I share a dark secret with quote a few other people. It is a secret that I am not proud of, but I must admit to now. Here goes... I have watched every TV episode of Dragon Ball Z in my adult life. Agh. You may now be wondering what the hell Dragon Ball Z is, or you may know of the series and think I'm a sad bastard. You may share my dark secret – I feel for you, brother. My point here is that Dragon Ball Z is very much a 'marmite' taste – if you've tried it, you'll love it or hate it – and, in my opinion, your reaction to Budokai 3 will almost certainly follow that feeling because it doesn't get much closer to the action portrayed in the TV series than this.
DB3 is a one-on-one fighting game predominately, with some flashy pre-scripted sequences to give it the real animated show pizzazz. In fact, the set piece elements of the game dominate, with the base elements that we take for granted in fighting games mostly stripped away. You have punch, kick and guard buttons, which work as expected, as well as a 'ki blast' button, which sends a nice energy ball at your opponent (which can be batted back by the opponent with a well-timed tap of the ‘guard’ button). But there's no jumping or crouching, or indeed ways of hitting your opponent high/low. Of course you can throw, and there are ways of breaking the guard, but it would be an outrageously simple fighting system if that was all there is to it. Good thing DB3 has more going on than that then.
As well as your health bar, you have a 'Ki' bar, which is used for a whole load of special moves that make the game interesting. Ki accumulates from fighting, or can be charged during a break in the fight by holding ‘guard’ and double tapping ‘back’. There's plenty of ways that you can then use your Ki: ‘forward’ and ‘block’ instantly teleports you behind your opponent in exchange for some of your Ki, allowing you to unload on them from behind. If your fingers are quick enough you can even teleport behind someone that has just teleported! As well as the standard Ki blast, characters all have their own special move or two that will use up more Ki, and result in more spectacular fireworks. If both characters launch these at the same time you get a 'beam struggle' where both players try to outpower the opposition by hammering all the buttons as fast as they can. Some characters have an 'Ultimate Attack', capable of providing huge damage, but are tricky to pull off due to the combination of circumstances required, but they provide the most spectacular sights in the game, and quite a few are also capable of transformations into different forms of their character, such as Goku becoming a 'Super Saiyan'.
The final use of Ki is to go into 'Hyper Mode', activated by pressing all four buttons at once, and gives you a damage increase while your Ki runs down. As mentioned earlier on, there's no jumping, but certain attacks allow you to launch your opponent into the air, at which point a tap of the Ki blast button will cause your character to hit the opponent several more times in the air. Try this while in hyper mode, and you go into a 'Dragon Rush' – an attack where both sides press a button before a timer counts down, with the attack stopping if the defender picks the same button as the attacker, but prompting some excellent fireworks and huge damage if the attacker gets three in a row – and it's all provided in the TV series’ anime styling. Overall it's an unconventional fighter, but entertaining for those that want to be able to play fighting games but find themselves frustrated by the highly technical fighters that dominate the genre.
Now, when I said that your opinion of DB3 will be coloured by any previous experience with DBZ, I wasn't really referring to the fighting system. Yes, it throws in virtually everything that the TV series does, but it also has a solid single player campaign too, in which you get to take the various characters through the adventures and battles that appeared in the TV series and movies. The Dragon Universe mode lets you do all this, while upgrading the characters, and gaining them new powers – the ability to use most character’s better powers have to be unlocked through this mode – no fun if you want to get on with fighting one on one with a friend straight away, but this is the real meat and potatoes of the game. Like any good RPG, the items and powers that you unlock all take up a certain number of slots in a character's armoury, meaning that you can set up your fighter however you like. In between fights in the Dragon Universe, you manually control your character's movements around the world they are on, allowing you to go exploring for other items, or go see some of the other characters. There are plenty of hidden items and fights to go looking for. The problem with this mode is that the narrative that tells the story in between fights is very disjointed, and it's almost impossible to follow the actual story without knowing it in advance, especially when you meet some of the other characters hanging around in various areas. But for those that loved the source material, it's a thrill to re-enact the battles (you even get special bonuses for replicating key moments from fights), and a joy to hear the dialog provided by the US voice cast, not to mention the exceedingly cheesy music from the series.
And that really sums it up – while it's an accomplished game, it's entirely geared towards Dragon Ball Z fans, and I can't see anyone that isn't a fan understanding the game enough to get enjoyment out of it. It would be like reading a book in a language that you have a poor understanding of – you'll get an understanding of the plot, but miss the deeper meaning. For those not familiar with the source DBZ Budokai 3 will seem like a shallow fighting game built around set pieces, and for that I have to mark it down. For those that do happen to understand it, it's a treat, and would score a 9.
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
