Budokai-esq cutscenes

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 11:36 am

I've noticed recently, that the newer Dragonball games are trying to replicate the original Dragonball Z Budokai cutscenes, from Sparking! to Sparking! NEO for example.
You can tell that they are trying to put more efforting into it, making sure it replicates the anime 100%.
So, why do they suck ass?
Put Budokai into your PS2/Gamecube, please, right now, I swear, even now you'll be impressed by the great fluent visuals. You'd think now the cut-scenes would be a hundred times BETTER, not worse.
So, the discussion:
Why do you think its taking them so long to make a decent cut-scenes again?

Conan the SSJ · Post by **Conan the SSJ** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:40 pm

The simple answer why; Bandai and Dimps worked probably close to 2 years on the first Budokai, as they admitted that a lot of that time went into meticulously creating the cut-scenes to match the anime (and in some instances like Goku's SSJ transformation, the manga) as best as possible, in comparison to the average 8-or-so months of practical rush jobs for the later games (though let's be honest with Sagas, it probably had more like 4 months). The first Budokai's attention to the cut-scenes likely resulted in its game-play being nowhere near on par to the later games of Budokai 2 and 3, which improved significantly while obviously taking a back-seat to said cut-scenes developing. As for the first Sparking!, obviously too much attention was put into its cut-scenes development given the little amount of time SPIKE had to finish the game, so we basically had 90 different forms of characters that couldn't transform, had almost all of the exact same moves, and participated in maybe 20 out of however-the-hell many it was cut-scenes that could only fit two fighters in the same battle arena with very clunky slow-mo animation. Obviously, this was improved by the time Sparking! NEO/BT2 came out, as the cut-scenes where characters stood around waiting to take a piss now allowed them to do actual things (take off/land, transform to SSJ, and even a couple rare treats like the Saibamen kamikaze and Goku helping Gohan against Bojack) with multiple characters in the same scene, while we also received at least 8 noteworthy big cut-scenes on development par to the greatness that Budokai 1 had in its time.

TAS · Post by **TAS** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:15 pm

^Perfect answer.

It's basicly a trade off like Conan described. If you spend a lot of time on the presentation then the gameplay suffers or vice versa.

Also note that every DBZ fighter made after the first Budokai game was made in less then a year, except Super DBZ, because apparently Bandai/Atari really wanted to have a new DBZ fighter every year, so as a result every fighter from there on out only got a development time of a year or less. Super DBZ was a different situation though as it was developed alongside the Sparking games, so Bandai wasn't all that strict about it as long as they had Sparking to push out.

And Conan right about how the cutscene situation in B1 worked. I remember the diector of the Budokai series talking about it when he was asked why B2 didn't feature the same type of cutscenes as B1.

To me an easier thing to do from now on would to be use portraits like B3 and the Shin Budokai games use but make them fully animated instead of just various frames (normal, mad, suprised) ie actually make them breath/move, lyp sync, show the animation between emotions, instead of just jumping to a completely new frame, etc. It shouldn't be too hard if they do everybody from the shoulders up like in B3.

Undercooked Sausage · Post by **Undercooked Sausage** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:22 pm

I might be in the minority, but Budokai 1 was my favorite out of the budokai series because of the cut scenes, it really drew me into the game.

I don't really play DBZ for gameplay, if I want a good fighter, I'll just play Street Fighter or something. Budokai's gameplay was fair(not as good as 2 or 3), but it was passable to the point where I enjoyed the game more than the other two because of it's presentation.

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:11 am

Undercooked Sausage wrote:I might be in the minority, but Budokai 1 was my favorite out of the budokai series because of the cut scenes, it really drew me into the game..

You are the hero guy!

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:58 pm

I will now explain why I like Ultimate Battle 22. Cool variety and a good number of cutscenes. Of course they were so horribly drawn that even the kid who typically doesn't care about graphics noticed... but eh.

I agree though that Budokai tends to win in the cutscene department... most of the cutscenes in Budokai 3 are just random 'walk into a bar, stand there and talk, leave'. A few scenes struck me as B1 quality, but I can't comment on the graphical presentation, so yeah...

And I'm going to push alt+s before I go on a gameplay rant.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:32 pm

Yep, I think we can all almost agree that it's because of the gameplay-cutscenes tradoff. I say, if you can get awesome cutscenes and amazing gameplay, then I don't mind waiting another year or so.

Xyex · Post by **Xyex** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 1:22 am

Yeah. B1's cutscenes were really well done. There were a few points that slipped through (Piccolo's lips not moving when talking before launch the SBC, characters not in a scene like they should be like 16 vanishing before the Vegeta/18 fight, etc). But on the over all the scenes rocked. Goku and Vegeta's face off, Vegeta blasting Zarbon, Goku using the Spirit Bomb and transforming, and so on. Even little details like Vegeta's foot impression on 19's face were there.

BT2 tried to match it, and in some ways it did. The animations (and models) weren't as smooth. The expressions not as good. But their *actual* cutscenes were still of pretty good quality.

With BT1 Spike spent so much time on designing the characters and arenas they didn't have time to do anything else (cutscenes, gameplay, etc). BT2 gave them a bit of a break since most of the characters existed and the engine only needed tweaking and not built from scratch. If they'd had two years to make the game it could have come out even better than B1 cutscene wise.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:22 pm

You know what would be really nice? If they actually redrew key moments and put those in as cutscenes. You know, with animation like in the B2/3 themes.

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:26 pm

Everyone keeps commenting on how awesomely fabtastical these cutscenes are. Does anyone know where on Youtube I can find some?

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Wed May 02, 2007 4:52 pm

Anonymous Friend wrote:Everyone keeps commenting on how awesomely fabtastical these cutscenes are. Does anyone know where on Youtube I can find some?

Just go to Youtube and type in "DBZ: Budokai 1 cutscene" or something like that, you'll find something.

Jord · Post by **Jord** » Thu May 03, 2007 4:35 am

like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspV5o7_KuE

Xyex · Post by **Xyex** » Thu May 03, 2007 5:15 am

The Budokai 1 opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJcRp4T5ukc

The 'montage' video that plays if you don't push start (uses clips from the game's cutscenes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwDWxoxgCVc

Raditz (in Italian XD):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1FjuO8IdpU

A collection of (I think, haven't watched it all yet) various clips from all the cutscenes (to Head Cha La no less):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tvBIIk0pR4

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:30 pm

WOW ...

...
that's ... umm ...

WOW!!!

umm ...

Those are just ... wow.

I might have to pick this up for a little while.

Thanos6 · Post by **Thanos6** » Mon May 28, 2007 6:34 pm

Refresh my memory: were the Budokai series originally made in the US or Japan?

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Mon May 28, 2007 6:41 pm

Thanos6 wrote:Refresh my memory: were the Budokai series originally made in the US or Japan?

The good 'le Rising Sun. I think only Sagas was mad in the USA.

Taku128 · Post by **Taku128** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:18 am

Xyex wrote:A collection of (I think, haven't watched it all yet) various clips from all the cutscenes (to Head Cha La no less):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tvBIIk0pR4

Huh, they translated Jinzoningen as Android in the Japanese version.

Sun_Wukong · Post by **Sun_Wukong** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:53 am

ugg, I forgot how bad Budokai 1's graphics were, dispite it being my first ps2 game

Pedro The Hutt · Post by **Pedro The Hutt** » Tue May 29, 2007 5:10 pm

Taku128 wrote:
Xyex wrote:A collection of (I think, haven't watched it all yet) various clips from all the cutscenes (to Head Cha La no less):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tvBIIk0pR4
Huh, they translated Jinzoningen as Android in the Japanese version.

That's because apparently whenever they need to write character names in english (or romaji) they refer to the Funimation translations of those names.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:03 pm

Thanos6 wrote:Refresh my memory: were the Budokai series originally made in the US or Japan?

Made in Japan with US gamers in mind. The same goes for the rest of the Budokais & the Sparking! series. Super DBZ was made more for the Japanese/Arcade crowd.