what the buttons do or not. They are horribly jerky and unresponsive even after you finally understand how to perform each move. For an example, when I press left, my fighter should go left, NOT STRAIGHT TOWARDS THE ENEMY! The music is also annoying. It's the same stuff we've been hearing since Budokai 1 three years ago... shouldn't we at least get a few new tracks? Story mode's cutscenes are also pretty dull, they're similar to the ones in B1 where two characters would chat right before the battle... unlike B1 though, it doesn't have extra scenes that attempt to copy the anime series.

All in all, DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi is a very mixed bag. Some parts are great, but a few areas could be improved upon. I'd honestly suggest renting first in case you don't like it, because some may be disappointed, especially if they are expecting this to be "Budokai 4." Still, for me at least the positives outweigh the negatives. I'll be playing this for quite some timie, even with more big hits coming out soon.

I personally have loved all the DragonBall Z Budokai games that have come out, with their action, destruction, and fun, but this game was not at all what I expected it to be.

One very annoying thing about this game is the fact that you don't get to transform while fighting a match. While in battle you can't turn your character into a Super Saiyan, or transform him. To play as a Super Saiyan or transformed character, you must choose them. This was something that extremely upset me, for all the DragonBall Z games alowed you to transform while in battle, but after a lot of effort, any true die-hard DragonBall Z fan can shake it off.

Another thing that minorly upset me about this game is that when performing a Finishing Move, it is not as detailed or as "cool" as it was in the previous game, DragonBall Z Budokai 3. This was not a very big problem, but it annoyed me to know that the previous game has something the new game doesen't.

Apart from that, another fault greatly upset me about this game is that they added unnecessary characters to the game that did not play a big role in the series, and took out extremely important characters. For example, they put in characters such as Evil Buu, Jeice, Saibamen, and Burter, characters with very small roles, and left out characters with huge and very important roles such as Omega Shenron, Uub, Pan, and the original Baby.

The game's controls! I have played every DBZ: Budokai game, and none of them had jerky controls like this one! I would press the button combination to teleport out of the way, but instead, my character would just stay there! This game is not the kind of game that you will win with some good old button-mashing, so you would need cooperative controls to win! To add to that, some characters are almost impossible to defeat, and with the control problem, it just adds to the difficulty! This was a major flaw in the game, and it greatly upset me.

The cutscenes! Before this game came out, I was hoping it was going to have some real cut-scenes from the series, but it has nothing of the sort! Instead, the two opponents just mock and taunt each other before the fight, and at the end of the fight, the winner just says some more celebrative taunts! Even the the first DBZ Budokai had this, and it also had some make-shift cut-scenes unlike this one. Hoepfully the next installment of the DragonBall Z Budokai series will have some "real" cutscenes for a change.

The last insult that I can throw at this game is that it was way to short for my liking. The game took me two days to beat, and I was hoping for at least a week of gameplay. If you are a die-hard fan of DragonBall Z, then you would probably not get bored of the game as fast as I did.

Now since I have completed insulting the game, I can move on to praising and acknowledging the good parts of the game.

One thing that I really liked about this game was the fact that you can destroy the environment around you, and that you have quite a lot of room to move around in it, unlike the previous games when you are limited to fighting in a tiny area. Also, in this game, you actually "face" your opponent. When fighting, you see the fight from behind your character like when you play an adventure game, unlike the previous DBZ games in which you watch the fight from the side.

Another good thing I can say about this game is that it has loads of characters, even if many of them are unnecessary. For example, the game finally put in Dodoria, and Zarbon. It threw in Janemba too, a character that shows up in DragonBall GT! This game provides you with about 60 characters, and 90 if you count all of the characters' forms and transformations. That adds some fun to the game having that many characters (although it annoys me that the game is missing some of the major characters)!

Lastly, if you are a true DBZ fan, and I mean a true, die-hard, and like 100% in love with DBZ, you might want to play the game with the characters talking in the original way; in Japanese. It's kind of interesting if you would want to check it out.

Now here is something about the game which will please some people because it would add a challenge to the game, but it might annoy people who want to get through unlocking the characters faster. Now in this game, unlike all the previous ones, you don't just beat the game to get all the characters. As you play, you will earn earrings which you can "fuse" together. Two earrings that can be successfully mixed will either make an item that you equip to your character, or it will make an actual character. There are about twenty characters in the game that need items to be fused to make, and they are mostly the strong and good characters. So try to find the earring combinations if you want to unlock all the characters!

That's all I have to say about the game, but this game was definetly not what I expected for the fourth installment of the DragonBall Z Budokai games, but it wasn't that bad either. All I can do now is twiddle my thumbs, cross my fingers, and hope for a good fifth installment of the DBZ Budokai games.

Rating? 3.8/5

Recommendation? I think that you should rent the game first before buying it, just in case you regret buying it like I did.

Overall the game is great but it has a few problems. I'll go through the Pros and Cons next!

Pros:

The graphics are AMAZING, especially the intro part!

There are a TON of characters to play as! You get ALL The classic heros AND villains in all their forms like Goku, Vegeta and Gohan, most of the androids(accept for 13,14 and 15). You get Cell and Frieza in all their forms, you even get Cell in his super perfect form, which has the best attacks like the death beam and the spirit bomb. You get GT characters like SS4 Goku, SS4 Vegeta, Super 17 and more. You get the less common characters, as well, like Jenemba. You also get ALL the fusion characters.

There are TONS of modes to play in-like story, duel and world tournament modes.

Cons:

Some of the GT characters that were featured in Budokai 3, like Omega Shenron and UUB, you don't have here.

The music, or some of the music, can be quite annoying and doesn't really fit.

One of the classic battle grounds, like the desert (there is a desert but it's night time there), is not how it usually is.

Overall, the game is really good, I had fun. The biggest con was not having Omega Shenron to play as.

A few months ago I got this game and was amazed. There are more characters than any other Dragonball Z Budokai game yet. Not only do they have many (though not all) characters from Dragonball Z, but they also have a few characters from Dragonball, Dragonball GT, and several villians from the Dragonball Z movies. Now you can play as Bojack, an Oozaru, Master Roshi, Baby Vegeta, and Super 17, just to name a few. One new feature that was added in this game was that now you have the choice of fighting as one of a number of different transformations of a character. This is both good and bad, because each transformation has its own fighting style, and special moves, which adds variety. But I liked manually transforming better, because it's truer to the show. Goku is his own person, and there aren't five different forms of him just because he can become four different levels of Super Saiyan.

The controls of the game are completely different from any other in the Budokai series (not without good reason though). Now you can actually fly, and the arenas are much bigger because of it. You can also fight anywhere you want, including in the air, underwater, and of course on the ground. One down side to the change of controls is that they've eliminated the kick button. Instead all attacks are executed with the square button. I liked the kind of freedom I felt when I had a choice, but now everything is pre-programmed. This is also the first game I know of to have energy blasts shot with the triangle button. The only remaining button is the circle button, which is now used for blocking.

This game has the best graphics of any of them too. It's immediately apparent, when you see the openning scene. My favorite part of this upgrade in graphics is that when you destroy buildings or mountains they leave craters (once made you can fight in them as well). I'd also like to mention here (although it doesn't directly apply to graphics) is that you now have the option of choosing whether or not you want the dubbed voices, or the original Japanese.

The last thing I have to talk about is the story mode. For this game they brought back the style of story mode they used in Dragonball Z Budokai 1. By this I mean that it's divided up into sagas, and sometimes throws in hypothetical battles. They've also revived the cutscenes method, of Budokai 1, however they only use it before the battle. I have yet to see another game that has cutscenes before and after you fight.

All in all the game has its flaws, but it's still a great game. Just be warned that it is like no other Dragonball Z Budokai game you have ever played before.

ISSUES:
The soundtrack sucks, its the same as all the other budokais, they sould change it.
The computer always does the same moves and its annoying.
You can't transform during the battle, you have to choose your transformation wen you pick your character.
The cameras sometimes get on my nerves.

GOOD POINTS:
This game is very fun to play in its 3-d arena and with awesome graphics but like every other video games it isn't perfect.

You read that most people say that the game is insanely difficult or that the controls aren't that good, but I'm here to tell you that this isn't so.

This game is a challenge, and the bosses that you face really are as difficult as the characters in the show find them to be, that's why people have problems. Do you think that fighting Vegeta is going to be easy? If you do, you don't know the prince very well.

The controls are difficult at first, granted. But if you go through the tutorial fully and read, it's not so bad. The thing you have to remember is that your opponent is your focus when it comes to the controls. Left is left around your opponent, back is away, forward is towards. If you want to raise your energy just enough to do an attack, hold down the button for it while your charging.

Whenever I charge into a battle, I use my resources to the best. I've had fights where I fought for 60sec, hand-to-hand, trading blows like the show but never scoring a hit with some crazy close calls or even spent time hiding behind a rock sending ki towards the opponent after using solar flare. Sound like the show?

Once you learn to play like the computer on the hardest difficulty, the game looks EXACTLY like the show, and battles with friends can be just as epic. This game is not for the light at heart. It takes time, patients, and a lot of practise before you become good, unlike the rest of the games. It requires a video game master to be good. If you're up for the challenge, this is the game for you. If your not, don't even bother considering this game.

All-in-all, the controls aren't as bad as people say. Just play against a master of this game and you'll see.

yes this is a good game but I don't think this game has been fully tested. some characters are way too difficult to beat, just like that stupid giant ape (oozaru or something). i wish whoever thought of making those levels too hard were never born!!! but i must say this is the best dbz game out there. I have completed all the z battle gates at the easy level but I don't think I can beat that stupid ape at the normal level! Grrr!!!

I got this game a while ago when I was shopping for something else entirely and I just happened to see it on a shelf. It seemed like a good game and I bought it since I likes my Dragonball Z.

First off, this is how a DBZ game should be. You certainly feel like you are in the show. Budokai was cool but the charcters moved very stiffly and slow. The only problem is now you move much too quickly and it's hard to control your guy at times. Also, the amount of characters avaialable to play with(after you've done a quick sweep of story mode that is) is quite large. Super Vegeta is my favorite.

Also there is a rather beefy customization option available. You upgrade your characters with z items. Though it's a bad that you have to upgrade every form of goku, vegeta etc with different items. For example if you give super saiyan goku a +2 attack item then super saiyan goku 3 won't have it. Basically what I'm getting at is if you want to play as a variety of characters then you're gonna need a lot of z items or do a lot of item switching.

The downside which has been mentioned is the controls are somewhat stiff but I still like the attempt to make the game intense like the anime. The game also has it's chokepoints. The single most annoying thing I have done at least recently is surviving two minutes against Kid Buu as Vegeta. It's not Super Battletoads hard but its close. Also, there is not much emphasis or need to engage in fisticuffs. Most fights are won by charging up and letting rip with your special moves as soon as you can. And then not letting them get in close. The only time I fight hand to hand is when the enemy closes in and I have to knock them back. Still, for all it's flaws I love this game. Grab it and enjoy wailing on people as Goku/Vegeta Super Saiyan 4

Wow this game is awesome but, there are some disapointments but let's start with the pros. First of all, there are over 50 characters. Yes, Hercule is in there but he will serve a purpose. Now the modes are what really make this game exciting, but I won't spoil too much, just the stuff that you'll first see. Ok, the best mode is the Z battle gate. what it is is just a story mode that has movie stories, show stories, and other stuff. Just select a battle, listen to a cutscene, and fight. Next is the world tournament, which needs no introduction, has 4 modes novice, adept, advanced and one I won't tell you. Next is Practice, which has practice, where you can fight a cpu and not die, and tourial (sorry if I spell it wrong) where you can learn how to play. After that is Ultimate Battle where you can fight 99 other people so you can get rank #1. Evolution Z is a customizable mode where you can upgrade your character with portara. Fuse portara, and you can unlock SOME characters (most you unlock in z battle gate). Dueling (what I should've put first) is where you can pick two characters and fight (yes it's 2 player). The final one is Character Illustrations. It is a not needed mode that let's you see Ilustrations of characters that were from the series.

Gameplay 9.2

Graphics 9.0

Sound 9.0

Value 9.6

Tilt 9.7

Average 9.3

This game is a blast to play. The learning curve for previous budokai gamers will be high. The buttons can be switched but the default works the best for me. Very fast paced fighting, much closer to the show than previous games. Problems begin with no transformations in the gameplay. All powered up charachters are available but as seperate playable charachters. Also the dramatic cut scenes are gone. This may dissapoint some fans while others will be happy to see them go. Dragon Rush, so the paper, rocks, sicssors aspect is gone. A similar attack can be done via combination of attacks strung together. Free roaming through completely destructible stages are the games strong point. The story mode while not on par with Budokai 1 is still very respectable. With a few minor flaws and learning curve that is tough, the game will be a welcome addition to the DBZ collection of console games.