#1: DragonBall Z Budokai 3's "Dragon Universe"
I've chosen this as the absolute best story mode for a many number of reasons. First off, it has so much replayable aspects to it, you could play each character's story mode 7 or 10 times and still wanna come back for more. The fact that we get to choose which fighter's point of view to play as when going in is awesome, and we get 11 choices. The world-flying system (similarly seen in such DBZ games as SNES's "DBZ Legend of the Super Saiyan" and GBA's "DBZ Legacy of Goku II") was beyond awesome, it was near breath taking. We could fly wherever on Earth we wanted, have virtually limitless story elements hidden through out the planet, and the designs for the classic DB/Z cities and landmarks were unrivaled. The cut-scenes were of course not the best impression, but at least the VAs put decent work into them and they were still made interesting for us DBZ fans. Along with the hidden story elements and frequent red dot landmarks were also the hidden "What-If" aspects, which were just as great as the actual story accuracy considering we could battle such foes as Cooler, Metal Cooler, Broly, Omega Shenron, and even do pure fusion and SSJ4 battles. The Shenron summoning sequence definitely owns each time seeing it, the credits are awesomely put together, and everything else is just...awesome! Also, the RPG concept of leveling-up combined with the aspects of interacting with other characters when landing at certain spots...fan-freakin'-tastic!!
#2: DragonBall Z Budokai's "Story"
Put simply, the cut-scenes in this story selection were the best in any DBZ game period. The cinematic 3D feel just gave such a fantastic vibe, it was unreal. Every detail Dimps put into Budokai's cut-scenes were fabulous, flawless, and just as impressive as watching the series. While the game-play for the fighting matches was admittingly repetitive and annoying (presetting the fighters' move stats), it was still quite enjoyable and we could always go back and enjoy playing them again. Fun elements implemented were the mini-games that actually branched off from the normal fighting system and proved quite entertaining and a feel that you were right in the anime. Also, the "What-If" extra chapters were hilarious, fun, and just downright entertaining. The cut-scenes were top notch, the graphics were truly beyond this world, and the fighting matches were still fun to do.
#3: DragonBall Z Sagas' "Play Sagas"
I've placed Sagas at "#3" simply because I feel that it deserves that place. It was first off designed to put the fighter on a path to complete a goal in each chapter, and it was pretty fun to play more than once. I actually quite enjoyed the cut-scenes element, using an all new animated sequence from Toei for the "Prologue" chapter, and combining scenes from the actual series into decently done cut-scenes voiced by the Narrator. The game-play within the mode offered combat where we could battle Saibamen, Frieza's henchmen, and originally made fighters. Parts of mode I thoroughly enjoyed were the "History of Trunks" and original "Yardrat" sagas. History of Trunks was seriously quite fun to play, as this was the first time in any DBZ game where we could play out and experience Trunks' trials before coming to the present to battle Frieza. Also, the special "Yardrat" saga gave us an originally made character just for the game, "Soba". I felt the arenas for the game-play weren't as bad as a lot of people make them out to be, though it admittingly could have been a hell of a lot better considering it was released just last March. Considering other aspects such as accuracy to the DBZ story, I feel Sagas did a pretty good job, and I had some fun going through the Raditz - Cell Games arcs that included nice cut-scenes and interesting aspects, not to mention a couple in-game cut-scenes were made (Goku's Spirit Bomb against Vegeta, Jeice escaping Goku). Kinda fun, kinda fun...
#4: DragonBall Z Budokai Tenkaichi's "Z Battle Gate"
An all right story mode, contained some pretty good "What-If" ideas, just executed a lot of aspects wrongly. First off, the cut-scenes. VERY lousy, about 60% of them were just the characters standing/flying talking, in the manner of which I've heard referred to as "Waiting to take a piss...". The cut-scenes that actually did have some interest and/or combat did so by executing blend slow motion with combat that looked far weaker than the game-play in the actual fights. Hell, the Prologue and Epilogue chapters contained better cut-scene action than the fighting chapters, and those in themselves were pretty lousy. Other than the badly executed cut-scenes aspect, there's the choice for playing out basically any part of the DBZ/GT story (except, of course, for the Shadow Dragon arc). Basically the only "new" aspects we received for a story mode were the Bardock special, Bojack and Janemba movies (both pathetically containing only ONE chapter), and the 5 "What-If" selections, the only ones I liked were the "Plan to Concur Earth" and "True World Tournament" selections. In the actual fighting aspects, while the free roaming environments are fun to battle in, some of the fights are just made too damn hard (Goku Vs. Oozaru-Vegeta, the Kid Buu survival battles), and the length was just unbearably long for my tastes. Once finishing the mode, there's really no desire to wanna go back and play again straight through. Basically, could have been a lot better had it not been a pure (very lousy) cut-scenes story mode with nothing but fighting matches to do, and ones that weren't all fun either. No world-flying or leveling up system, no options to pick the stats for the fighters before playing the chapters, and just...meh. The only thing that has gotten me to go back and play any of the chapters more than once were the Japanese VAs, sorry, but it's true. On the note of the Japanese VAs, it was awesome finally getting to play the story out with them in full gear, so score 1 there. Oh, did I mention the Shenron summoning sequence looks completely idiotic, at least compared to the 3 Budokais?
#5: DragonBall Z Budokai 2's "Dragon World"
Well...basically, this was just the least fun of a story mode for me. The ideas for the original aspects (Frieza and the Ginyu Force coming to Earth, Goku meeting Vegeta on Namek, Babidi bringing back Cell and Frieza under Majin power) were executed decently enough, it's just...the 2D board game aspect, I just couldn't find myself anywhere near impressed with it. It certainly didn't help things that the board game aspect and the simple fighting matches were the only things to play around with in the mode. The animations for the meeting of battling a foe weren't anywhere near impressive, and it worsens things that Goku's meetings with the enemy were the only actual cut-scenes for Dragon World's "cut-scenes". Another thing that made this mode not very enjoyable was its very long length and the aspect that I couldn't find myself going back to play more than a few times. I do wish the Neko Majin level wouldn't have been cut out, guess that was due to licensing issues for exposing it to an American audience (it is, like Dr. Slump, an entirely different series than DragonBall). Oh well...guess that's that.
DAMN, that took a while to type out. Anyway, that was just from my point of view, please don't feel a need to argue, as I'm not saying that's the way everyone should feel
. Anyway, post your thoughts and outlooks on the various story modes through out these past 5 Ps2 games, while I take a nap. Later.
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