Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 - updated hands-on

Oct 18, 2007

With the release of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 due at the beginning of next month and our Dragon Ball Halloween costumes already assembled, we had a chance to play a little of a nearly finished PS2 build of the game (which should be very similar to the Wii version). Although it doesn't look much different than Tenkaichi 2, visually it's top-notch thanks to its crazy hair and white-hot energy blast inspired art direction.

We had a great time playing around with some of the initially unlocked characters but we had to go through Ultimate Training mode a few times to get anywhere with them. The learning curve seems like it might be a bit high (again), but we're sure hardcore DBZ fans wouldn't have it any other way.

The controls give you a comfortable control over your character. Every move has a counter, and in that way, it's like a fast-paced rock, paper, scissors style fight, except with energy beams instead of rocks. For beginners, there are also helpful prompts telling you when to switch characters or to mash the block button when being smashed through a mountain.