The budokai series was an interesting series, the first game was good,
the second game wasn't nearly as good despite the better graphics, but
the third game was a phenomenally good game and was one of the better
PS2 fighting games out...and still is...
Tenkaichi is a sequel that is about as good as the original budokai,
but budokai wasn't made as a sequel to a good game, which made it more
acceptable.
Tenkaichi replaces the traditional 3d fighter gameplay for a behind the
back camera perspective.....that you can't move, this makes the game
more frustrating than it should be. There is no reason why you can't
move the camera, they just didn't allow it in the game. It will only
move when you get near an obstruction, but sometimes it doesn't and it
shifts weirdly and make it impossible to see anything. This also means
that multiplayer isn't as ideal or fun as it was in budokai 3.The game
also lacks a online mode, which was one of the only problems with the
last game.
The controls are clunky and annoying despite the fact that the actual
fighting consists of basically three combos, all of them look basically
the same till the last two or three punches, theres also only one
attack button and one energy button, but it is still clunky and
unresponsive partly because the movement is confusingly complicated at
first requiring nearly every other button to move. Also, you will soon
learn that all you have to do to win most matches is to knock the enemy
back, and then blast them with a special move. This makes the game
easy...when the AI is acting normally.
This is made worse by a crappy tutorial mode, it's all text, and you
can't use the tutorial to get the hand of the controls, which means you
have to back out of the tutorial mode and go into the training mode and
try them out without help. This makes it annoying having to memorize
all that is said on the tutorials and back out again and again...and,
well, it's gets very annoying,
The game claims to have large, free-roaming levels and fully
destructible environments, but the levels aren't particularly large and
the environments require you to use some kind of incredibly strong
energy move to blast you enemy into a mountain or something, but if you
try to use that smash move without hitting your enemy, it won't destroy
anything, and when you do destroy something it isn't really satisfying.
The game also says it has more playable characters than in any other
dragon ball z game out before it, and technically it's true, but most
of the characters are comprised of super saiyan versions of the normal
character, as well as characters that nobody ever wanted to play as in
the first place. That doesn't mean your favorite characters aren't in
the game, there all there, but it seems like they made it so you
couldn't transform mid-battle intentionally to make the game have more
characters.
Of coarse that also has it's upside, the ability to easily play as SSJ4
Gogeta is always fun, but it also means you can't do that mid-battle,
which was also always fun. So it's an annoyance it's not there.
The games difficulty is all over the place, some of the missions are
very easy, and missions directly after it are unbelievably hard, also,
the AI is all weird, sometimes their rather good, and all of a sudden
stop and sit there, and sometimes it spikes up and down throughout a
match.
The game gets rid of a lot of the cool features from the last game,
including the Dragon Rush, the ultimate attacks, and the Dragon
Universe mode are all gone. There's still ultimate attacks, but not in
the same way as in budokai 3. Also, the mini-game that appeared when
you and the enemy attacked each other with fists is gone and the beam
struggle is a lot harder to pull off.
The games graphics are good, but haven't really improved over the last
game, and the same goes with the music, actually, the music IS the same
as the music from budokai 3, the grunts and noises people make when
attacking or getting hit is the same, and the music that plays in the
background is the same.
Now, i HAD thought this game was going to be a lot worse, but it's
actually an ok game. However, it's still not as good as the last game
and feels like the series has de-evolved. After awhile you get used to
the controls (although there never ideal and never feel quite right),
it's a good game but shouldn't be played by anyone who doesn't enjoy
the series because of it's various problems.
