System: Wii, PS2
Dev: Spike
Pub: Atari
Release: Nov 2006
Players: 1 - 2
Review by D'Marcus

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Review Rating Legend
1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
2.5 - 2.9 = Average
3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
3.5 - 3.9 = Good
4.0 - 4.4 = Great
4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
5.0 = The Best

The Ultimate Battle Z is also an improvement upon last year’s version. Instead of one long battle against all of the combatants, there are a bunch of smaller tiered battles with themes, such as fighting against the Ginyu Force or all of Goku’s rivals. While maybe not as challenging as fighting you way up through a hundred opponents, it is more rewarding, as you do receive capsules for winning each tier.

The leveling system is odd and probably one of the game’s biggest flaws. The character doesn’t actually level up. The leveling happens to the capsules that the character equips. If the character doesn’t equip any capsules, the character doesn’t gain any levels. There are even ability capsules that don’t earn levels, and, as such, won’t help your character level if equipped. Even worse, when the items are unequipped, they lose the experience points that they gained with the character, which discourages experimentation. This means that a character that you’ve leveled up extensively loses all of his extra power if you should simply change capsules. Not only is this an odd choice, it also places a lot of the character’s strength in their choice of capsules.

The only significant alteration for the Wii version of the game is in the controls. The Wii actually has the player performing some moves instead of mashing buttons. While a lot of the fighting and movement are still controlled by the A and B buttons, some of the moves are performed by movements and button presses. This significantly increases the learning curve, as mastering the movement to initiate moves is more difficult than memorizing the button combination. While this can make the game feel more immersive, it often just feels more frustrating as an unsuccessful attempt to integrate the Wii-mote. Players can swap the Wii-mote for a Classic controller or a Gamecube controller though, which basically makes the game indistinguishable from the PS2 version.

For casual fans of DBZ, there aren’t many flaws. For DBZ purists, there are a few liberties taken with the storyline, mostly due to the available characters and environments. Although the choices are numerous with over 120 characters, there are still a few omissions of characters and stages that make a completely faithful re-creation impossible. One of the most jarring omissions is the small Goku from GT, especially since he is the main character.

Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is any DBZ fan’s dream game. With nearly any DBZ character that a fan could ask for, a deeper fighting game, a long (if shallow) story mode, an improved Z Battle mode, better graphics, and an overall improved game, there isn’t much to complain about. Fans of DBZ and anime and even fighting games should go and get their Super Saiyan on as soon as they can.

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Yajirobe vs. SS4 Goku = Pwnage! by D'Marcus Beatty

For the last few years, a new Dragon Ball Z game annually has been a given. Fans of Goku and company could expect to see their Saiyan friend arrive on the PS2 yearly. 2006 doesn’t disappoint in this regard, as October will see the release of the sequel to the innovative Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi.

Budokai Tenkaichi met with mixed reactions from gamers. A lot of players lauded its new approach, which allowed for free-form flying and a third person viewpoint to battle from. Others were disappointed with the lack of In-game transformations and the loss of certain fan favorites, such as Uub and Omega Shenron. Budokai Tenkaichi 2 looks to be addressing all issues that gamers had with its predecessor and going beyond that, creating what may be the best and most definitive Dragon Ball Z game to date.

One of the first issues that BT2 has addressed is the roster. While the first BT’s roster of nearly a hundred characters was impressive and certainly nothing to sneeze at, many players were angered that some characters were actually taken away from Budokai 3’s roster. BT2 has definitely improved in this respect, not only adding characters that had been mysteriously omitted, but also adding some never before seen characters. Although there isn’t an exact count yet, (and there probably won’t be one until the game releases), Atari has been quoted as promising an upwards of 100 playable characters and maybe as many as 140! Fans can expect such suprising additions as Yajirobe, Master Roshi (in base and buff mode), Uub, Majuub, Garlic Jr., Pan, Grandpa Gohan, and fan favorite Pikkon. There are even massive characters such as Hildegarn and Janempa, and many of the Saiyans (Nappa, Bardock, Raditz) have Great Ape transformations. A lot of missing forms have been added in as well, giving Broly his pre-Legendary Super Saiyan forms and giving Cooler his Metacooler and his base forms.

Perhaps the feature that gamers missed the most from Budokai Tenkaichi was the ability to transform in game. BT2 addresses this as well, giving players the ability to not only power up and go to a higher form, but the ability to power down as well. This means that Goku can power up from his base form to his Super Saiyan 3 form, and then power back down to his Super Saiyan form if he chooses to. As stated before, the Saiyans can use this to transform into their Great Ape forms as well, completely changing the way the character operates. Since many of the different forms will have different movesets, the ability to alternate forms gives each multiform character access to different movesets, which adds to the strategic element of gameplay.

Although little is known about it at this time, tag team is also confirmed, giving players the ability to pick a team of two fighters to battle. This probably works much like Tekken Tag Tournament did, allowing the player to swap each character in and out as he chooses.

Few gamers have been satisfied with any PS2 Dragon Ball Z single player experience since the original Budokai. Budokai 2 used a questionable board game format, Budokai 3 used a free-form world with a nearly nonexistent and disjointed story, and BT used brief and uninformative cutscenes as a way of introducing each battle. Although Atari and Spike have been fairly secretive about the single-player experience in Budokai Tenkaichi 2, they have admitted that there are “light RPG” elements and that players can converse with characters and roam about the world map. They also state that the experience will contain the definitive Dragon Ball Z experience, spanning from the original series Dragon Ball, then covering the Dragon Ball Z sagas, and finally ending with Dragon Ball GT.

While the characters appear sharper and more refined, visuals remain largely unchanged from BT, although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. BT graphics faithfully and accurately recreated the imagery and style of the anime. The size of the stages has increased, giving players more mobility in their battles before they run into the infamous stage barriers. A few stages have also been added including Kame Island House, a stage of glaciers, and Ruined Earth.

Even the fighting engine has been reworked. Characters now have multiple combos that they can perform, and can even teleport after foes that are knocked away to continue the combo, similar to the same feature in Budokai 3.

Even with all of this information, there are still some secrets that Atari and Spike have yet to disclose, such as the complete character list or the way that the single player mode works. However, with the improvements revealed so far, BT2 is definitely has a chance of being the best Dragon Ball Z game ever released. With a massive lineup of characters, in-game transformations, new and larger stages, new combos, and a Dragon Ball Z role-playing game mode, most fans of the Z fighters are going to have a long wait until the game is released in October.

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