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Title: Dragonball Z Budokai 3
Platform: Playstation 2
Publisher: Atari
Difficulty: Medium to Hard
Review written by: Jason (Shadow_Gamer927)
Yes, I'm a fan of the anime, so of course I have played and enjoyed the past Budokai games. I know the other games were not that great and only the fans got the most enjoyment out of them, but that has changed. Finally a DBZ game that everyone can enjoy has arrived!
Game play
You know this is a fighting game, so you should already know that you press different combinations to do different attacks, but this is Dragonball Z, and they have made some interesting adjustments to make it more have more depth and more like DBZ. (I highly suggest you go through practice to see how to do the new stuff.) All your abilities are controlled by your Ki meter. Doing special attacks, such as the Kamamhama, depletes your Ki meter. Some moves take little Ki away, but the huge explosive attacks (that would simulate what would happen I've Oprah got angry) take take a full meter of Ki to near zero. All that isn't really new to the DBZ games (except for being able to see your huge attacks from space,) the new stuff makes the game much more in depth. They have added the ability to dodge and teleport in order to dodge simple punches and kicks to even avoiding an ultimate attack from ever happening. Teleporting can be really useful and yet very annoying for your opponent and for you. I really suggest learning how to use it effectively, because the AI uses it a lot, and it will help you out against them. It's worth mastering, it could win you the match by dodging an attack and then using it to execute a huge combo, or it could ruin you if you teleport into the wrong place and well it won't be pretty. Teleporting and dodging (will talk about later in the review) both take up Ki from your meter, so the AI has a limit to how much they can make you feel worthless. Another new thing that has been added is the Dragon Rush mode. Were you force your opponent into a “guess the button” minigame, were you can press the triangle, square, O, or X button to keep your attack going. If you (or your opponent) guest's the button the other player pressed than the attack is countered. This part is really cool to look at... the first 20 times you see them. The Dragon Rush is an effective way to get the opponents Health down, but the big problem with it is that there are only about 4 different sequences of the Dragon Rush and they depend on the character you play as.
When your not fighting you get to fly around the the DB worlds. This allows you to raise up your stats (yes you have stats and they are important to have up and are very helpful) by fighting along with the story or just fight the people at the “Battle Ground” as much as you want, you can find capsules which contain attacks, abilities, and items (which can be used anytime in a fight now), you'll find zennie which you can buy attacks, items, and game modes with, find Dragon balls which grant you one wish after you beat the game after you collect all seven, or you can just be boring and just fly to the place of the next fight that goes along with the story. I'm sure you know the story even if your not a fan.
There is a lot to play with in this game. There's the standard Versus mode, World Tournament which awards your fighting skills with cash, a mode that is unlock able that I'll let you see what it is, and of course the story mode. Dragon Quest lets you play through the story with 11 different people, and you play it through there perspective! So that means you get to play through 11 different stories (just like the great Sonic Adventure.) This really adds to how long you'll be playing this game.
Controls
The rest of the categories won't be a huge as the gameplay, but the gameplay is a just huge part of the game. Anyway, the controls are simple to use. You can easily pick them up and start playing, but if you want to get good you have to know what your doing. If your fighting an AI and you don't know how to evade their attacks, they will know how do dodge yours, so I can almost promise that if you shot an energy attack at your opponent and you miss, they will be right next to you with their foot up your ass. Unless you just teleport before they manage to move their foot. Now, early in this review I told you I'd explain the dodging so here it is, dodging punches is a pain in the ass. What happens is when your opponent throws a punch or kick you can very quickly press the block button while going towards them and you will dodge the attack which will rewards you with a lot of Ki every time you do this, but it's rewarding for a reason. You will need to have some very sharp eyes (or Sharingan's (Naruto fan's only know)) to be able to see the fast as lightning punches and kicks that are thrown at you in order to dodge them. So in short, the DBZ characters are just to fast for the controls.
Graphics
Most of the time cell-shading makes games look “cute”, well than this game is very “cute” than, just in a kinda beating the crap out of other cell-shaded characters way. You know that kind. The cell shading looks great in the game. It helps this game look like it is the anime. Which is why I'm wondering why they didn't create or use clips from the show as cut scenes. Instead they just have pictures of the characters talking with word bubbles! Excuse me for this but CHEAP ASSES!!!! Sorry, I had to say that, but they decided to make this great DBZ fighting game, but they decide to give us crappy pictures of characters talking with word bubbles, at least they have the actual voices from the show reading it to us. Because you know if your a DBZ fan you can't read (<- Sarcasm.) I'll try to explain how bad the pics are. They have the same picture for each character no matter what situation the character is in. As an example, Krillin's (the bald guy with dots on his head) pic is him looking angry (or having trouble on the crapper, I couldn't tell) so the voice is cheerful it looks like he's trying to force out a turd. So the graphics are great, the cut-scenes suck Dragonballs. In the next game (yes, there's another one coming out) I hope they will have scenes from the show!
Rest Of It
If you know DBZ, than you know there are almost to many characters in it. Same for this game. There is somewhere around 35 playable fighters in this game! Usually this a good thing, but some of them don't even have finishing moves! Which makes you feel like the time spent unlocking them was just a waste. They have about all the characters from DBZ, but they also have a few from Dragonball and DBGT! Which was a great idea, to bad they just didn't put in enough of them. I know I was just complaining that there are to many characters, but what I mean is that they should have left some of the characters out and replaced them with the people we want to fight with. I'm really glad they put Kid Goku in (new favorite fighter), but I was sad to find that they didn't have Super Hell Fighter 17 in the game. Well maybe that will change in the next game.
Overall
What an improvement! A much deeper fighting system, great cell-shading graphics, will keep you busy for a while, and with a good leveling up system! How can I not give this game a perfect 5 you ask? I'll tell you why!! Horrible cut-scenes, unneeded, and not enough of a vairite for the characters attacks (mainly the Dragon Rush) cause this game to get some points taken away. This game is still a great improvement from the others, so I'm giving Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 4 Dragonballs out of 5.
Good: Lots to do, improved fighting, awesome finishing moves
Bad: Cardboard cut out cut scenes, AI can ruin your whole day, some unneeded things, maybe on-line multiplayer would be interesting
Rent or Buy: Even with some flaws I still suggest this as a buy. It's a pretty big game, and it's lots of fun with multiplayer.
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