Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is the first game with the license that is actually not bad. The presentation of the game is amazing, and you feel like you are actually playing the show!

     The fighting system is okay, but not great. The square button does punches, triangles does kicks, the circle does Chi attacks, and the shoulder buttons do various other attacks. Each character only has about 10 moves however, which pale in comparison to games like Virtua Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur. Also, characters of the same race, like Saiyans, all have very similar moves and attacks.

    There are seven modes in the game. They are duel, story, world tournament, practice, skills, options, and "The Legend of Hercule". Duel is just a basic fight between you and a friend, or the computer. Story mode allows you to play through the story of DBZ up to the end of the Cell Saga. Between fights, there are cut scenes which are from the show. World Tournament mode has a bracket full of fighters, and you need to beat your opponent each round, to win prize money. Practice just allows you to practice moves and skills. The skill area allows you to buy skills and set them to characters. In the shop, you can buy moves and accessories for characters to use. Once bought, you can equip them to characters and create custom characters. Finally, Legend of Hercule is a survival mode for Hercule, and he needs to beat all the characters at the Cell Games.

    The graphics are nice and crisp, but lack a lot of details. Also, a lot of the costumes are blurry, too. The backgrounds are just 2D pictures, something that was used a lot in the PS1 days. A good thing about the graphics is that there are great animations, and the game runs at a solid 60 FPS, and hardly ever drops.

     A lot of the music from the series is presented in the game and sounds really good. The best thing about the sound however, is that all the real voice actors voice their characters in the game. This really adds a lot to the overall presentation of the game.

    You will probably play it for a while, if you have a DBZ fan. There are lots of things to unlock, and it'll take a while to go through all the characters in story mode. Overall, this is a good buy if you are a DBZ fan, but an iffy purchase if you aren't.