Gaming Target - GameCube: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai

Written by Kyle Williams on December 15, 2003

Full Review: A nightmare for hairstylists everywhere.

Any marketing professional will tell you that the success of a product relies on identifying your target audience and catering to their wants and needs. So, what should be the overall goal for a licensed videogame? Breaking into a new gaming genre? Setting new standards for graphical prowess? These are good and all. In fact, throw these in and you will be really shocked at the reactions you get. However, what really matters most to the die hard fans of any license is that the videogame recaptures the best elements of their beloved show/book/toy/movie. This is exactly what Dragon Ball Z: Budokai manages to accomplish.

At it's very heart, Budokai is a three-dimensional fighting game starring the pointy-haired heroes and villains of the import cartoon, Dragon Ball Z. Unfortunately, where the Tekkens, Soul Caliburs and Virtua Fighters succeed, Budokai is only able to offer a decent showing. While the graphics try to remain true to the hand animated cartoon they come off as being simplistic and, at times, a wee bit clunky. The voice acting and sound effects gain a little bit of ground back but are overshadowed by a fighting engine that is a little bit too unique for it's own good.

DBZ: Budokai allows you to unlock additional skills and combo attacks as you progress through the story mode of the game but the overall goal of this seems a little bit muddled. The balancing of the combos is a little bit off too, with certain moves being extremely easy to pull off while others seem nearly impossible to execute due to difficult timings of button presses. The end result of these two items is that the fighting engine appears to be shallow and inaccessible to people that haven't played the game much. This leaves the versus mode a bit unbalanced between veterans and rookies.

Fortunately, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai really takes off in the story mode. Now, I freely admit that I have only casually watched a couple of episodes of the animated series but the story mode seems to be a direct extension of said TV show. To an excellent effect, individual battles are separated by storytelling cutscenes that feel as if they are pulled directly out of an episode of the show. What's amazing is that by playing the game in half-hour increments it seems exactly like watching a chapter of the saga. It also helps that the game is filled with 23 Dragon Ball Z combatants.