Well, recently PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners/Dragon Ball Z fans were able to get their hands on the latest title in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series in the form of Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai.
For those of you who might not have known, “Shin” can be translated as “True” or "Real". This means you could take the game's title as meaning “True Budokai”, but compared to the exceptional Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 Greatest Hits, does this new game hold up to its title’s claim of being the definitive Dragon Ball video game?
That’s up to you to decide but this comparative review is meant to offer you both my opinion and information regarding these games.
Presentation (Cover, Manual, and Disc Art)*
Budokai 3 GH: The re-release of the game saw a new cover for the game and manual in the form of the Japanese version release with Goku and Vegeta dueling as Super Saiyans. The game disc has the game logo over a dark image of Omega Shenron. Meh… 7.5/10
Shin Budokai: The cover is very simple with an image of Super Saiyan 2 Goku over a close-up of Broly’s eyes. A few bolts of lightning don’t help much as this whole presentation a pretty uninspired. The game disc has the game logo over the same image of Broly’s eyes that is on the cover and manual, just zoomed in more. 3/10
These numbers aren’t factored into the Final Scores.
*Cover art and manual art are identical.
Intro. Movie/Theme Music:
B3GH: Great song with great looking animation and lots of action. 8/10
SB: Catchy new song (same one that plays on the game’s official JP site). The video itself is just clips of in-game fights and looks very unclean and fuzzy. 5/10
Music:
B3GH: Features tracks that are true to DBZ and match the game’s action well. Most of it is recycled from Budokai and Budokai 2. 8/10
SB: Aside from the new theme, all the music is identical to Budokai 3. 8/10
Graphics:
B3GH: Perfect Cel-Shaded graphics that greatly match DBZ’s style with fantastic looking backgrounds based on locations in the series. Has great looking special attacks as well. 9/10
SB: Pre-release screenshots showed this game looking near identical to B3’s. Unfortunately the game doesn’t look quite as good as we may have been led to believe. The backgrounds are gorgeous, on par with B3’s. The special attacks are fantastic looking too. On the other hand, the black lines detailing characters are very jagged looking somewhat detracting from the overall experience. During fight introductions and conclusions, the mouths don’t move in speaking character close-ups. Minor problems, but still a great looking game. 7/10
Game Play:
B3GH: The controls are very simple and responsive with punches, kicks, energy blasts, and blocks each assigned to their own button. Has great features, such as special attacks, teleporting, and in-game transformations to new levels of power. The Dragon Rush attacks look really nice but occur to often when playing the computer and slow the fast pace of the game down considerably. 9/10
SB: The controls are very similar to B3’s except punches and kicks are done by pressing the same button repeatedly. One button for normal physical attacks and another for stronger physical attacks. Blocking and energy attacks are executed the same as in B3. Special attacks, charging Ki and transformation are easily done. Great for a portable fighter. 8/10
Story Mode:
B3GH: Dubbed “Dragon Universe”. Very fun and follows the DBZ story from beginning to end with a little bit of DBGT thrown in. If nothing else, just flying all over Dragon World is a thrill. 8/10
SB: Dubbed “Dragon Road”. Loosely follows the events of DBZ Movie 12, “Fusion Reborn”. You follow Snake Way and battle a series of opponents with unspoken dialogue before and after every fight. Depending on some choices you make the story can branch in different directions. Unfortunately, the dialogue is very sloppy and poorly written. Sometimes it just plain doesn’t make sense what they’re saying. 6/10
Content:
B3GH: Many modes of play are available. A ton of playable characters with three extra added to this release and the original Japanese vocal track are icing on the cake. 9/10
SB: Wireless two player battles are possible with a Wi-Fi Ad Hoc connection (You can’t actually play over the internet). 18 playable characters doesn’t sound like a lot but it is the perfect number for this game it has all the big name character and two new ones never before seen in a Budokai game, Pikkon and Janemba. A selectable Japanese voice-over track sweetens the deal. The fact that this is a portable Budokai game gives it extras points. 9/10
Final Tid-bits:
Both of these are great games and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing through them. I do have one big gripe with Shin Budokai though:
In-game transformations are limited. On the character select screen you can use what form you want your character to be capable of. For example if you choose Goku: Super Saiyan 2, you will start the battle at base Goku and be capable of transforming to Super Saiyan 2. Nothing lower, nothing higher, just one transformation. Kind of disappointing.
Also there isn’t any Super Saiyan 4. Super Saiyan 3 is the highest level.
Final Score**:
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 Greatest Hits
8.5/10
Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai
7.2/10
**Final score is an average of the previous scores excluding the Presentation category.
So in the end it seems that Shin Budokai isn’t quite the best Dragon Ball Z game ever but it’s still pretty damn good. It is definitely what I had imagined a portable Budokai game would be like. In my opinion, both of these are worth getting. They offer great gameplay, replay value and are just plain fun to play.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to express them. Hope you enjoyed this review as much as I did playing the games and writing it. Thanks for reading,
-Jason
