Anyone else think BT2 had one of the worst story modes of any of these games?

[WittyUsername]

Obviously, people don’t really talk much about the Tenkaichi/Sparking games at this point, but back when they were still the talk of the town, a major factor about Budokai Tenkaichi 2 that fans seemed was its story mode. I always heard people talk about how that game had one of the best story modes of any DBZ game. People also especially argued that its story mode was the big advantage it had over BT3. Personally, I always found that game’s story mode to be pretty terrible.

The cutscenes are awkward and lifeless most of the time, and even though there are occasional moments where there’s some actual animation used, it still doesn’t look all that good. Meanwhile, the map you fly around on serves no purpose other than giving you a place to grind. It’s a completely inferior copy of the one from Budokai 3. Also, while the story has a lot of fights, a good chunk of them involve fighting against the same enemy over and over again, and worse, you’re only allowed to play as the good guys. FighterZ has that problem as well, but that game at least has an original story that gives you some amusing character interactions.

Frankly, I always much preferred the story mode for BT3.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

There is something to be said for Tenkaichi 2's being "thorough to a fault", the few characters it was lacking aside. In glut of of endless Dragon Ball games that is a small honor to take. T3's looks a lot smaller at first, but all the optional scene transitions packed into each fight make them longer than they seem and honestly don't waste your time treating every little skirmish equally. It fits the with general progression of Tenkaichi 2 to 3. In T2 Spike finished the underlying game mechanics and art style but, therefore, didn't have enough time to "play" with it, so we get a story mode of endless static menus, whereas by Tenkaichi 3 most of the assets were done and they could really sit down to polish.

[Xeno Goku Black]

While I can't remember the name that well at this point, I do recall it took every little confrontation no matter how minor and made a individual fight out of it. Made it pretty tedious.

[Rory]

The devs at Spike bit off more than they could chew. They simply weren't equipped to animated such a large amount of content, so they found a lazy solution: Stick models in their idle poses, and every now and then make them do something very minor in order to break up the monotony. When the devs at Dimps tackled a similar type of story mode, they likely made the decision very early that there would be no cutscenes, therefore were able to nail a more interesting/rewarding gameplay loop: explore/fly, read a small bit of text for context of what will happen next, fight.
This speaks to how one of the projects was really treated this as a game project, they wanted to make sure people could enjoy playing the fruits of their labour, not 'kind of sort of watch Dragon Ball but not really'. This 'just cause' factor to game design tends to hurt most of Spikes games to some degree, but seeing two different studios try their hand at a similar style of story mode really brings this in focus.

[Thanos]

I did find it tedious, although that's no different from Budokai 3's story mode for me. I actually find Infinite World's solution of just running around with a little Goku instantly going to fights/grabbing objects a lot more efficient than having a whole-ass loading screen for some slideshow of dialogue telling me I found an item, then loading back into the map. By the time BT3/METEOR rolled around I didn't give a shit and just wanted all the characters, so a blatant lazy but quick story mode, albeit with in-battle dynamic events and dialogue that didn't interrupt the flow of fights was a really nice touch. I actually think that was a really cool feature that made it actually feel like you were participating in that event as opposed to just playing a pre-determined versus match. I don't hear much said about that game's story mode but I know people seem to love the second game's for some reason. Though Budokai 2's still might be in the running for favorite for me, so what do I know...?

[Xeogran]

Frankly, I always much preferred the story mode for BT3.

BT3's story mode problem is that only two characters can be shown on screen at the same time. I don't know why they added such limitation, but it was awkward in fights like Goku & Piccolo vs Raditz for example. They constantly had to swap positions, or spoke as invisible ghosts. BT2 wins in that regard.

[WittyUsername]

Frankly, I always much preferred the story mode for BT3.

BT3's story mode problem is that only two characters can be shown on screen at the same time. I don't know why they added such limitation, but it was awkward in fights like Goku & Piccolo vs Raditz for example. They constantly had to swap positions, or spoke as invisible ghosts. BT2 wins in that regard.

While I agree that not allowing more than one character onscreen at the same time could get a little awkward, I think it was a brilliant idea to have characters exchange dialogue during the fight. It’s a nice idea that makes the fights feel more distinct and lively. Besides, I’d say that the BT2 story mode is much more awkward overall. Sure, the game’s story mode allows for more than two characters on the screen, but what difference does it make if the characters are just standing around and overacting with those stiff models?

[Yuli Ban]

It's the same issue that we see in plenty of other game series: the standards for Dragon Ball games set by Dragon Ball fans is not the same standard that video gamers use for video games in general.

By those standards, virtually no Dragon Ball game has a good story mode, not even FighterZ. Sparking! NEO is a pathetic excuse of one that completely butchers the main story at that with atrocious voice acting and writing, made worse by the fact it actually does try to cover the entire story in excruciating detail (making the pacing of the entire thing genuinely feel like a Dragon Ball Z Simulator). What DBZ fans adore is that it actually made the attempt, not the execution thereof. These games are notorious for using an abridged retread of the Raditz to Boo grind every single time, with GT occasionally included, so actually including the smaller beats and longer journey in detail is an interesting twist in and of itself.

Even back in the day, the thing that interested me the most in the game was the what-ifs and ways the story presented differed from the official one. Because they didn't have a GT Kid Goku model, they completely changed the ending to GT to compensate, for example. The "Raditz Turns Good" scenario wasn't able to go all out because they didn't have any other model for him to use and weren't willing to put in the effort to make one for a what-if side plot anyway.

See, the fact that they put in so much effort trying to retell the story gave fans hope that a future game might actually try going through the entire series (from beginning of DB to end of GT) with even more "what-ifs" included because it seemed like the quality of these games was actually still going up gradually; of course Sparking! NEO's overworld was inferior to Budokai 3's, but that would only mean that Sparking! Meteor would be even more polished and exceptional!

Except it wasn't. Sure, it had more playable characters, more customization options, and whatnot, but it subtracted from the earlier game in several ways. I don't think many people actually care because DBZ games had long become borderline shovelware in the eyes of gamers at large, and people were (and still are) really coming more for a DBZ Simulator anyway, but it's those nuances that are why people can't decide which is the better game.

[WittyUsername]

It's the same issue that we see in plenty of other game series: the standards for Dragon Ball games set by Dragon Ball fans is not the same standard that video gamers use for video games in general.

By those standards, virtually no Dragon Ball game has a good story mode, not even FighterZ. Sparking! NEO is a pathetic excuse of one that completely butchers the main story at that with atrocious voice acting and writing, made worse by the fact it actually does try to cover the entire story in excruciating detail (making the pacing of the entire thing genuinely feel like a Dragon Ball Z Simulator). What DBZ fans adore is that it actually made the attempt, not the execution thereof. These games are notorious for using an abridged retread of the Raditz to Boo grind every single time, with GT occasionally included, so actually including the smaller beats and longer journey in detail is an interesting twist in and of itself.

Even back in the day, the thing that interested me the most in the game was the what-ifs and ways the story presented differed from the official one. Because they didn't have a GT Kid Goku model, they completely changed the ending to GT to compensate, for example. The "Raditz Turns Good" scenario wasn't able to go all out because they didn't have any other model for him to use and weren't willing to put in the effort to make one for a what-if side plot anyway.

See, the fact that they put in so much effort trying to retell the story gave fans hope that a future game might actually try going through the entire series (from beginning of DB to end of GT) with even more "what-ifs" included because it seemed like the quality of these games was actually still going up gradually; of course Sparking! NEO's overworld was inferior to Budokai 3's, but that would only mean that Sparking! Meteor would be even more polished and exceptional!

Except it wasn't. Sure, it had more playable characters, more customization options, and whatnot, but it subtracted from the earlier game in several ways. I don't think many people actually care because DBZ games had long become borderline shovelware in the eyes of gamers at large, and people were (and still are) really coming more for a DBZ Simulator anyway, but it's those nuances that are why people can't decide which is the better game.

I mean, yeah, BT3 has a significantly shorter story mode, but I’d say that works to its advantage. Its story is much more to the point, and despite lacking any true cutscenes, it feels much more interactive and lively by actually having characters talk during the fights. Plus, it’s currently the only one of any of these fighting games to actually cover the pre-Raditz stuff in its story mode. Sure, the game treats that stuff like a prequel, and the fights are done out of order, but it’s better than nothing.

[DBZAOTA482]

Dragon Adventure definitely didn't age well. I liked it just fine as a kid once you have a lot of time on your hands at that age but as an adult, it's a chore to deal with because pretty much all you do is fight and there's A LOT of fighting. Pretty much it's a watered-down version of Dragon Universe, but I wouldn't say it's one of the worst.

Dragon Road, Dragon Mission, Dragon Battle Collection, Story Mode (Ultimate Tenkaichi, it's a worse version of Dragon Adventure), etc. are unquestionably worse.