The much anticipated but rarely seen Dragon Ball Z fighting game that Infogrames announced the rights too months ago was absent from the show floor at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Many gave up hope of getting a DBZ fix by the end of the year. But it seems its still on track and you DragonBall fans will be playing as Goku, Gohan, Goten, & Friends faster than you think. Sorry GT fans there’s no SSJ4 or Pan Chan. But what the hell finally we get a DBZ game on a next-gen platform.

Features
-Story mode: Collect skills while playing the Dragon Ball Z story.
-Battle mode: Allows you to fight with custom-edited characters.
-Practice mode: Perfect key attack combinations in preparation for battle.
-Skill Edit mode: Edit or exchange acquired skills.
-Tenkaichi Budokai mode: You must win gold medal at the tournament to access this mode PLUS an extra hidden mode that the player must unlock.
- Follow the Dragon Ball Z animated series from Saiyan Saga to Cell Games!
- Unlock, customize, and trade devastating skills with friends to create the most powerful fighters in the universe!
- Fight with or against your favorite Dragon Ball Z characters – choose from 23 different characters, which have 60+ moves each.
- Fine tune your skills against custom AI opponents.
- Buy new skills with your tournament prize money, or exchange skills with your friends.
- Full of animation based on the TV series.
- Battle at blazing speeds in the Burst Zone
- Detailed character art makes the most of PS2 graphic capacity (umm if you say so Infogrames).
- Exclusive to the PS2 console.

The Game
DBZ Budokai looks more promising than I thought it would, since (judging by the screen shots) it will feature the new type of cell-shading (toon-shading) being used with the GameCube incarnation of Zelda. It makes the characters real cartoon-like. DragonBall is by far the best suited game for this technique. Toon-Shading being applied here will make the characters look exactly like the series, something that could not be done in the last DragonBall game. The game will be a fighting game, which is truly the heart of Dragonball Z battles. At the same time, it will feature short story lines that follows the Saiyan Saga through the Cell Games Saga (why no Buu???). The game will feature 23 different DBZ characters, perfectly designed to look almost (if not) identical to the original characters in Dragonball Z. Sure we all can do with out Raditz but it’s still good to have more badguy characters this time around. An interesting feature is that each character is able to gain new skills by buying them with money you’ll win fighting in tournaments. You will also be able to trade skills with your friends. The characters feature their trademark moves, and all you can expect based on the series. Probably the most interesting part of the game is the modes. In story mode, you will get battles in chronological order according to the series and you can gain new skills while fighting here that you will be able to use in battle against your friends. Battle mode is where you fight with your friends and the interesting thing here is that not only you can fight with the DBZ characters, but also customized characters (DBZ characters with customized skills that you made). There’s also a practice mode featured, where you can train and master all the moves of the characters that you’ll use against your opponent. Next is the very interesting Skill Edit mode, where you can trade skills that you’re acquired in the game with your friends or edit these skills. Finally, there’s the Tenkaichi Budokai mode. On this last mode, you must win the gold medal in the tournament and unlock some other extra hidden modes in the game.

Based on the video footage seen the backgrounds too remain very loyal to the show although I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing since the show’s backgrounds are not very detailed. The game play seems way better than the PS1 installment called DBGT(that game was so excruciatingly slow but was well thought of, had a lot of features in fighting, but the speed killed it). This one seems quicker, has spectacular grabs, and makes use of combos, although they don’t seem too deep. Think of it as a way less complex version of the Marvel vs. series, speed wise and combo-wise. Another feature is the power bar. Apparently it doesn’t need to be full to use a power but it’s relative to the power of the hmm well… power. A normal blast takes 1/4 bar, a Special Beam Cannon takes a whole bar, etc. Also there is some sort of capsule thing where apparently depending on how many hits you give in a combo, you get to pull off a bigger combo finisher. There are also well over 20 characters (not counting secret characters) to choose from, going up until the Cell Saga. Even though As a DBZ game I can think of about 20 more they can put in. Some not to good things I noticed. The matches were way too quick; you would see a guy giving a few hits and lives decreasing way too quickly. Also, fights seem too ground based, although certain grabs make the camera zoom out and some cool animation shows, it just ends there regarding the span of the fights. Even on the DBZ Hyper Dimension for the SNES there was an air fight mode where you could switch between fighting on the ground or sky and which was really well done considering it was the SNES. Although it’s turning out to be a good game, it’s the DBZ license they’ve got so they could’ve done a better job. The graphics are good and backgrounds too, but they just don’t amaze me, considering the kinds of graphics other game developers are producing (Also the depth of the fighting engine is still unknown.).

Outlook
DBZ: Budokai is shaping up to be a nice treat for DragonBall fans. We all have been waiting a little too long for a next-gen DBZ game to come along. Not to mention a good one (Final Bout left a foul taste). So Infogrames with millions of hardcore DragonBall fans worldwide you guys have a lot of people to please. Don’t take this project for granted. You have a license that can sell millions. But if you try to sell off of name alone. Gamers will leave it on the shelf.

~ditto~

Video(s)
DragonBall Z: Budokai Trailer