The Kamehameha is the powerhouse of the Cell

(ok that was a lame one)

So I think 2024 might just be the year where I become fine with dropping games and not thinking "but I'll consider this part of my backlog, I'll finish it eventually." Between Spider-Man and this game, I just have not been feeling all the games I've played this year, and ya know? There's nothing wrong with just dropping them forever. I don't need them.

But why am I doing so with Budokai 2? After all, I did give the first one a generally positive rating and review, and this one seems at least slightly more well-liked. Well, this game ended up cutting things I liked from the first one, having a worse singleplayer experience, and didn't improve on the main gameplay practically at all.

The main singleplayer mode of Budokai was simply a retelling of the Dragon Ball Z story up until the Cell Saga, with fully animated and voice acted cutscenes. This game went for... something different. Each chapter takes place on a board, where the player and computer enemies take turns moving one space across the board where they can grab power-ups, collectibles, story-important items, and run into each other to fight. The immediate comparison people make is Mario Party, but that is way too high of praise for this. You can only move one space, board events are nothing more than getting teleporting across the map or more enemies appearing (from my experience), there's no sort of fun items or minigames, it's just a slow, boring trek to your goal. I see the appeal of trying something new, and on paper I adore the idea of a Dragon Ball board game in one of these, but in execution it was just so bad. Not to mention the extreme repetition. For example, the very first board has Raditz, Nappa, and respawning Saibamen. Each of the Saibamen is a battle, but defeating them doesn't really matter because more will grow, they only serve as an annoying obstacle. Then Nappa and Raditz both take 2-3 battles to fully defeat due to how the health works on the board. It's so repetitive, and it only gets worse.

One thing I was really looking forward to with this game was the Buu Saga. Despite being a Dragon Ball fan for most of my life, I've never really experienced the Buu Saga. The games I've played never goes over it, Dragon Ball Z Kai didn't cover it back when I watched it, not even Dragon Ball Z Abridged covers it. It's surprisingly elusive for such a major thing for the series as a whole. And, well, Buu is all over this cover and it only makes sense that it'd focus on the Buu Saga, right? Well, to be fair, it does seem like the story mode of this game largely focuses on the Buu Saga, it seems like the longest part of the story. But I didn't get to it. And even if I did, this would be a pathetic way to experience the story. The version of the DBZ story that plays in this game is so watered down and mismatched that I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the Buu arc. Raditz and Nappa come to Earth to collect the Dragon Balls for Frieza and nothing else; Vegeta doesn't exist in this Saiyan Saga, only appearing in the second Frieza arc board; Cell shows up, absorbs the androids with no preamble, and then you just fight him three times and that's all she wrote. What is going on here? Maybe they do things better with the Buu Saga, go over it a bit more in-depth, but I'm not sticking around to find out.

On top of the gameplay being repetitive, they really didn't improve the basic gameplay much at all. You can now use Kamehamehas (and other similar moves) on command instead of needing to use a combo first. They're much more effective post-combo than using them dry, but there were many times where I wish I could whip it out whenever in Budokai 1, so it's greatly appreciated. Some characters' special moves also have more dynamic inputs (pressing a series of buttons to do fusion, rotating the control stick ungodly fast to reach full potential with an attack, and guessing what button your opponent will press in order to hit them), but I honestly found these more unapproachable than anything. I didn't have to deal with them in the story, but the tutorial had them and they weren't very fun to play with there.

This game also has an all new artstyle. I thought the previous game's artstyle was really charming, albeit evident that it was the earliest 3D DBZ game. This one is probably more conventionally pleasant - more cel-shaded with thick outlines - and I think most people would prefer it overall. I'm not sure if I prefer it overall or not, though, because this game foregoes the great fully animated cutscenes for textboxes. I would have loved to see these models and setpieces in a similar way to the first game, but that just wasn't the case.

I totally get why this game has a higher average rating than the first game, but I just can't personally stand by it. I hear great things about Budokai 3, though, so perhaps that'll be a big improvement? I sure hope so.