Dragonball Kamehameha's to victory! (Dragon Ball Z Budokai - Tenkaichi 2 (Wii))

Member Name: jaeger138

Product:	Dragon Ball Z Budokai - Tenkaichi 2 (Wii)
Date:	04/09/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A truly amazing, long and entertaining title.

Disadvantages: May not appeal to non-fans of the series.

This game is quite possibly one of the best DBZ games to date, and I'll explain the reasons why.

Now this game has two incarnations, on the Wii and on the PS2. The PS2 version is great, lots of fun and extremely addictive. The Wii version? Even better!

While it is, at it's essence, the same as the PS2 version of the game, it is at the same time so much more. It truly is a game for fans. The control system on the Wii is quite complicated, but not to the games detriment. It means that there is so much to do, so many moves to pull off, allowing for endless possibilities in a fight. One can really get into this game, even in the tutorial stages! While there is so much to learn, it is fun learning it all, and it's a real challenge to combine all that you've learned in a fight to produce a win, especially on some of the more difficult stages.

For example, in the 'Ultimate Battle Z' portio of the game, one must fight against numerous enemies all linked by a theme on different courses. On one particular course, one must fight against 5 difficult characters in a row, with no breaks and no health recovery in between. On the Wii version, you are rewarded for these fights with 4 exclusive Wii characters. It's a very fun, and challenging thing to try and get one over on these difficult battles, and it's a truly great feeling when you have won.

The game has over 120 characters to choose from, and this in itself is a great aspect of the game. You will always be abe to fight as your favourite characters from the Dragonball Universe, plus some of the less well known and weaker ones for a challenge. Characters are unlocked throughout the game by collecting and combining items, winning supposedly unbeatable battles and fulfilling certain criteria within fights, and unlocking all characters is a rewarding experience.

There's always something to do, from the story mode, to Ultimate Battle Z, to tournaments, to playing with a friend, and you won't get bored easily. This also means there's a great replay value, as there are 3 levels of difficulty on all modes of play.

The item fusion feature in this game is anothe rinteresting feature, and one which I quite enjoy. You are rewarded with hundreds of items, from buffs to improve your character, to character fusion items and dedicated fusion items. Many of these items can be fused together to create new characters, new buffs, new scenery and more powered up versions of existing characters. It's a satisfying feeling when you try to combine items that have been bought from the item shop or won and it works!

The buff items range from simple stat increases to in-battle effects, like reducing an enemies energy or speed or increasing your own under certain conditions. It makes your characters very customisable to your fighting style, and the basic buffs for improving stats can level up and improve with experience points from battle, making your character even more unstoppable, which can't be a bad thing!

The amount of usable buffs varies with each character, though slots can be increased with another item. These slots are a common feature of DBZ games in recent years, but this game improves on the recipe. In previous games, these slots were also used to select moves to use in battle, which could be quite restrictive. In this game, all moves are available whether you have used up every item slot or not, which gives you a heck of a lot more freedom to improve other things.

Another great feature of the game is in the story mode; while in most fighting games, you pick your character and try to get through the whole game with that character. This game forces you to use the characters related to the story, so it means you don't always have the option of using your super buffed up Goku to win every battle and you have to alter your fighting style to the character in use. It keeps the game feeling fresh and avoids players being able to use their super move in every battle to just breeze through with ease.

I haven't touched on one of the best features of the game, which I will do now. The Legendary Dragonballs! Throughout the story mode, these Dragonballs can be collected by destroying scenery in-battle and collecting the hidden ball, or it can be found as a random drop in some areas. Oce all seven have been collected, the player has the option to summon the ancient dragon Shenron and make a wish. This wish usually provides the player with hard-to-get fusion items and buffs that would take hours of work to achieve. And as an extra bonus, if a character visits the planet Namek and summons the Namke Dragon, Porunga, just like in the manga and anime one can have 3 wishes instead! A real bonus and well worth the effort.

This game does have it's negatives though. In the story mode it can often be quite frustrating that you are forced to win a fight in order to continue, yet the following cut scene will state that you lost the battle. This is something that is hard to discuss as one would expect to have to win a battle in order to progress, but in terms of the story it can be rather erksome when you believe you have won, only for the narrator to tell you the battle was too difficult for your character. It's a difficult thing to get around in production of the game, and it doesn't reall affect the enjoyment too much, and can lead to strengthining the player's resolve.

Also, for the inexperienced and lazy, the games complicated controls can lead to the obligatory Wiimote waggling approach to playing, which is a sure fire way to lose in this game. While button mashing was an acceptable way to attempt to beat a Street Fighter master, it's equivalent won't get you very far here.

If you're unfamiliar with Dragonball, it may also not appeal to you. This game is very much for dedicated fans of the series, we know the characters and the story, we've read the manga, we've watched the Anime and we have the merchandise. It can be daunting ad confusing when you don't know much about it, but at the same time it can also spark a love for the series.

All in all, it's a great game with more to do than many games these days and will keep you entertained for hours, 60+ on the story alone!

Summary: If you like fighters and don't own this, there's something wrong with the world.