OVER 9,000!!! Dragonball Z 2: Budokai Tenkaichi (Wii) Review
Posted on
Monday, July 30, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
It would be an understatement to say that I am not a fan of the Dragonball Z series of anime. In fact, saying that I believe such animation to be the witless etchings of an army of angry dwarf animators huffing Drano fumes would be putting it mildly. In short, I find Dragonball Z to be not only an insult to my intelligence, but a seizure-inducing parade of cliched drivel that makes me want to wretch until I see my shoes come out of my mouth. And yet, the Wii launch title Dragonball Z 2: Budokai Tenkaichi (DBZ 2) did not make me worship at the porcelain throne; it actually entertained me.
Dragonball Z is an anime about fighting. That's all I can figure out from what little I've seen of it. It consists of overmuscled, over-exaggerated beings of all shapes and sizes flexing and screaming at each other for a half-hour, with the occasional explosion as someone uses a power no one has ever seen before, to the chagrin of his opponent. The screaming is often about some vague and barely decipherable explanation of one of the contestants' new powers, which is somehow a surprise and often catastrophic. I always imagine that these are the kinds of films shown to Malcolm McDowell's character in A Clockwork Orange, orgies of violence he was forced to watch through pried open eyelids. They certainly make me scream as if ocular rape had occurred. What kind of game is made from an anime about fighting? Luckily, it's a fighting game, and not some heartfelt Final Fantasy-esque angst roleplaying game.
As a fighting game, DBZ 2 is a hundred times better than the anime could hope to be. A narrative has to have context for the battles, while a fighting game is all about battles, with the context being shallow window dressing at best. Freed of the necessity for exposition, the game is able to focus on making the fights fun. It succeeds admirably. Using the Wii's "waggle" controls is a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately. Rather than using a system more like Wii Sports except with explosions, it's obvious DBZ 2 was originally meant to be a GameCube game. While the waggle controls aren't bad, they are definitely gamepad controls shoehorned into predefined waggles. There are even options to use a GameCube controller instead of the Wiimote, or to use the Wiimote without the waggle.
Despite this, the game still manages to be more fun than a DBZ game should be. The hardest part about the controls is remembering how to perform the special moves and blasts that are required in order to win. That's where the game's major flaw becomes apparent. Special moves are the lifeblood of fighting games, but most will allow for the reflex-challenged like myself to make do in single player mode without performing all of the moves in quick succession in every fight. DBZ 2, however, does not. While one might win a fight or two on regular kicks, punches and throws, even on the easiest difficulty setting the game is brutally hard without using special moves. If your character isn't blowing fireballs out of his ass, he's probably going to be dickstomped on a regular basis. As a result, the game is really meant only for hardcore fighting game fans. Casual players will become frustrated all too quickly at their lack of progress.
The game has an impressive graphical style, using cel-shaded animation to give it the appearance of a 2D cartoon come into 3D life. All the characters look like their anime counterparts, the environments are stylistic and lush, and the terrain is partly destructible. One spectator of my game who is a DBZ fan commented that it looked and acted just like an episode of the cartoon. Voiceovers are rampant in the game, using the voices of the English version of the series on menus and during fights. The presentation is top-notch on all levels, though the voices on the menus will get irritating if the player is not a fan of the series.
DBZ 2 is a fun game, but not one that I would recommend for everyone. The learning curve is brutal for casual players. Fans of the series and fighting game aficionados should love the game, finding it well worth a full price purchase. Casual players should rent it, buy it used, or wait until it drops in price. I'd give the game an 7 out of 10 if I used numerical ratings, an 8 for fighting game fans.
Dragonball Z is an anime about fighting. That's all I can figure out from what little I've seen of it. It consists of overmuscled, over-exaggerated beings of all shapes and sizes flexing and screaming at each other for a half-hour, with the occasional explosion as someone uses a power no one has ever seen before, to the chagrin of his opponent. The screaming is often about some vague and barely decipherable explanation of one of the contestants' new powers, which is somehow a surprise and often catastrophic. I always imagine that these are the kinds of films shown to Malcolm McDowell's character in A Clockwork Orange, orgies of violence he was forced to watch through pried open eyelids. They certainly make me scream as if ocular rape had occurred. What kind of game is made from an anime about fighting? Luckily, it's a fighting game, and not some heartfelt Final Fantasy-esque angst roleplaying game.
As a fighting game, DBZ 2 is a hundred times better than the anime could hope to be. A narrative has to have context for the battles, while a fighting game is all about battles, with the context being shallow window dressing at best. Freed of the necessity for exposition, the game is able to focus on making the fights fun. It succeeds admirably. Using the Wii's "waggle" controls is a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately. Rather than using a system more like Wii Sports except with explosions, it's obvious DBZ 2 was originally meant to be a GameCube game. While the waggle controls aren't bad, they are definitely gamepad controls shoehorned into predefined waggles. There are even options to use a GameCube controller instead of the Wiimote, or to use the Wiimote without the waggle.
Despite this, the game still manages to be more fun than a DBZ game should be. The hardest part about the controls is remembering how to perform the special moves and blasts that are required in order to win. That's where the game's major flaw becomes apparent. Special moves are the lifeblood of fighting games, but most will allow for the reflex-challenged like myself to make do in single player mode without performing all of the moves in quick succession in every fight. DBZ 2, however, does not. While one might win a fight or two on regular kicks, punches and throws, even on the easiest difficulty setting the game is brutally hard without using special moves. If your character isn't blowing fireballs out of his ass, he's probably going to be dickstomped on a regular basis. As a result, the game is really meant only for hardcore fighting game fans. Casual players will become frustrated all too quickly at their lack of progress.
The game has an impressive graphical style, using cel-shaded animation to give it the appearance of a 2D cartoon come into 3D life. All the characters look like their anime counterparts, the environments are stylistic and lush, and the terrain is partly destructible. One spectator of my game who is a DBZ fan commented that it looked and acted just like an episode of the cartoon. Voiceovers are rampant in the game, using the voices of the English version of the series on menus and during fights. The presentation is top-notch on all levels, though the voices on the menus will get irritating if the player is not a fan of the series.
DBZ 2 is a fun game, but not one that I would recommend for everyone. The learning curve is brutal for casual players. Fans of the series and fighting game aficionados should love the game, finding it well worth a full price purchase. Casual players should rent it, buy it used, or wait until it drops in price. I'd give the game an 7 out of 10 if I used numerical ratings, an 8 for fighting game fans.
Labels: Video Games, Wii
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:46 AM
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