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Friday 12 January, 2007
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 was the first game I had ever played on the Wii, and from what I have experienced it is a fair introduction to the console's revolutionary motion-sensor remote (though some of the special moves are prohibitively difficult to execute). Budokai Tenkaichi, which roughly translates to "Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournament", is a fully 3D fighting game based on the hit anime series "Dragon Ball Z". Vividly colored and tastefully cell-shaded, even navigating the character select menu was an energizing experience. The voice talents are the same used for the show and the music isn't terribly annoying, which is about as much as you can ask from a fighting game based on an anime.
Gameplay appears complex but is surprisingly intuitive for anyone with a history of playing fighting games. Characters exist in a fully 3D environment, wherein they may dash, fly, and even teleport. Offensive maneuvers take three forms: ranged attacks, melee attacks, and special attacks. Ranged attacks are typically low damage, but can be charged up to deal more and knock the opponent down. Melee attacks can be counters, used to throw a foe, or chained into combos. Special attacks, which I personally have yet to master, usually involve a short cinematic scene and ludicrous, table-turning quantities of luminescent pain.
Because the game features over 129 characters, I decided the only way I could discover one that matched my play style would be to just pick at random. However, as I was playing against human opponents in a "loser-out" rotation, I had to quickly find a solid primary character, lest I be condemned to playing every fifth match. After a couple battles, I eventually settled on the green-skinned Piccolo, due to his supremely satisfying smackdown combos and highly effective counter attacks.
My first battle was an exercise in abject humiliation; as I desperately mashed my controller, failing to locate any button or trigger that invoked either a defense or an attack, my character was summarily violated by a relentless brute sporting spiky black hair and an orange and blue get-up. It was later conveyed to me that my efforts might have reached any degree of fruition if I had been pointing my remote at the screen, to which I replied with a vocalization that could have been interpreted as prior knowledge of this particular factoid, though I secretly resolved to not flail my controller about quite so much the next time.
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