I'm a fan of anime, and while I don't think Dragon Ball Z is one of the best out there, I do enjoy the series. So when Atari and Dimps first announced DBZ: Budokai a few years back, I was excited to see what next generation hardware could do to the anime. Since I'm also a big fighting game fan, I was overjoyed to find that Budokai was indeed a fighting game. When I finally got my hands on the original Budokai, I was pleased to see the progress Dimps had made, but disappointed that the game had no depth and only appealed to fans of the anime who weren't really fighting game fans.

A year later, Dimps and Atari released Budokai 2, and it was basically the same game, with new characters and a revamped story mode. Once again, great for fans of the series, but for anyone who wanted a good fighting game, it was extremely below average. Now, we've got Budokai 3 for the PlayStation 2 and once again I am disappointed with Dimps and Atari.

The first two Budokai efforts I could forgive. They made the game strictly for fans and covered the entire DBZ storyline. However, things have now gone too far. Even as a fan of the anime, I had to force myself to play Budokai 3 enough to review it. How many times do the developers over at Dimps expect me to play through the same story? Sure, they added a few new tricks to make it look like an all new experience, but let's face it, Budokai 3 covers the same ground the first two did in terms of story, and the ability to fly around instead of traversing a map doesn't make it any better. The character you use determines which battles you fight in, but it's the same story you've watched in the show, and played through in the first two games, with the exception of a few movie characters.

So with the story mode offering nothing new, I headed to the two player mode to delve into the fighting game engine and see if Dimps has made any progress here. Unfortunately the answer is a resounding negative. Dimps has added a few new techniques, such as the ability to teleport (basically perform a counter attack), and new super techniques that bat your opponent around the stage. These both allow Budokai 3 to get closer to the anime experience, but they add no depth at all to the fighting engine.

The teleport is extremely easy to do, and dumbs the fighting down to simply using the teleport instead of blocking. You lose some ki (super meter) when you perform a teleport, but it's relatively easy to build your ki back up.

Dragon Rush, the new super technique, is what really takes the gameplay down to new lows. After performing a Dragon Rush (which is extremely easy to do), it becomes a guessing game. Both players have to press one of the four face buttons on the PS2 controller. If the defensive player presses the same button as the offensive player, the attack is blocked. However, if the defensive player guesses wrong, the attack continues to another guessing game, only without the button that was just pressed. Since the Dragon Rush is generally your most powerful attack, it makes the gameplay into a complete guessing game, which isn't very fun at all.

If that weren't bad enough, even with all the new characters added to Budokai 3, they all still play almost exactly the same. Pressing punch, punch, punch, energy with Goku, gives you the same results as pressing punch, punch, punch, energy with Gohan, Cell, or Buu. Sure, the animations look different (for some, not all), and the special move performed when you press the energy button may vary depending on the character, but the end result is the same... the characters have almost no variety in them.

While most other fighting games are taking the battle online, Atari and Dimps seem to be content with keeping DBZ fans offline, for the most part. You can't fight against another human opponent online, but you can copy down a code that keeps track of your custom character's stats. You can then use that code at Atari's website to let other players test out your custom character. What's the point if you can't play online? This is more of a cheap gimmick than anything else.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is a game created solely for the fans. If you're a fan of DBZ and you enjoyed the first two games in the series, you'll probably enjoy this one as well. However, if you're looking for a fighting game that's even halfway decent, you've come to the wrong place. If the license alone isn't enough to make you buy this game, don't bother with it. As a fan of DBZ, I can honestly say that this game seems to be strictly for hardcore DBZ fans, and ignores anyone who wants a decent fighting game. This probably isn't the last Budokai game, but I've lost all hope that Dimps and Atari can make a game that doesn't ignore gameplay and doesn't rely on a license to sell.