The fighting itself is pretty simple. One button is for melee attacking, another is for energy attacks, and a third is to block. Guilty Gear or Street Fighter Alpha this is not. Fighters can also accumulate Ki (that sort of all-purpose mystical energy used in any number of animes and porn flicks) that can be unleashed in the form of powerful super moves. And while there are a few other nuances to the fighting, such as teleporting and transformations, that's pretty much the gameplay in a nutshell. Despite its simplicity, though, the fighting does a remarkable job of capturing the feel of the action from the show, with characters performing rapid melee combos, charging up huge amounts of ki for flashy energy attacks, and drop kicking their enemies over the horizon. Still, serious fighting game fans need to know not to expect the same kind of complexity found in other fighting games. I mean, almost all the various characters super moves are executed by the same handful of extremely simple button combinations. Like I said, it's a long way from Street Fighter. Hell, it's even a long way from Mortal Kombat. [I could see the advertisement now: Behold the simplest fighting game ever! Thumbs not required! - ed.]

Best... Episode... EVER!

   Then again, I don't think Tenkaichi 2 has any delusions of competing with the likes of Tekken or Dead or Alive. It's really more about gallons, and gallons of delicious Dragon Ball Z fan service. Yes, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 does everything any self respecting Dragon Ball Z fan could ever desire short of transforming into bunny-suited Bulma, shoving a hand down the player's pants, and shrieking impassionedly, "My God! It's the Eternal Dragon!" [Santa, you bastard! I thought you said those Christmas wish letters were CONFIDENTIAL!!! - ed.]

   Seriously though, this game delivers more quality Dragon Ball content than should be legal. Its story mode not only covers the entirety of the Dragon Ball Z story line proper (i.e. From the moment Raditz arrives to Goku's climactic battle with Majin Buu) but also all of Dragon Ball GT and even most of the Dragon Ball Z movies! And not just the major battles, but even the vast majority of the incredibly minor ones have been written into the game! There are tons of playable characters, too, from series mainstays like Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo to relatively obscure ones like Cooler's henchman Salza, and even ones that didn't appear in the show, like Great Ape Nappa. [Ok, seriously now, can we get a show of hands for how many people out there actually know all of these characters?! - ed.]

Want to purchase a foam chair so that you can play video games in comfort? Browse foof chairs and new styles of bean bag chairs here today!

Wish I could fly...

   As in DBZ: Budokai 3, there is an overworld that the player can explore, and he can touch down at various spots of interest marked on the world map. While you can simply go to the red dot to continuously progress the story, there are tons of extra battles you can fight to net swag and experience points. Yes, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 has a touch of the RPG in it, and leveling up is important to progressing through the game. Thankfully, though, skill with the fighting engine is much more important than a high level. But even without stopping to level up your guys, the story campaign is incredibly long, especially for a fighting game. It took me close to ten hours (and sixteen thousand 'X' button presses) to finish everything there was to it. Thank God it did, though, or I might have otherwise wasted that time reading, exercising, or interacting with my loved ones. Shivers.

   The story mode is by and far the most complete retelling in video game form of the voluminous epic that is Dragon Ball Z, and is likely to simply rapture most fans directly to the Pearly Gates. It's not totally perfect though [now there is a shocker - ed.]. The fighting engine isn't exactly intuitive, especially if you're used to the engine from Budokais 1-3, and the hour or two that it'll take before a player works out a viable fighting style won't exactly be Willie-Wonka-and-the-Chocolate-Factory-style fun. And while most of the battles from that point on weren't too tricky, the occasional chapter where the game required me to win a battle with an extremely weak or under-leveled character caused me (on more than one occasion) to tear off my underpants without removing my khakis, light the underpants on fire, and hurl them at the screen while shouting seven-letter 19th century obscenities. Oh yeah, like you've never done THAT, Mr. Sainty-Pants!

But wait, there's more!

   Better pop some more stay-awake pills, because even when you're done with the story mode, there are still a number of tournaments and a whole bunch of endurance-style battles to bludgeon your way through. These will definitely tack a couple more hours onto your total playtime. Although they aren't nearly the Dragon Ball Kama Sutra that the story mode was, they're still a fun diversion, especially once you've unlocked the gobs of characters you get from story mode and can finally put them to the test. There's also the standard two-player versus mode. Since the game is fully 3-D, though, the battles are all in split-screen, which is just viscerally unsatisfying in a fighting game. To top it all off, there's also a Dragon Encyclopedia with brief summaries of the major Dragon Ball story arcs and lengthy biographies of all the playable characters and their various transformed states. This stuff is best enjoyed while still riding the high of finishing the story mode. Or still riding the high from breaking out of a maximum-security penitentiary. Or still riding the high from snorting crack-cocaine. They're all pretty much the same thing. [Upon further investigation it turns out the cocaine option is technically a tiny bit better than the other two (but only just) while being considerably more addictive. So, eh, stay in stool, kids. I mean, school. - ed.]

   Graphically the game is passable, but nothing spectacular. During battles the characters and the arenas all look pretty good. All the punches, energy blasts, and crumbling buildings animate very smoothly, and I never encountered any slowdown. Strangely, it was during the rather bland, extremely static cut-scenes when the characters were all basically standing still, that their models looked particularly blocky and often had odd lighting effects. The fact that all characters in fighting stances always bobbed in time with each other also looked strange. It was almost like instead of fighting the characters were going to launch into an elaborate song and dance number (I'll kick you and punch you/ Right in the head!/ I'll kick you and punch you/ Until you are dead!). Only in my fan-fiction, I suppose. *Sigh*.

   The music, sound effects, and voices, being ripped as they are from the anime, all sounded excellent. I especially love Korin the cat, who sounds like a mix of a New York convenience store owner and that fifty-year-old, chain smoking gay uncle we all have. [They mass-produce them in one of those poor-as-dirt ex-Soviet republics, I think. - ed.]

Hey! Those aren't DRAGON Balls!

   So, if you're a fan of Dragon Ball Z, you have to own this game. It's the law*. Don't worry, though, you'll totally dig it. If, however, you're more into [um, real - ed.] fighting games like Dark Stalkers or Dead or Alive, you probably shouldn't spend your money. Instead, send it to me, so I can finance my campaign to become Weehawken, New Jersey Municipal Water and Sewage Department Director. With me in charge, we'll get that lumpy water problem cleared up right quick!

   *Law void in Iowa, Arkansas, North Dakota, and that gazebo in the park where I totally saw two chicks making out!

       ... Mike Zeller