Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for Wii Reviews by Gamers

The Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi games have always been a breath of fresh air into a stale fighting game arena. They offer fast gameplay with lots of glitz and flashy effects to it.

Game controls have been improved upon. It took some getting used to with the wii remote (block is now A+B for example), but all in all I find it much more comfortable. The tracking point is gone and instead special moves require you to hold down one of the direction buttons on the Wiimote’s D pad and perform the motion.

The story mode improvements are my personal favorites though. This time around there is no annoying map to navigate and most sagas take place over 3-4 battles. The battles are long and tough, and follow the story (if you wish). What I mean is when fighting Nappa in the first saga, you start as Tien. If you are very skilled you can beat Nappa as Tien and end the battle victoriously. If however you can’t (he is off course, extremely tough) you can wait a bit and a command will appear asking you to press 1 (if using the wiimote). Every time the 1 command appears something from the show happens basically, until eventually Goku arrives and your beat Nappa then on your own. It offers a much more fulfilling experience for me.

Now for the cons of the game. There isn’t a whole lot that was added. Sure some new maps and characters, but the roster is far too big at this point. Personally I never see myself actually seriously playing as “Frieza’s Soldier” so most of the new characters seem like a joke to me.

The difficulty was increased greatly. This game’s Easy mode is roughly as tough as Tenkaichi 2’s Normal mode; making the first time though the game on anything but easy quite murderous. This isn’t too bad for die hard fans, but with battles being extremely long (5+ minutes usually) if you slip up due to an unfair advantage on the AI’s side you’re fighting the whole battle all over again.

So if you love DBZ this game is a must, and if you like fighting games in general, try it.

I must say I love this game. When it comes to gameplay this game recieves a 12 out of 10. Any time the game is played single player (no split screen) it runs very smoothly. The control scheme is very well done because newcomers can play and understand the basics but it still gives the hardcore DBZ fan the oppurtunity to master very intricate controls.
If I were to list all the things I absolutly love about this game it would be far too long so I will list my only complaints.

1) Character customization
A custom character will allways have the same combos and special/ultimate moves as normal characters. The customizable option adds "perks" and attribute boosts only. I think of this as a very minor complaint.

2) Lack of (real) cut-scenes.
This issue really bothered me, some really important moments in DB, DBZ, and even GT were really messed up due to all the "cut scenes" using the in-game engine: Beacuse of this, the cut-scenes look horrible, can only show two characters, and require certain attacks to be extremely story specific (ex. DB goku has the "penitrate" move that killed king piccolo that shows him going through the opposing character, but after the sequence the opposing character obviously dosnt have a gaping hole in their body). Also when scenes include 3 or more characters, characters need to be swapped out in an in-game fashion. But if you are familiar with the story this dosnt matter much, but is it the biggest flaw.

3) HIGH LAGGING ONLINE, EVEN IF YOU HAVE A GOOD CONNECTION

REGARDLESS ALL THE BAD THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS REVIEW THIS IS MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE WII GAME AND EVERYONE EVERYWHERE SHOULD EXPERIENCE THIS GREAT GAME!