Dragon Ball Z on the Wii

IGN gave Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi an 8.3. They called it "the best Anime fighter ever". I call it a solid fighting game period.

I got a chance to play the game at my friends house and was skeptical at first. Like many others, I'm sure, my basic opinion of franchise games derived from TV shows (or movies for that matter) was pretty low. I also thought to myself, how could a video game and my feeble human reaction time actually do a Dragon Ball Z style duel ANY justice. The truth is, this game delivers on multiple fronts to create a unique, and overall faithful DBZ experience.

First things first, this game is a fighter but not in the traditional sense. Like old 2 joystick mecha fighters developers have attempted to recreate the feeling of epic 3D battles that take place over a huge amount of ground. To do this they allow characters to remain locked on or not. This means you can run from an enemy just as easily as you can attack. In this version of the game the ability to dash close has been improved but also developers have added the ability to "phase", that is disappear and reappear to deliver amazing combos just like the series. Punch a guy, send him flying and appear behind him to hammer him down to the earth: badass.

Further more, the game was smartly designed using the actual buttons on the WiiMote for attacks. This might seem obvious to some, but more than a few games have fallen prey to lame motion detection. This way the motion sensitive aspect of the game can be reserved for "power moves". Thus, the regular punchs, blocks, etc are very easy to pick up and learn in the beginning. The power ups moves, however, use the motion sensitivity that adds difficulty to producing attacks such as "kamehameha". Add to that the need to "power up" before doing moves and you have combos that are hard to execute, but oh so rewarding when you finally pull them off. This might seem lame to the "fighter game" elite, but it makes pulling off combos more strategic and less about quickest button mashing. This basic truth creates some interesting tactics. For example, I held off near death for a long time but engaging my enemy constantly rather than running from him!

The character models are nice, and cel shaded. This means you feel as if your playing in the tv series. On the downside, the levels are pretty lame. Graphically they're weak (practically sub gamecube) and the terrain is more or less useless. I've had combos pulled on me THROUGH a wall, tree and rock. This would be okay for energy attacks, but some of these issues should be worked out in a game where the terrain should be crucial (for those that saw the show, they know this is true). The next game, slated for a 2007 release will at least deal with the graphical issues (probably? hopefully.)

Overall, the game is really fun and actually offered some more in depth game play once you got deeper in. With over 70 playable characters, their will be a lot of opportunities for those "what if" style showdowns, and a lot of the same ole same ole Goku Vs Vegeta. If the levels graphics are revamped, and minor glitches are reworked 3 will be badder than ever, but 2 still holds up very very strong on its own and probably deserved much closer to an 8.5. If you're not a fan of the DBZ series, hwoever, you might not get a huge kick out of the game.