THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE IS SUPPORTED BY: 

Back to the review page

PRE-GAME

Prepare yourself for battle as the world’s greatest warriors go head to head! Fight as over 30 of your favorite DBZ characters and get ready to unleash signature attacks and devastating combos. Battle against your friends in Duel mode or try to stop the evil Majin Buu in Dragon World. Do you have what it takes to stop the greatest evil that has ever threatened the earth?

EYE-SPY

THE HOOK: I enjoyed the Dragon Ball Z TV series, and thought that Dragon Ball Z Budokai was a good game for DBZ fans. I had to see how the sequel stacked up to the original, and how the new characters from the Buu saga handled.

HOW IT LOOKS AND FEELS: If you liked the graphics of the first Budokai you’re not in for much of a change. The game’s energy attacks have been upgraded slightly in look and color changes. The game models are the same but this time the cell shading was done rather poorly. The shading adds more definition to the characters but also highlights flaws in the models and makes the characters look worse than they looked in Budokai.

The fighting system has few changes as well. The game still revolves around each character’s melee attacks (mostly pressing the same button about four times) and its capsule system, which enables moves to be mixed and matched. There are many new capsules to use and some changes to the system, such as being able to press one button to do an attack like the Kamehameha. Something new in Budokai 2 is the optional pressing of certain buttons/spinning the analog sticks after your attack has been initiated. Doing so will up the power of your attack and usually provide a cooler looking version. Some of the new capsules in Budokai 2 include the “Fusion” and “Potara” (Fusion earrings) attacks which can transform you into a combination of yourself and another character. Depending on the character you use they can be more help or less useful. They’re fun to pull off just as long as you don’t botch them, otherwise you either enter a state of helplessness in a “fat” or “old” fusion, or lose your one chance of fusing with the Potara.

HOW IT SOUNDS: The game still has generic music that doesn’t even come from the show and leaves a lot to be desired. The sound effects are nothing too spectacular, but do stay true to the show and the feel of the game. If you enjoy the English dub, you’ll enjoy the voice acting (especially since it’s done by the same cast). I found it amusing, but if you like the Japanese dub, you may just find it annoying.

EXTRAS: If you do not unlock anything in this game, you’ll be playing it for the next 10 minutes and wonder why you wasted fifty bucks. The game starts with only a handful of characters (Goku, Krillin, Piccolo, etc.) and it’s up to you to unlock the rest. You also don’t start off with many capsules in one player mode, leaving you with a little more than one special attack at your disposal. Oh, and filling the rest of you battles with a fury of repetitive button punching combat.

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: One of the things that DBZ Budokai was praised for when it came out was that its cut-scenes relived high points of the show using the 3D models from the game. This helped those who hadn’t seen all of DBZ or those who weren’t sure exactly what DBZ was. DBZ Budokai 2 does not go the same route…at all. There really aren’t any cinema scenes in this game outside of the special attacks and the nicely animated intro.

BEST PLAYER: I tended to favor Dr.Gero and the other androids in this game for their solid combos and strength even without any transformations. There’s also that very rewarding feeling you get when you suck your enemy’s power right out of them and then shoot it back in their face. Thanks to the capsule system, most characters can get a surprising edge when equipped correctly and it can really make your choice more about preference.

CHEAT CODE YOU NEED: Two words, Capsule Cheat. Just like in the first one, all the moves/characters in DBZ Budokai 2 come in the form of capsules. Now to get capsules in the game, you either have to get them through Dragon World/Babidi’s Space ship or buy them with money. Those of you wanting to bypass the tedious Dragon World can try this equally tedious cheat. In the capsule shop, Bulma will say a message when you enter and exit. Right as you’re leaving, hold down the L2 button at the same time she says, “Buy it the next time you come in, ok?” If you time it just right, you’ll get a free random capsule. You can tell If it’s worked or not by your capsule completion percent going up. Just rinse and repeat over 100 more times with the right timing, and every capsule is yours! Don’t forget to go change the capsules on one of your characters afterwards so the game saves your ill-gotten goods. I know what you’re thinking, but I’d rather listen to Bulma all day then toil in Dragon World.

CHEAT CODE YOU WANT: One that unlocks all of the characters and capsules in the game in just one code! I still don’t understand why they only gave the game one cheat code, and had to make it a very annoying one to use.

OH MAN! MOMENT: Since the game isn’t all that challenging, I’d say the annoyance of trying to beat the same foes again and again with limited capsules and characters in Dragon World fits the bill.

GLITCH ITCH: Many of the games combos/attacks are nearly impossible to complete due to openings that shouldn’t be there or because they let your opponent block mid-way through the combo (COUGH Wolf Fang Fist COUGH). Certain capsule combinations are still very cheap and some characters (like Videl) are still built weaker than others and don’t have many good special attacks to compensate for this either. Also, some of the vertically challenged characters are unable to be hit be certain combos/attacks.

FAN SERVICE: Not much here even if you’re into DBZ characters. I think the bulk of it is a glimpse or two you’ll get of Bulma in the bunny costume at the skills shop.

END GAME:

The biggest flaw in this game without a doubt is “Dragon World”, Budokai 2’s new one player mode. It’s set up like a board game where you can move one space per turn, pick up items, and fight other pawns on the board. The idea seemed ok…until I started playing it.

For starters, it does a piss poor job of following the storyline of DBZ. You play as Goku and one other character you pick. Some of the pick able characters haven’t even been born yet in the timeline of DBZ! Goten and Gohan (From the Buu saga) can be chosen right off the bat, even though in the show Goten hadn’t been born and Gohan was a little kid at this time! Other inaccuracies include Raditz and Nappa showing up on earth at the same time, fighting Frieza in the red ribbon army base before going to Namek, and fighting Majin Frieza and Majin Cell (Who never even existed) in the Buu saga! Besides being inaccurate, the mode forces you to fight the same people several times until they are defeated. I found this extremely annoying, not because the battles were very hard, but because it’s not fun for me to beat the same guy three times only for him to change into another form so I can fight him three more times! This mode is also the only non-cheating way to unlock most of the characters in the game. Unfortunately, to unlock certain characters you must choose one particular ally before hand and beat the right character in the right battle with them. Unlocking Vegeta, the most popular DBZ character, takes unlocking Future Trunks in Dragon World and then beating Dragon World AGAIN using him against Vegeta in one particular battle. Overall, it’s a huge downgrade to the story mode of the first Budokai and will thankfully not be making it into Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3.

There are many new characters to unlock and many capsules to collect, but the game just doesn’t seem like a big step up from the first Budokai. It’s a little disappointing how the developers had a good start with Budokai and could have made a better game by building off of what they had instead of rehashing it. The bulk of the fun you’ll have with this game is having all the characters and their moves, and just messing around with people’s signature attacks, but even this can gets old pretty fast.

Bottom line, I had a little fun with the game after everything was unlocked. For the time and effort it takes, it’s just not worth it. The combination of Dragon World and a tedious cheating system can really ruin the your starting impression of the game. Even once you have all that the game has too offer, the thrill of the mixing and matching characters and capsules doesn’t last very long. But if you never played Budokai one and you’re looking for a decent DBZ game with characters from the Buu saga, you may want to check it out. For the rest of us, it’s nothing new and nothing worth getting ascended about. Rent first, otherwise leave this one back on Kami’s lookout.

Return to Top

Back to the Review Page