DBZ: Ultimate Tenkaichi is not as bad as I thought

Remember that first trailer of Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi? The one that looked just like any other Budokai Tenkaichi or Raging Blast game out there? After looking at some gameplay clips from Comic-Con, the game looks much different.

When fighters are a certain distance apart the view goes into split screen, just like the local versus mode in the old Budokai Tenkaichi games. But when upclose, they do a little melee clash animation and then the camera shifts into a more Tekken style view like the Budokai / Shin Budokai games (so many Budokais) while still retaining the full 3D combat mechanics. When engaging in hand to hand combat, it seems like doing a combo can initiate a sort of rock-paper-scissors style mini-game and activate a slew of different chase attacks.

From the footage, it’s a little hard to grasp the gameplay but the best way I can describe this game is that it’s a full 3D rendition of the old SNES Super Butohden games where the screen splits when fighters are a certain distance from each other and from that distance can activate cinematic blast attacks. This game shows off a “Melee Range” and “Blast Range” and while doing a blast attack, opponents can choose to either guard, counter or deflect the attack much like in the Super Butohden series.

So yeah, basically I’m actually getting excited for this game now. I just hope they add more voice clips so that we won’t be hearing the same grunts over and over again and that the chase segments won’t get repetative over time. The characters do a little intro before they fight much like in Burst Limit which I think is a nice touch.

Oh yeah, this game also has a character customizer so that’s something new. The large boss fights I am not amused with because it looks very similar to the ones in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm.