"Very entertaining game but sadly very short"

Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai finally arrives for the Play Station Portable. The Budokai series have been on the ps2 and game cube for the past couple of games and now we get one portable. So how does it last up?

Game play: 9/10

The game play of Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai is very entertaining. It is much faster than the gameplay of Budokai 3. Combos are fairy easy to execute and so are the trademark moves. The gameplay is the best part of the whole entire game. It is amazing that a portable game could have such amazing gameplay. The only thing I was really dissapointed with was the missing Dragon Rush moves from Budokai 3. However I can see why they left this out with the PSP having less buttons than Budokai 3 on the playstation 2. Anothe thing missing is knocking your opponents into the environment such as mountains and such. But this was not really important for me anyway.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics are absoloutly beautiful. The enviornment and the characters are so detailed. When your character powers up you can see dirt fly around them and lightning bolts and such. Everything is so detailed in the game. It is amazing that such a system can produce such beautiful graphics. The only problem I have with the graphics is that sometimes there are white dots that show through the characters. It makes parts of them look almost transparent but this is hardly noticeable.

Value: 4/10

This is where the game has the major problem. You can easly beat the Dragon Road in just a couple of hours. It is so dissapointing that such a great story can be so short. You will be definatly dissapointed on how short Dragon Road is. Also missing from the console versions are capsules that allowed you to upgrade your characters and give them new combos. All of the characters start out with their combos and the only thing you have to unlock for them is their transformations. Not to mention that you get most of your characters right off the bat and unlocking the rest is easy. However there is a survival mode and an arcade mode that can be entertaining at times.

Overall: 7/10

Overall Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai is a very good game. If you are a fan of the series then this is a must have game for your PSP's library. If you arent a fan it is still a great fighting game for the PSP. However, everyone will most likely be dissapointed about how long the story is and that is really this games only flaw. If you like to pick up the PSP and only play for a couple minutes like myself then this game can serve that purpose well. Fight a couple of matches then put it down. This game is one of the most entertaining games out on the Play Station Portable yet and it is sad that story mode had to end so quickly.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/06