Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3
Score: 90% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Atari Developer: Spike Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Fighting/ Themed
Graphics & Sound: If there is one thing the Tenkaichi series has been good about, it's been accurately duplicating the look and feel of not only the characters in the DBZ series, but also the fast-paced and high-impact fights themselves. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is no exception. While the older characters seem to have more variants in their costumes, the new characters they've introduced also look just like their anime series counterparts. There are also a few new arenas that are taken from the show that any fan of the series will be able to recognize immediately, like Frieza's spaceship over Planet Vegeta. As always, the character voices are done by the same actors from the series, so all voice-acting is pretty authentic and the game's music is also of the same tone and feeling as the series. So, like the graphics, the sound is exactly what you would expect from this long-lasting series.
Gameplay: The Tenkaichi games have been growing for quite some time and each version has introduced more gameplay modes and, of course, characters. Well, like the graphics, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 follows suit after its predecessors by offering around 20 new playable characters including King Cold, King Vegeta, Babdi, Dr. Wheelo, Nail, as well as some classic Dragon Ball characters like Kid Chi-Chi, General Blue and Tambourine. Like all other versions of this game, the Story mode, called Dragon History, will take you through each of the events and fights from the DBZ and GT series, as well as the various movies in quick succession. Of course, just because you are plowing through the story's fights quickly doesn't mean you will be getting through the story quickly since there were a lot of fights in the show. One of the interesting differences between this game and previous ones is that you won't always play the good guys. In past games, if you played a good guy and they were going to lose (like pretty much anyone against Frieza on Namek), then you just had to hold out for a certain amount of time. In Tenkaichi 3, on the other hand, you will control whichever character(s) is supposed to win, so instead of controlling Krillen, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Gohan on Namek, you will take them on as Frieza as you move between your different forms. This was a nice change since, as my brother puts it, "No one wants to fight a battle they know they won't win." Ultimate Battle Mode is a series of really hard missions where you will have to perform very specific battles and tasks. These are interesting distractions from the story battles, but I often found myself getting somewhat frustrated at them. This is also the mode you will go into in order to perform Disc Fusion. This lets you put your previous Tenkaichi games in your PS2 and unlock more gameplay modes as a reward for following the series. Dragon World Tour Mode lets you play through the game's various tournament modes. Each tournament type has slightly different rules (like whether or not ring-outs exist) and typically has a particular enemy at the end. These are final fights like Grandpa Gohan at the end of World Tournament or Super Sayan 3 Goku as the last opponent in the Otherworld Tournament. The other tournaments are World Martial Arts Big Tournament, Cell Games and Yamcha Games. The Duel, Evolution and Ultimate Training Modes haven't really changed at all. Duel lets you fight friends or computers with your normal or customized characters, while Evolution Z is the mode you will go into to buy abilities and customize those characters. Ultimate Training is a ton of short training missions that newcomers will want to take part in. If you played the last version of the game, then you can just skip this mode. The Data Center option returns giving you access to tons of character info and saved footage from your fights, while Character Reference is a nice place to go to look up tons of game-based data for the characters you've unlocked like voice-playbacks, model views for each of the selected character's costumes as well as a little voice clip from Chi-chi about her opinion of the selected character.
Difficulty: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 seems to have just the right amount of difficulty all around, at least for people who know the series and understand what's going on in the story around each of the story's fights. For instance, when you face off against Nappa, you control Tien, Chiaotzu, Kid Gohan and Piccolo and eventually Goku. In this fight, all the characters except Gohan and Goku die, so the fight itself is really, really hard. Nappa will quickly go through Tien and Chiaotzu, while you will have to work hard to stay alive until Piccolo sacrifices himself, and Goku takes over. When you control Goku, the fight becomes a simple matter and is only marginally difficult because Goku has gotten very strong, so his hits do more against Nappa and Nappa's damage seems very little. Basically, the fights are easy or hard when they are supposed to be, at least as far as how the fights match up with the series, making it almost have a simulation feel to it. The other aspect of difficulty to consider in this game are the tournaments. Some characters are naturally stronger than others, so the game tries to give you opponents in the tournaments that are on the same level as the character you chose. For instance, choosing to fight as Omega Shenron will net you some of the biggest, baddest tough-guys from the series, while choosing a character like Grandpa Gohan will give you opponents like Hercule, Kid Goku, General Blue and other similarly matched characters in the brackets so that these fights are as level as possible.
Game Mechanics: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3's controls haven't really changed much in the past few versions. One of the new aspects to the game is that, at some points in a Story mode fight, both characters might disappear and action buttons will be displayed. This is analogous to the times in the show when the fighters are moving so fast, all you see are flashes and blur lines. This was a surprising, but nice touch because the game conveys the feeling pretty well. Both characters disappear, the camera zooms to some area, the button appears and then the camera zooms to another area as if the characters sped over there and you need to hit another face button. This will happen five or six times before the winner of the exchange is determined. As a sendoff for the series on the PS2, I'd say this game did a pretty good job. Existing fans of the line will definitely want to pick up this very encompassing game because not only does it have pretty much everything that past versions had, but also quite a few new characters and enough new mechanics to make it worthwhile.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Dementium: The Ward Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party