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 DragonBall Z (for Sony Lovers, PS2 & PSP)
Written by David Rasmussen
It's here, people, it's finally here. It's March. It's 2009. And that means Dragonball: Evolution hits theaters shortly. And no, nothing to pressure you fans of the series or Anime in general to march in full force to see it... it's only going up against Watchmen... lord knows it won't be that bad (massacre) when they are both in theaters together (Slaughterhouse Goku) and Anime/Manga fans fail to represent by showing up to support Dragonball: Evolution (doom)... so, while we're still in a hopeful mood (or denial mode depending on your POV), let's talk two Sony Dragonball games worth your time and effort to own: Dragonball Z Budokai 3 for the PS2 (if you are one of the many people who still own a PS2, like most of us) and Dragonball Z: Shin Budokai for the PSP (my one moment when somebody actually decided to send me a game to review... wow, that was nice of them.)
Dragonball Z Budokai 3 for the PS2
Publisher: Atari
Genre: Fighting
B+
The first thing I noticed about this game is the ton of options you have for it... but then again I noticed that too about Shin Budokai and later Naruto: Ultimate Ninja so, take that as you see it.
--Dragon Universe - Story mode. Play this to unlock new playable characters in dueling mode.
--Dueling - One on one gameplay. Use all the characters you unlock in Dragon Universe mode in this mode.
--World Tournament - It is exactly what it sounds like.
--Practice - This is where you can learn the basics of playing the game, as well as practice what you learned.
--Skill Editing - Here is where you edit your skills (capsules), and purchase new skills (capsules) from the Skill Shop to add onto those skills you already found in Universe mode (I so missed this mode when it didn't show up in the PSP Dragonball Z game).
--Options - Adjust the game settings. They'll stay the same once you set them (autosaved once you’re done tweaking the settings).
The Universe storymode is pretty easy. Starting at the beginning of DBZ (the Saiyans arriving on Earth) and going through the whole series, you fight your way through the story as one of six characters: Goku, Gohan, Krillian, Vegeta, Piccolo or Trunks. Depending on who you play, the story is different for each, which is great for replay value since you can play the game over and over again and have different experiences each time. And, as you no doubt have guessed, that experience changes as you increase the difficulty level! The harder it is the more fights and the longer some fights are! Cool, huh?
Overall gameplay is rather easy: you look for Dragonballs, and the occasional area to find money, stuff or event scenes, and then look for places to fight. The fight areas are easy to find, it's the other areas you need to search for. (Of course maybe it was because I stuck to the normal setting and didn't experiment higher, I bet if you cranked up the difficulty the game would get more challenging).
Fighting is slick and pretty easy to pick up on the PS2 controller, and thus is way way interesting! Your main drive of the fighting is the techniques you can use, which is represented by capsules you can "Equip". The capsules, which handle your special techniques, armor, gear and so forth, are all purpose (easy to get ahold of, easy to master with practice, easy to use overall. Gotta like that.) Fighting itself is easy, yet challenging at the same time. If you need to learn it (and you will since there are brand new things to learn in this game) there's a whole section of the game that is there just to teach you the ins and outs of combat. You earn bonuses for completing each lesson, so that’s a good incentive to do them even if you think you can get the system down pat without practice.
As for the smackdown? Well fortunately for you there are a whole lot of ways to visit pain and suffering onto your opponent: lots of moves, techniques, and ways to struggle it out include a new teleportation move and the "beam struggle" which (as you and your opponent lock power attacks) means you'll have to spin both analog sticks fast to land a blow (this also happens when you are locked in fast and furious hand-to-hand combat). The major thing in this game is the ki meter, which governs the useage of your powers. As it reaches a certain level you can power up, reach Super Saiyan level, and even pull of major attacks called "Dragon Rushes”... but even this has a nice balance in that, as the rush begins, you'll have to hit one of the four buttons (X, O, triangle and square) in a bit of Jan Ken Po to see if the full attack lands. If your opponent doesn't hit the same button you do in three attempts you land the attack, but if your opponent DOES match up with you just once then the attack is blocked. Keen. (Of course later on variations of this pop up like the button mashing move pattern to pull off special attacks in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja for instance).
Because of all the moves, and all the ways you can attack/defend, this is a well thought out and quite balanced fighter if I do say so myself. And, heck, it's fun too as you can even devastate the battlefield during the battle! I've seen it happen! Cool! Oh, yeah, and if you chose New Game during a game you're already playing with a character? You can choose to restart the game with that same character WITHOUT losing levels and such... so power up quite a bit, and start again to build up levels, work on technique, find money, etc. (something you might remember from games like Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for instance, the ability to replay the game with your saved stats). The Dueling mode is good, and even good just to watch as you can either pit player vs. player, player vs. computer or computer vs. computer (just to watch the fighting)!
The Skill Shop, where you spend your earned money during your Dragon Universe gameplay, is the place to add on new techniques and stuff for your fighters! And each capsule can only be used by certain players so that add another level of depth to the game. You can also edit capsules (skills) in this section, but I haven't done that yet so I don't know how that works (but it sounds good). And for fan service? Besides the fact you're going to be spending quality "time" with the major characters? You can even play as female fan fave Android 18... And I think you can play as Videl too but I haven't gotten that far to find out. I wonder... nope, sorry, Bulma is just a NPC character. Then again she didn't do enough in the series to warrant her as a playable character, so go figure... uh, fan service is not much actually, but if you always wanted to play as your favorite female characters from the series? Well... here you go.
When it comes right down to it, and you combine all the elements of this game together? You have yourself a good game that should be considered for your collection. Why? Because you don't need to be a DBZ fan to see that this is playable, and even kind of good to boot, that's why. Of course the same can be said of certain Nintendo games (certain DS & Wii releases) but again I just didn't have the budget to review those... sorry.
As for the PSP version?
Dragonball Z Shin Budokai
Publisher: Atari
B
Sure, sure, there is a "sequel" (Another Road) but I'll stick to this one review-wise since it is, to date, the only time ever somebody from a video game publisher PR firm sent me one of their titles for review... I appreciate it!
When Atari did this they took what I thought then was a fresh new gamble as they rolled out their first DBZ game for the PSP, and while it did not live up completely to my expectations it was still good enough to get a good score from me all the same. Yes, first off, this is another fighter just so you know. Yeah, I guess one day we‘d like to see a different flavor of DragonBall Z like RPG style DBZ (actually they did that when they released Dragonball Origins on the DS but I have yet to snap that one up yet, which is odd considering the cheap price it was sold for new) but I digress, this is so not the time to talk about the merits of different genres for DBZ games (or my lack of a good game reviewing budget), we‘re talking the first taste of DBZ on the PSP.
Clocking in at 18 playable characters, Shin Budokai follows in the “lovable” past of the franchise (counter attacks, high speed bouts, and seven gaming modes to go through, etc)… just as long as it IS the “lovable” part of the past, and not the part that made gamers and reviewers cringe at the thought of it all… aka the Budokais and Sagas that failed to be good games. The first thing on our plate of reviewing is the single player mode. Shin Budokai’s story mode (known as the Dragon Road) is the first sign of departure from the also-ran format of previous DBZ games by having an all-new story (as opposed to recycling the long story plot from the DBZ TV Series over and over again), mainly Shin Budokai being based on the DBZ: Fusion Reborn movie (never saw the movie but got the gist of it from playing Shin Budokai).
Dragon Road mode mixes a series of bouts intermixed with tales of sparring, world domination and the usual DragonBalls thing (you know, collect all seven and get a wish or two from a large dragon thing). Ah, as for “tales of sparring” I take it that means the fights between cutscenes. One downer, though, just so happens to be the cutscenes, mainly the return of the static screen cutscenes with talking blurbs. Sure, I guess I could have seen that coming seeing how this is a PSP game, but still... disappointing! Dragon Road mode splits the game between a number of chapters, set between a batch of fights per chapter and a piece of the overall story to go over. Now I know you probably don't want me to say another bummer again, but If there is anything that is once again a bummer about this mode it’s that (unlike DBZ: Budokai 3) you can’t pick your flavor of fighter for this mode to see the story in different lights (Damn!). Instead the story mode of Dragon Road will have you playing as specific fighters for each chapter, which means you’ll need to learn the specific quirks of each fighter in turn as you play each of them, since each and every one of them has his or her own specific list of moves to master and fighting styles to adjust to, providing you a solid list of 30 or so techniques per character to master going from the up close and personal short rangers to the long range “I like you better the farther you are from me.” moves. This is not good because it limits the replay value of the game, as you will no doubt play Dragon Road the same way over and over again without hope of variation ala Dragon Universe mode from Budokai 2.
As for the characters you’ll be… uh… “compelled” to control in the order given to you during this mode? Sadly I only managed to find out about 1/3rd of the available characters in the game before I traded the title off (sure I keep saying I'm really happy I was picked to review this but what can I say, I needed to move on and find new things to review). Characters I found out about while reviewing this were characters like Gohan, Gohan again (as a teenager), Goku (duh), Gotenks(fusion character), Android #18 (va-va-va-voom!), and Piccolo. If there are more I didn't unlock them in time before I stopped reviewing this, sorry.
Next mode, after Dragon Road, is Arcade mode. Basically it's a fast quick dirty way to get your game on when you want a quick brawl while on the bus or crosstown train. Here is where you’ll have full access to the playable characters, and take your out of your element road rage out against AI opponents run by the computer. It’s quick, it’s fast, and barebones, I.e. you’ll have nothing fancy to look forward in this mode, but then again who needs fancy schmancy. As long as the Arcade mode provides solid gameplay I think it will surpass any desire for “bells and whistles” in this mode. Heck, it should be all good to go for the immediate pleasure of beating someone else into the ground without risking jail time for your desire to have a beatdown while on the crosstown.
Next up is Z Trial, the third mode available on this game, which is sort of like Arcade but provides you abit of challenge with restrictions and/or rule modifications you have to struggle against in each battle. That spices things up, and offers some variation though again replay value is not increased very much even with it in the game.
Finding out that you’re forgetting your special attacks? Can’t get your Kamehameha going, or keep forgetting how to Spirit Bomb your rival? Keep kicking when you should be punching or blocking when you should be throwing (and you might have that problem as the PSP layout controls are not as great as a PS2 controller)? The next mode, Training, is there to make sure you don’t forget your… well… training by having a place to practice your 30+ moves each and every character has to unleash which is good since you’ll need a place to safely work out your fighting techniques (or just how you deal out your fighting technique on the PSP's controls).
The Profile Card mode, however, was a disappointment. I thought the idea of creating your own personalized DBZ cards would be fun... but it wasn't, it was boring, so if you're buying this game don't buy it for this mode because it sucks, my one severe complaint about the game. This mode, sadly, drags down the Shop mode as the Shop now sells stuff for making trading cards instead of stuff to boost your character stats (like in Budokai 3), another sadness. Gameplay overall is solid, and fairly easy to pick up, but the lack of capsules (and the waste of the shop to cover the trading card gimmick) brings down the game a bit from what should have been a better release. Still it was a good release, and while I can't speak from experience concerning DBZ Shin Budoaki Another Road (haven't reviewed it yet) I'm sure that game should be as good as this one (hopefully knock on wood).
So there you go, two games to keep you occupied while you wait for Dragonball: Evolution (one you can even take with you for the wait in line for tickets). Enjoy the movie (and don't whine if the movie does get mauled over by the Watchmen movie, I did say that everyone has to represent or it's going to fall to the wayside ticket saleswise before you can scream "KAMEHAMEHA!!!")
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