Dragonball fans have had a long wait for a solid fighting game. If you're new to the anime you probably were aware of only one other DBZ fighting game, Dragonball GT: Final Bout. However, for the seasoned DBZ veterans, there have been several fighting games released for the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, and Saturn. Don't go running out to import them though, if you haven't already heard, they aren't anything to get excited about. In fact, even the worst fighting games from Capcom, Namco, and Midway are equal to, or better than the older Dragonball fighting games. With that said, Dragonball Z: Budokai raises the bar to a whole new level. While still not quite competing with the bigger names, (Tekken, Street Fighter, etc.) fans of the anime will be pleased.

If you're unfamiliar with the anime, the game's Story mode will walk you through the first few sagas (seasons). While you won't get every detail found in the anime, you should have a basic understanding of the events that lead up to each of the various fighting scenes. In addition, it gives anyone who's lacking friends, a reason to play Budokai. The Story mode is more immerse than most of the single player modes found in other fighting games. After you've gone through the Story mode once, you'll be able to go through a second time and change things up a bit by using new characters you unlocked the first time around.

Supplementing the Story mode, players will find the World Tournament mode. Here you will fight through a tournament style setting as you fight your way to the top. Once again, fans of the series should recognize the background and the rules from the numerous world tournaments featured in the anime. There are three levels of the world tournament, and with each progression the computer AI will become more difficult to defeat, and you'll fight more opponents on your way to the top.

Adding a slight flair to the World Tournament mode, players will find Mr. Popo's Shop. Here you can use money earned by finishing first or second in the world tournament to purchase capsules. Within the capsules players will unlock new attacks and character attributes to customize your fighter and make them more powerful. You'll find everything from capsules that replenish your health to capsules that raise your characters offense and defensive abilities.

As you progress through the World Tournament and Story modes, you'll unlock plenty of characters until you reach a total of twenty-three different characters from the anime. In addition, you'll unlock yet another single player mode for the lonely fighting game fan, The Legend of Hercule mode. Here, you'll play as Hercule (another popular character from the series) as he battles his way through several humorous and gradually more challenging battles. While three single player modes in a fighting game may be overkill, Legend of Hercule differs from the other two modes and keeps things fresh. You're limited to playing as only one of the twenty-three characters, but your fights will be against multiple opponents at once. Sometimes you'll have to face several opponents in a row without getting your life replenished. These gameplay tweaks, and the addition of cut-scenes between most of the fights makes Legend of Hercule a nice addition to the game.

Keeping with the normal modes found in fighting games, Dimps has included Versus and Practice modes. Choose one of the twenty-three characters, then decide if you want to use their default abilities, or a custom version you created with capsules found at Mr. Popo's. After you've chosen which stage you want to fight on you'll be ready to battle. Every fighting game fan should be familiar with these two modes as they are fairly standard. Practice mode allows you to practice combos and super attacks while Versus mode pits you against the computer or a friend in a one on one battle.

While the gameplay modes excel in DBZ: Budokai, almost everything else is a bit lacking. Every sound effect seems to have been pulled directly from the anime adding to any fans experience, but that's where the goodies end. The graphics don't push the limits of the PlayStation 2 by any means. However, it needs to be noted that the game does a good job of resembling the anime which is probably what Dimps was going for. That said, there are several things that should've been done better in terms of graphics. You'll fight with certain outfits in the Story mode that aren't available in any other mode. If Dimps went through the trouble of creating the outfit, why leave it out of the other modes? Especially when each character only has two very basic outfits to choose from otherwise.

The gameplay could have used some fine-tuning as well. While advertisements boast the game features over 60 different attack combinations for each character, most of these are identical. There are really only about four different character types. Each with the same or very similar combo strings and special attacks. In addition, several of the characters are far more powerful than others and 100% combos can be found when the capsules are used. Something that should never be found in a fighting game. Another major issue is that super attacks. These were the bread and butter of the series and really the only thing the differentiates the twenty-three characters. Yet, you can only perform these at the end of a combo. This is a severe contrast from other fighting games that allow you to perform super attacks in or out of combos.

All things considered the game if fairly solid, but really only appeals to more recent fans of the anime. Longtime fans won't like the fact that Dimps left out any option for a Japanese language track (even though not even half the storage capacity of the DVD is used). Plus, the Story mode only follows the anime up to about halfway through its run. Therefore the more powerful and popular characters have been left out, presumably in anticipation for a sequel. Hardcore fighting game fans will be turned off by the lack of depth and minimal diversity between the characters. With a game as basic as this, online play could've easily been implemented as well. With the PS2 lacking online games, and fighting games in generally being left out of the online trend due to latency issues, something this simplistic really should've been online. We can only hope the sequel picks up some of the slack Budokai left behind. It's a good start, but still not enough for people who aren't hardcore fans of the anime.