2.5/5 ★ – KHFanXIII's review of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2.
I had started playing this game not long after I finished the first game, but I didn't get around to finish it until over 6 months later because I was getting a bit burnt out on the DB series after a long binge (something I also mentioned in my last review), and the first Budokai game (while I did enjoy it) tired me out due to how difficult and frustrating for me it was.
Now to get down to business though, does this game improve any on the issues I had in the first game?
Well, in some aspects.
One of the major complaints from the first game was that you could not activate any of the iconic special techniques without first doing a combo. That issue has been addressed as (as long as you have enough Ki) you can pull off your iconic special move (Galick Gun, Kamehameha, etc.) instantly. This is very helpful in combat but also helps bring the series a bit closer to accuracy with the source material.
However, the story mode takes a major hit. The last game had fully animated/voice-acted cutscenes with bespoke minigames to tell the story of the Dragon Ball Z series, up to the end of the Cell Saga. It was honestly pretty amazing and seeing these iconic DBZ scenes in 3D was an awesome thing as a fan of the series.
In this game however, story mode is told through a type of board game, where you and your opponents (who take the form of game pieces) move along the game board until you bump into each other (at which point it switches to combat). There's a bit more to it than that, but honestly it's not worth going into. There's some voice acting with the static game pieces, and a few moving/animated portrait shots, but it's pretty subpar. Some of the little moves they do with the game pieces are kinda entertaining, but not enough to warrant praise of the new format.
I understand wanting to not just retell the same story over again (even though that's what a vast majority of DBZ games do; however usually each one tries to get a little closer to the source material), but this was just a miss in my opinion. I don't hate it, but I don't really like it either, and it's especially a disappointment considering how great last game was. On the bright side though, this was one of the first games to go from the beginning of Z all the way to the end, so there's that.
As someone who still isn't a fighting game guy, that kind of story presentation took a lot of the motivation to play the game away from me.
Speaking of, no, they didn't fix the combo thing I mentioned from last game, however, I will say that the game feels a good chunk easier than last game. Still difficult, but a lot easier to handle (possibly due to the instant special move feature)
I didn't really play through the other modes like I did with last game, as I was just eager to get this one over with, so I can't comment on that.
Overall, I think this game is definitely an improvement in many ways gameplay-wise, however the story takes such a downgrade that, for me, it makes this game feel so much lesser.