The popular Dragon Ball: Budokai series returns to the PS2, this time with pretty cell-shaded graphics. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t offer much else than that. Part of the appeal of the first Budokai was that its whole presentation stayed true to the animated series. The story mode in the first Budokai thrust players into the climactic points of the plot, immersing you into the story. However, this is replaced in Budokai 2 with Dragon World, an RPG-like mode loosely based on the series' plot. Gone are animated cut-scenes and little mini-games like positioning Raditz into the firing arc of Piccolo. Instead, you trudge around the map tediously fighting characters multiple times until their health points drop to zero with the “story” driven by text. The skill shop returns, enabling you to customize your character, but the capsule power-ups appear randomly so you end up going in and out of the shop to get the capsule you want. The World Tournament mode is pretty much the same as in the first Budokai and doesn’t have much going for it except to win money to buy capsules. There’s an endurance mode you can unlock with various challenges like Fireball Volley mode and Survival mode. It provides a new angle of gameplay and is entertaining for a little while, but gets old quick. This ain’t no Tekken or Street Fighter. You can’t duck, jump, or fly as in most fighting games or even older SNES DBZ games for that matter. It’s aggravating to see an enemy on the ground and not be able to low kick them. The nearly identical controls to those of the first Budokai will turn off people who played it before. The only difference in controls seems to be that combos are easier to execute. If you’re thinking “but wait, there are more characters!”...well, yeah, but they all pretty much fight the same, from Majin Buu to Videl. Learn a combo with one character and you can do it with most. This cookie cutter character setup doesn’t provide much replay value. The main thing the game has going for it are the graphics, which are beautiful. The Dragon Ball characters really come to life, looking like the animated series contained in a game. You can tell a lot of effort and time was put into the character models. Unfortunately, the lack of depth in the other areas of the game prevents it from delivering the goods. The level designs are unexciting and a bit monotonous, a stark contrast to the beautifully rendered backgrounds of Soul Calibur II and Tekken 4. Being a fan of the Dragon Ball series back when I was in elementary school, I really wanted to like this game. However, its uninspired controls, lack of character diversity, and the absence of a story mode make this only a marginally entertaining video game.—Funky Zealot
