Review

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3

Dragon Ball Z. It all started for me in about 1994. It was innocuous at first. In the beginning I saw it in the back of an EGM, in the imports section. You remember those old sections that were like the last ten pages of the mag where they had all the less than legal imports listed (Editors note: I remember those). This was a time before copyright and import laws had caught up with the importers and the bootleggers. Back when fan subbing was still done on VHS, took three weeks and was horrible quality. I remember looking at it and thinking, what the heck is with these dudes dressed in funny clothes and freakishly big blonde spiked hair. It would be two years later when I would find the answer to question. It was ’96 when I first saw the show. The original Pioneer cut and dub of the anime was airing at six or seven in the morning and I would always get up to watch it. It was Dragon Ball Z and I was enthralled.

I’m not the type of anime fan who nitpicks about production quality or demand Oscar caliber story and performances. But I liked the characters, the storyline, and best of all, the creative super-violence. I became an avid collector of the series and came to own the majority of it. As I expanded my Dragon Ball knowledge I found out about the games, and encountered a few of them. The first was Dragon Ball GT Final Bout (import) for the PS1 and then later on Dragon Ball Ultimate Battle 22. I also learned about the previous entries in the series including the original Tenka’ichi Budôkai or Butoden series for the NES and SNES respectively. Later on I was ecstatic when the new Budôkai series came out with Sixth Generation console technology and cell shading to really show off the ludicrous powers of my favorite characters. For the majority I was extremely pleased. As it progressed to its pinnacle in Budôkai 3, I looked on in fan bliss. As a Street Fighter fan and a Dragon Ball fan it was a great achievement…BUT. But there was always that single nagging in the back of my head. Though the Budôkai series was great… it wasn’t a perfect recreation of Dragon Ball Z. The perspective was wrong, it was too limited, and some key aspects of the series, such as giant bosses and enemies were missing. Because of this, The Lords of Gaming decided to bring forth Budôkai Tenka’ichi. And it was good.

The Budôkai Tenka’ichi series is the penultimate progression towards what a Dragon Ball game should have; free movement, environmental destruction, and lots of powering up. Many fighting game fans new to the series may be thrown off by the seemingly absurd balancing of the game. Once people learn about DBZ’s characters and power levels, they may become extremely aggravated when they lose to weaker characters (Mr. Satan (Hercule) should never ever stand a chance against Kid Buu). As it stands though, the game is perfectly balanced for what it is, a nearly exact recreation of the combat and characters of the Dragon Ball universe. The action is from an over the shoulder and behind the back perspective. If you’ve never played one of the Tenka’ichi games before, don’t worry as I can assure you that it isn’t as awkward as you might think. People who’ve played games like Virtua-On or Mech Assault will be right at home here. The majority of the fighting revolves around energy management. There is only one melee attack button (which is all you need) as hand to hand bouts can become a serious smash fest. However, what will separate the winners from the losers is in their use of strategy. Yes I know that sounds insane. This is Dragon Ball Z game, how strategic can it be? Well for starters, only relying on energy attacks will get you killed as some of the faster and larger characters can run through them. You have to balance when to power up and when to strike (and what technique to use at a given time).

One serious issue in the game is the lack of some sort of combo breaker. If a person has an ultimate attack stored then they can essentially run an infinite combo on you until their meter runs dry. Pulling off your favorite moves remains simple, as all techniques are mapped to the controller well and with a little time become intuitive (this is helped by the fact that all characters use the same command inputs). Adding to the fight is the levels you fight in. Side note: The destructible environments in DBZ: BT3 are gorgeous, with most stages having a day and night cycle (some don’t because their on different planets with two or more suns). Now back to the fighting. While engaging in combat, be sure to use your environment, as a hill that can’t be destroyed and keeps you out of line of sight can buy you the precious minutes needed to recharge and resume your attack. But be warned, an opponent can come charging over that hill, or though a building at any time, and destructible landmarks can also be destroyed with blast attacks. Also of note, destroying the environment will net you those precious Dragon Balls as always.

In most of my anime watching I prefer the original Japanese voice cast. Not for Dragon Ball Z. I think that the Dragon Ball cast was (insert expletive of your choice here) outstanding. Goku and his kids are always appropriately bubbly, Vegeta was simultaneously prideful, arrogant, and vicious, Majin Buu was childlike and annoying, and the list goes on. The fact that the Funimation Dragon Ball Z cast has continued to be involved in these games is a joy, and the characters are very well acted. The only downside is that though key bits of dialogue were (understandably) cut in the game due to the format of story progression (more of a “greatest hits” than a definitive retelling of the story). Still, in story commentating during key battles such as Gohan saying the lines he used while carrying Piccolo away from Super Saiyan Goku vs. Freeza battle, during the fight instead of in a cut scene, was a very nice touch. The in game sound track is good but not the best we’ve seem from the two Budôkai series, much of it just rehashes others from the previous games. Again, I would’ve rather had the original American soundtrack.

The ability to customize your favorite characters is back and as good as ever. The Dragon Fusion disc allows you to unlock characters from your previous Budôkai Tenka’ichi games (hope you didn’t delete them) and the password feature allows you to transfer the “monsters” that you have made to other people’s games. A nice thing is that you can store three custom versions of each character, in order to cut down on people complaining about others tampering with their custom creations.  Of course, it wouldn’t be cool to allow you to bring back your custom guys from previous games without having enough modes to play in. There’s a tournament mode which allows you to fight in a couple of different tournament types. They are the Budôkai Tenka’ichi, the Big World Martial arts Tournament which is the same as above, but can happen anywhere in the world with no ring outs, of course the Cell Games, and finally the Otherworld Tournament. Ultimate Battle mode, which allows you to train for 10 days (like prior to the Cell Games) before going into battle to face your enemies, is broken into two smaller modes. They are the Mission 100 mode, which is a massive ladder tourney with victory conditions usually pertaining to the number of members on you and your opponent’s teams and Sim Dragon mode (the de facto survival mode). This game to its credit is a lot larger than I initially assumed it would be and I’m impressed with the amount of content in place.

So far I have talked about what’s good in DBZ: BT3. I do, however, have a few gripes with this game. For one, If I lose a battle, I would appreciate a retry screen and then an immediate return to the battle. Not being shunted to a failure screen to tell me I didn’t earn any Zeni before being sent back to the stage select screen. It’s annoying and time consuming, as I could be laying into Hildegurn instead of helping Goku eat rice on the loading screen! That said the mini games on the loading screens are nice. Another thing is having to participate in matches were you’re supposed to lose (for the sake of story). What’s up with that? I also wish they wouldn’t have left out certain battles from the story mode. For instance, in the Android saga they skip the Piccolo vs. Cell I and II battles, and one of the best matches in the whole series, Piccolo vs. Android 17!

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is an excellent fighting game. Though Naruto: Ultimate Ninja, Bleach, and One Piece all have decent fighting games out now Dragon Ball Z did it first and do it the best (well when it comes to anime inspired fighters). In a time when we are waiting for Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat 8, and (finally) Street Fighter IV, we can rest a little as Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is holding down the fighting game fort. The Budokai Tenkaichi series influence is already being felt. Look up information on the forthcoming Guilty Gear 2 on 360 as it’s not a traditional 2D or 3D fighting game anymore. Not really surprising since in many ways Dragon Ball preceded and influenced Street Fighter…is it KameHameHa or Hadou-Ken? (Editors note: That might be a stretch.)