I bought Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2 for the PS2 when the local video rental had it on sale for 20 dollars. I liked the original DBZ Budokai the cube, but I heard the 2nd one is better. And indeed DBZ Budokai 2 is better then the first one in pretty much every way.

Story.
The story of DBZ Budokai is that of the DBZ series from the Sayian to the end of the Buu saga. But instead of playing us story clips the whole thing is done in a board game fashion. Whenever you bump into a character dialog is spoken and then the 2 fight whoever wins get’s to keep the peaces on the board. Your role has Goku and whatever ally he chooses is usually to whipe out all the bad guys out, before they whipe you out.

Graphics.
The first thing that has been improved is the graphics. No longer are they badly done characters with light coloring to make them look cartoonish. They are now fully cel shaded and they now look exactly like they do in the cartoon series, but even more shiny. The special moves and special effects are also better with bigger and better looking clips for the Z warriors busting out all there special moves.

Sound.
The music is Dragon Ball Z and if you like the music in the series you’ll like this. Also the voice cast that does the voices from the 3rd saga on do the voices for all the characters on this one. Not the greatest voice actors the world has ever known but they do the voices pretty well.

Gameplay.
The main mode Dragon World.
Now many people are crying that they don’t put the clips back in this one. While I liked the clips, there where definite problems with the story mode doing it like that. You where pretty much stucked to Goku at all times, you where limited to your moves, and the scenes started to get dull about 3 or 4th time you’ve seen them. Now that this has all been done away with let me tell you what the board game add’s.

You can now pick more then one character per saga. Your not Goku all the time, while he’s in all the stages and if he dies it’s game over. The fact that there are several back up characters for you to choose from is a great help. Also unlike the story mode in the original mode you can now use your customized character on the dragon world, in fact it’s pretty much required that you customize your characters in order to survive. Luckily this can be accomplish on the fly by just selecting a character and hitting the L1 button on the controller.

There is also a bit of strategy has you move on the board and encounter enemy characters, most enemies don’t die after the first fight but take 2 or 3, if you defeat one and then attack while there still dizzy you can cause double damage to there life bar. But be careful the same can be done to you. While traveling across the board you can pick up money and power up’s and move capsules to help you win.

Another great thing that the board does is that you can now actually hunt and find those elusive Dragon Balls. In the original you where just randomly given one after a fight. Now you can pick up the dragon radar and one the stage it will point to the spot where one of the dragon balls are. Find the spot and waste a turn by hitting square to search. If your right your character will pull up a dragon ball. If you find all 7 dragon ball in a game of Dragon World you can summon Shenron after you beat Kid Buu. Shenron will grant you one of 3 wishes, which either allows you to unlock something or get a break through capsule for a character.

A break through capsule lets you use all your characters move and special moves, it takes all the slot in the customize scene so you won’t be able to use any green capsules to power up your character, but with characters that have a lot of moves like Goku and Vegeta they can come in handy.

Now your probably wonder how the fighting engine has improved, luckily it has improved greatly, but it’s far from any Capcom game. The controls are a lot tighter now then in the original and lot easier to pull of special moves. Speaking about special moves they actually do damage, compared to just throwing regular punches. The greatest improvement is that you now can pull of Kamahma’s or other projectile moves on the fly by just pressing over and energy blast. It makes these moves what there supposed to be projectile attacks that you can launch from far away. Of course the game will pause giving your oppontant ample time to block or dodge these attacks. And even counter attack, and vice versia in a lot of cases but because these moves can be put in and done so quickly does increase the fun in this game.

Also most of the blue capsule moves like Zanku fist and continues Kamahamha have been changed a little bit, In Zanku fist for example rather then just doing them once you enter the correct command a little button map appears. The goal if for the person who’s getting hit to match up with the person attacking, if both players push the same button then the one getting attack escapes. In attacks like the continues Kamahamha’s for example the analog sticks are rotated has fast has you can to fill up a bar, if successful you get an extra large fire ball to throw at your oppontant at the end of the barrage.

Another new thing that they added in is Fusions. With the exception of a few boards in dragon world the fusion capsules can only be used in 2p duels or in Babadi’s space ship. Some characters can fuse together and create stronger characters, and there are 2 ways of doing it. There’s the fusion dance that when activated starts a little strand of buttons that have to be pressed right before the characters fuse. In the case of the most obvious one Goten and Trunks if done right you get a rather strong looking Gotenks who can turn into a super sayian 3 instantly, and has some really weird but strong attacks like the super ghost kamikaze. This type of fusion also permits unlimited use of special moves without powering up. But there’s two disadvantages of using this fusion, the first one is that if you don’t enter the string correctly you’ll get a rather fat Gotenks who runs out of breath every 3 punches, and even when you enter it right the fusion lasts only last a minute before an enemy can undo it. While a character can stay fused even long after the time bar runs out if they get knocked down they will return to normal, similar to being knock down has super sayian when your special bar is below what it takes to become a super sayian.

The 2nd type is the Potara fusion these are done by special earrings and the easiest one to get is Vegito (Goku and Vegeta). These are done by equipping the fusion capsule and then activating it, a button map like Zaku fist appears and the symbols don’t match then the two characters will put the earrings on and merge. The advantage to this is that it is permitted, once done it’s impossible for the enemy to unfuse a character. But you will still need to power up your special move bar. The one draw back if the symbols do match then your unable to try again for the rest of the match.

Be on the lookout for unlockable gag fusions like Gokule, which fuses Hercule and Goku together through fusion. If your wondering what this character looks like imagine Goku’s face and body with Hercule’s gotiue, large afro, and hick accent.

Despite the improvements though there’s still problem you can’t really fly, or jump for that matter. Your pretty much stuck to dodging on the ground, you start flying when someone knocks you up into the air and then chases after you, you then start to fight on an invisible plat form in the sky for the most part. It’s a problem that I hope they can air out in Budokai 3.

Different modes.
World Tournament mode is back so you can win money to buy those capsules you need to let you do your special moves. Win your way through the tournament and get to the final to win the money. This is pretty much the same has the original but it has seen some improvements. For one thing the ring is a lot bigger then it is in the original and there is a barrier on the far side to keep you going out in one direction. With the bigger ring and the fact that your save if you get corner in at least one direction the chances of you loosing from an enemy using a strong attack from the middle of the ring are lessen.

Babadi’s Space ship.
In the original we got a special mode where you played through the cell games has Hercule. While Hercule can still be unlocked with all his cowardly moves and explosives still there to give you a laugh, his main mode isn’t. Instead you get Babadi’s space ship a mode filled with a few mini games, and which completed successfully can give you access to all the 3 Buu’s and there moves. The games include how many times you can kill an oppontant who only has a red life bar, but they keep getting back up and they keep getting harder. To how long you can survive a beating on by an invincible oppontant. There is also a game in which you have to reflect ki blasts back at each other in a ping pong type style. Then there is a game where you see how many hits you can get on an oppontant. Each game gives you kili, the better you do the more you get. The kili fills up a power gage and the fuller you get the more Buu’s and there moves that you get to use.

Final Recommendation
If you liked the original then your going to love this. Yeah the cinematic scenes where thrown away, but if you care so much about watching the Dragon Ball Z storyline then go out and buy a DVD box sets with episodes to pop in to your PS2. Has far has the actual game goes it’s a big improvement over the last game with better graphics, better looking moves, and a board game that actually gives you access to the Dragon Balls and Shenron.

Recommended: Yes