Writing this while
waiting for the teacher to arrive...
Dragon Ball Budokai HD Collection brings two games of the Budokai Trilogy of fighting games to the HD realm. Yeah, they are skipping Budokai 2, but honestly, it's
not much of a loss. The story mode was a drag, and the fighting itself is not as polished as Budokai 3, the only thing you could possibly miss would be the what if fusions, which were a bit of a novelty anyways.
First of all, I'm gonna talk about Dragon Ball Budokai 1, and... it certainly has
seen better days. Surprisingly, the game's standout feature is the story mode, that goes from the Sayian Saga to the Cell Saga. The story is told by
excellent cut-scenes that capture the most iconic moments from those sagas as you go from fight to fight. While the initial run takes you through Goku's perspective, you can later unlock missing scenes from in-between that flesh out the story, but if you are a Dragon Ball nut, you probably know it already.
The gameplay hasn't aged very well. You have four buttons: Punch, Kick, Energy and Guard. While pressing Energy by itself allows you to shoot a small proyectile, stringing together certain combinations of punches, kicks and direction followed by Energy allows you to use the trademark moves like the Kamehameha, provided you have enough Ki to use them. There's also chargeable moves and meteor attacks, but they are pretty
shallow. On the flip side, the gameplay is so simple that anyone can pick it up and start having fun in seconds.
As you play through the Story Mode, you will unlock Capsules that you can use to customize your character. This range from your special attacks, like the Kamehameha to passive effects or special effects, like resurrection. While it seems fun on the outset, you need to get the capsules, and getting the ones you want can be a
lenghty, grindy process. If you play Tournament Mode you will get money that you can spend on the shop, but what the shop sells is random , so you will have to enter and exit until you get what you want. Granted, once you get everything, tinkering with characters can be fun, but it's also a must, since the "Normal" movesets for the characters are pretty lame and lack moves, so in order to make the most of it, you will want capsules.
Visually, it hasn't aged well. Animations look a bit stiff, and sometimes odd. The character models themselves are on the
simpler side, featuring little in the way of texture, granted, they do have some kind of charm. The cutscenes, however, are still as fantastic as they were before, but sometimes a few of the shadows may glitch a bit, which didn't happen in the original version, hardly a deal breaker though!. The voice acting is still pretty good,
only in english though, but what may surprise people the most... is that there is new
music. There were some legal troubles surrounding the odd tunes, so they couldn't use them anymore. The new music isn't bad, but the music used during the Story Mode feel out of place during certain scenes, which is a shame, as they take away from the impressiveness that they
used to have.
All in all, the game is very dated, however, the story-mode is still fantastic and unmatched by any other story mode on a Dragon Ball game, so it's still worth playing if just for that mode alone. There's also an unlockable mode in which you play as Hercule as he tries to take down the Z warriors which is on the funny side. Sadly, most characters feel really samey, having the same punches and kicks, and while their proyectiles have different names and colors, they feel the same too. Heck, most special attacks are very
similar. Still, the story mode redeems it(It's
that good).
Then
there's Budokai 3. The gameplay builds upon the foundations laid by Budokai 1. You still have the same four buttons, meteor attacks and chargeable moves, but there are new additions. Now you can use special attacks by pressing Energy and a Direction, instead of having to be part of a combo. Now there is
Teleportation, by pressing Guard right before getting hit, you will teleport behind an oponent and hit him instead, and by pressing Circle after certain moves, you will follow up and hit them as if they were a ping pong ball, as long as you have Ki to expend. There are also Beam Struggles, if both characters shoot a beam-type proyectile at the same time, they will collide, and you will have to
mash buttons in order to have your beam overcome theirs. Pressing all the buttons at the same time initiates Hyper Mode, which gives you Super Armor and enables you to use your Ultimate Attack or a Dragon Rush. Dragon Rush is a 3-stage attack, in which you and your oponent must press three buttons. If the enemy presses the same button as you do, they will block and end the Dragon Rush. While a lot of people love that feature, it gets old really fast, and you'll just want to carry on playing normally, there's a lot of watching during Dragon Rushes.
The Capsules return, and are just like they were on Budokai 1: On paper, it's a cool and fun idea, but the default movesets for each character are really
lame, Goku can't even go Super Saiyan 1, so you will have to grind money and pray for luck when entering the store, in order to get what you want. Instead of a Story Mode, you have Dragon Universe. There's about 10 characters that have a Dragon Universe, and it follows the story of Dragon Ball Z, but it's told via character cut outs and dialogue, not very interesting
or engaging. During Dragon Universe, you get to raise the level and place stat points on your character, but this only applies here and in the Dragon Arena. The World Tournament Mode returns, alongside versus mode, and there's a new mode, Dragon Arena. In Dragon Arena, you can take any of the 40+ characters and level them up, as you fight enemies of
different levels.
The presentation is beautiful. Characters now sport cell-shading and
unique stances! Animations also flow and look much better, even if some return from Budokai 1. And while there are some basic moves shared among characters, all the strings are unique to each character, so that's pretty cool. The music fits the game, although if you played the original version, you will find out that all the music is
different here too. The american dub is still pretty good, but now you can switch it to Japanese, if that is your jam.
So, is it worth it? Yes. Budokai 1 is pretty dated, and the gameplay is way more polished and satisfying in 3, however, the story mode deserves to be played
at least once. And Budokai 3 is worth
every penny. As a package, Budokai HD Collection is a bit disappointing though, as
horrible as Budokai 2 was(You will need to go through the Story Mode in order to unlock everything), it's
omission feels more as lazy than due to it's quality, then there's the minor annoyance that you have to
quit the game(From the XMB!) in order to swap games, poor design choice right there, and some people may find issue with the fact that the cutscenes kept the old ratio, at least the gameplay is in complete widescreen.
Budokai 1: 4 out 10.
Budokai 3: 8 out of 10.
Budokai HD Collection:
7 out of 10.
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