Dragonball Z is about as close as any company will ever get to having a license to print their own money. History shows that the video game industry hasn't been all that kind to the Dragonball license. But the demand for Dragonball games has been so great that some fans are willing to spend upwards of 200 dollars a pop for games like Dragonball GT on Ebay. But the truth of the matter is, they have all been lackluster and were it not for the license would find themselves at the bottom of the bargain bin. In the end, that's the key to any DBZ game - just build it, brand it and they will come.

Fortunately, Dragonball Z: Budokai doesn't share the same fate its brethren have faced. At least not entirely. While it's still not the best game ever made, and definitely pales in comparison to nearly every other fighting game on the PS2, it's actually one of the best DBZ games ever made and completely succeeds in what it sets out to do - give fans what they want.

It's obvious that the developers are fans of the show. The entire presentation reeks of fanboy geekness (this is a good thing), going so far as to give even the most obscure of characters something to do and changing the title screen to fit whatever saga you are currently playing. Translating 2D characters into 3D models is always a risky task, but the game does an excellent job of it. Although I still contend that a cel-shaded presentation would have been better, I was very pleased with the end product.

This is not to say that the game is flawless, since it also seems that a few shortcuts were taken. For one, the arenas come off as a tad bland at times and never seem to make full use of the possibilities 3D opens up.

The game continues its celebration of everything Dragonball by including all of the actual character voices, sound effects and music from the show.

Even though this is a 3D game, the developers never take full advantage of that fact. Things like side-steps and using arenas to your advantage during a match are non-existent. The game still plays like a 2D game. For example, there are times during a match where you can knock an opponent through mountains. The problem is that this is pretty hard to do and the mountain in question is usually just an in-game cinema. It would have been much more impressive if you could use the objects in the background to your advantage instead. There are a few 'neat' things such as the ability to transform an arena into a virtual nuclear wasteland after using certain moves, but these little things were never enough to make me say, 'wow!'. I was also very discouraged to see that when a character is knocked down during a midair fight, instead of slamming on the ground, they just kind of float there. Remember those shortcuts I was talking about?

Dragonball Z: Budokai is split up into four play modes: Story, World Tournament, Duel and Practice. The real meat of the entire game lies in the Story mode, which takes players from the beginning of the series up until the Perfect Cell Saga. This mode is here strictly for fans, since it can get pretty tedious fighting the same character two or three times in a row or watching an endless string of cinemas only to take part in a short match. To make matters worse, the plot lines aren't the deepest, and are very predictable. At the beginning of a Saga some eternal badass shows up and threatens to destroy the planet. That means it's up to Goku and his friends to save the planet. This is easier said than done because the badass in question usually kicks the crap out of the Z Fighters, usually killing one (or most) of them in the process. This usually means that Goku, or Gohan, has to learn some great new power, beat the badass, save the planet, and use the Dragonballs to wish everything back to the way it was. It's like that in every episode; you could set your watch by it. As a 'reward' for completing each of the Sagas, you can unlock new fighters for the World Tournament and Duel modes, as well as an additional 'side-story', which is the same Saga's events, only from a different character's perspective.

World Tournament mode allows you to take one fighter and compete for money, which is used to buy things in the shop. For all intents and purposes, this is your standard fighter setup. Duel and Practice are both self-explanatory.

The common misconception I've noticed in many games as of late is that in order for a game to be a challenge, it has to stack all of the odds against you. In some cases, this can be a thrilling aspect of a game and add to the experience. However, in order for this to happen it has to be done right, something that Dragonball Z: Budokai doesn't pull off. One of the pivotal moments of any fight, Dragonball Z or otherwise, is when the hero is able to muster up all of his power and unleash some new move or burst of strength. Due to the repetitive nature of DBZ plot lines, this happens quite often - and the game tries to reflect that. However, what makes this work is that the hero is the one who gains the upper hand from the enemy. Where DBZ: Budokai fails is that even after Goku achieves Super Saiyan form for the first time, he is still incredibly outmatched by his opponent. For whatever reason, the game insists that you start many of these fights with only half of your energy. This kills all of the fun of the shining moment, especially since you fight some characters multiple times in a row, none of which are picnics. I mean, last time I checked your opponent is going to be just as tired as you are at the start of your second match, so why does he get full life? There's no sense of reward in getting to these parts; instead it's just another fight in an overall boring game.

To use an analogy from another fighting game, the CPU is like fighting a 13-year old in Tekken who only uses Eddy Gordo. The AI is primative at best, with your opponent simply blocking until you finish whatever you're doing and then pulling the same combo over and over again according to your current position. It's cheap move after cheap move, over and over again until you're dead. Of course, since you usually start out with half of your life anyway, dead can come rather quickly. There's really no challenge at all, just aggravation.

Sound mechanics are key to making a good fighting game, and in every case they are what will make or break a game. This is the aspect where Dragonball Z: Budokai begins to slowly choke and pass out from a lack of oxygen. The control system is a build more for button mashing, and leaves very little room for the complex combos and other tactics that define the fighting genre. Perhaps the biggest void in DBZ: Budokai is the lack of a jump feature. Anyone who has seen an episode of the show knows that battles are usually very vertical. The game still manages to get its 'ups', but only when your character is knocked into the air. This flying engine shackles the game and looks more like a programming glitch that a 'feature'. An engine more akin to the one used in ZOE, where you could attack at all kinds of crazy angles would have done much for the game.

Special moves and combos aren't executed as well as they could have been. For one, most of the moves are little more than variations of one or two button combos and aren't really built for high-speed combat. Both the move and combo systems come off as extremely canned and don't work half of the time. To make matters worse, your opponent can cancel your combos at any time just by throwing a punch - effectively killing the entire reason for using combos in the first place. To put it in simple terms, the entire combos system lacks both style and character, and degenerates into just a button masher.

One of the saving graces of the game is the Edit mode that allows players to customize a fighter's move list. While and interesting distraction, again, it's something only fans will appreciate, as is with most of the game.

Dragonball Z: Budokai is a success at doing what it sets out to do, make fans of the show happy and give them what they want. However, this does come at a price, namely being that it still follows in the mediocre footsteps of its forefathers. This one is for fans only.