 Review By: Matt Flanagan |
Developer: | Spike |
| Publisher: | Atari | |
| Genre: | Fighting | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Nunchuk | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Even though my experience with the original Budokai Tenkaichi is limited, I can tell it was perfect sequel-fodder. It was a game that was fun to play, but needed a little polish. More importantly, it wouldn’t have been too hard to make an improved sequel since the developers knew what needed fixing and how to fix it. Sadly, instead of doing that they opted to make another game that was still fun, but still just as unpolished. The control, camera, and AI issues are more noticeable and annoying now that we’ve already dealt with the same types of glitches before, and most fans probably went into this sequel expecting them to be fixed.
The game plays from a 3rd person perspective like most other fighting games, only instead of fighting on a 2D plane you can move freely around a destructible 3D environment. It's a nice change of pace from the "run back and forth and attack" formula that fighting games have been beating to death over the years, and it makes the game feel more like playing through an actual DBZ fight when you smash your opponent across the level. Unfortunately, it isn't presented as well as it could be.
The controls are pretty awkward at first, but once you get the hang of them they’re only mildly awkward. Using the motion-sensing capabilities of the controller just doesn’t work well in this sort of game, and makes it even harder to do the already ridiculously complicated combos you’ve come to love in the DBZ franchise.
Going back to the AI issues that I touched on before, the computer is basically either too easy or too hard with very few stops in between. And not many are towards the “hard” end of the spectrum either. The first Tenkaichi was a very, very difficult game. The second has the potential to be very very easy once you learn the computer’s favorite ways of attacking and can predict pretty accurately how its going to respond to a given scenario. That doesn't even consider some good old fashion “attack then attack again while your enemy is recovering from the first attack” bugs that mean some enemies won't even put up a fight. The fact that the game’s storyline is terribly uninteractive is also a strike against it, as more than once I found myself watching a cut scene that showed me losing a battle I had just won, or the game would show my characters beaten severely after I had just easily won a fight and barely took any hits.
The graphics aren’t terrible, the cutscenes aren't beautiful but the environments are nice to look at and the animations are well done. Unfortunately, there are a few spots where the developers got lazy and put in text instead of graphics, meaning you'll actually have to read sometimes. And remember kids, reading text is bad when it doesn't convey the exciting atmosphere DBZ is supposed to have.
Bottom Line:
The game itself isn’t horrible, and if it was anything but a Dragon Ball Z game I’d be a lot less critical of it, but DBZ games have been following the same formula and forcing you to play through the same events over and over again for a long time now. The time has come to expect a little more from a franchise that’s as packed with potential as its creators' are packed with the desire to cash in on its success. It seems like the DBZ franchise has fallen victim to the same development process as some sports franchises, where a few new features are added but the core game remains the same. People who haven’t played the first Tenkaichi and hardcore fans of the series should definitely get this game, but the rest of us will be disappointed by the fact that, underneath the new characters and level designs, it's a game we’ve played many times before.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 6.9 |
Posted: 2007-04-14 12:21:25 PST