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DragonBall Z: Budokai 2 
Release date: 14 Nov 2002
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Mygamer review
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In December 2003 the boys from Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball Z returned to the PlayStation 2, transitioning from sprites to polys with Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. While not a great fighting game, the spectacular cut scene-driven story mode and impressive 3D character models laid a solid foundation for a sequel. Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 is more an expansion than a true sequel. Even the few things that Budokai 2 does well are inconsistent and become overshadowed by the game's abundance of shortcomings.
Gameplay remains almost untouched save for minor improvements. Characters no longer have to punch thin air 4 times to unleash a long distance attack; low-level blasts are executed from a distance simply by pressing forward and energy while at close range they can still be combo'd into. This alone is a huge improvement. Super moves now require either gathering energy with the analog sticks, entering an on-screen button combo or an analog stick-mashing power struggle between the two fighters. This makes the moves both more challenging and more rewarding.
Budokai 2 has most of the core gameplay problems left over from Budokai 1. All 33 characters have nearly identical movesets and taunt animations, making gameplay repetitive and dull. Throw moves frequently decide not to work and due to the small environments camera problems frequently occur. The ability for a player to voluntarily power down a character would have been extremely useful, since transformations increase ki consumption and each move requires a certain amount of ki. Goku's finishing moves require him to be in his normal state, and an accidental transformation renders him incapable of using these moves and drains the ki that they require. By the time Goku screams and grunts his way to Super Saiyan 3, his ultimate transformation, he is consuming ki so quickly there aren't many moves he can do - it's a useless power level. Transformations also yield no defense upgrades whatsoever and serve mainly as a means to pull off a finishing move…unless you're Goku.
Amazingly, there is depth to Budokai 2's broken gameplay though neither the manual nor the strategy guide even hints as to how the cancel-combo system works. Canceling is when the user holds down the block button during certain moves and "cancels" the attack back to the neutral position while his opponent is still in the stun animation, allowing for a 2nd attack to be launched. Cancel-side-stepping is the only effective way to get behind a CPU opponent; a tactic needed for successful execution of big moves on mid to upper difficulty levels. There's also very little consistency as to when strikes will break a block.
After playing through a few times it's painfully clear that once Dimps was done upgrading the graphics there wasn't much time or incentive to do anything else, and this shows in every facet of gameplay. Even the cell-shaded graphics are a mixed blessing, as some characters clearly received more attention than others. Goku, Adult Gohan, Piccolo and a hand full of others look excellent and are a faithful recreation of their anime counterparts. Majin Buu, Super Buu and Cell on the other hand appear half-finished in their shape and size.
The new look given to the SS hair is just that; a new look that's not any better. The SS hair is ugly, made worse by the fact that it doesn't move no matter how long it is. Goku's SS3 hair model is down to his back, yet stiff as a board and easily the ugliest graphic in the game. Despite enduring the most vicious battles, characters don't bleed and clothing doesn't take damage. Like in Budokai 1, character aura is almost non-existent and the huge energy blasts from finishing moves look extremely jaggy. Last and certainly least, the Dragon World game board is completely flat and characters are represented only by what could best be described as animated gifs.
Dragon World is the new story mode consisting of 9 board game-style levels where the user assumes control of the Z fighters; battling villains and searching for the dragon balls. While not nearly as engaging as Budokai 1's story mode, the turn-based Dragon World is fun in its own rite and loosely tells the story of DBZ from beginning to end. Allied characters move about the game boards searching for capsules containing skills, items or transformations and battles take place when landing on the same spot as an enemy. At any point during the game the user can customize their character's capsules, adding to the game's strategy and helping a bit with the replay value, sadly many of the most impressive capsules including fusions don't work in Dragon Mode, and you don't learn this until attempting to use it and nothing happens. Some signature battles such as Goku vs. Frieza and Piccolo vs. Android 17 are accompanied by brief in-engine dialogues between the 2 warriors; however that's as immersive as it gets.
Dragon Mode is a good idea on paper but executed very poorly, as each enemy must not only be fought numerous times per level but also on numerous levels. Cell and/or Frieza are confronted on 7 of the 9 stages. There are approximately 40 items to unlock, each requiring a complete Dragon World play through but this mode is only fun 15 or 20 times. Making it more unbearable is the inability to bypass scripted events such as character appearances on the game board, certain portions of dialogue and camera movements. The user must sit through these same events over and over again.
Dueling is the mode where players either go head to head against each other or the CPU. This mode works well enough but for reasons I'll never understand, the game won't allow the user to view a capsule's description on the character setup screen. He must back out, select Edit Skills, where the capsule shop is located, and select Edit Capsules. This is easily one of the most poorly laid out front ends I've ever dealt with.
Babidi's Spaceship replaces Budokai 1's Legend of Hercule. This consists of 4 mini-games designed to earn "kili" points which lead to unlocking certain characters and their abilities. There are 4 levels to this mode, the 4th of which is the quickest way to earn these kili points. Unfortunately (though not surprisingly) this is the most mind-numbing of all 4 games and consists solely of volleying a ki blast back and forth for approximately 90 seconds. The user must suffer through this dozens of times in order to unlock everything.
Even the audio walks a tightrope between excellent and incomprehensible. The voice acting is wonderful- nearly all of the original voice actors are onboard bringing the characters to life. When adjusting the sound, however, voice and sfx are considered one level, and do to poor sound engineering sfx frequently overpower voices during finishing moves and Cell still has 2 voices despite having 1 form.
Kame-hame-hahaha you must be kidding.
Budokai 2's greatest fault is its underwhelming attention to detail. Simple things like on screen text don't always match up to corresponding speech and there's even content in Budokai 1 that wasn't included. Budokai 1 had opponent-specific character intros and outros, meaning that depending on who was about to fight, they'd say something specific. In Budokai 2 each character has 2 sayings and that's it. Not only that, but levels like Kami's Lookout, an area crucial to the DBZ story, wasn't included this time around and there are no longer environment-wrecking moves. To top it all off, I can't use Teen Gohan in Dragon Mode but I can use Videl…gee, thanks!
Dimps and Atari either don't know or care that it takes more than a lucrative license to make a good game. The PS2 has 3 processors including a 128-bit CPU and for $55 we're watching Dragon World's animated gifs hop around? It's as if Dimps went out of its way to make the game frustrating. Budokai 2 is the best example I've ever seen of a company doing the least work possible to cash in on a popular franchise. The Master Roshi load screen has more replay value than Babidi's Space Ship. I find this game insulting both as a gamer and as a DBZ fan.
Review by Dave Kaplan on 28 Sep 2004
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