There is no need to explain the Dragonball Z series, its popular worldwide, you can almost ask everyone one the street and they'll know what it is. So of course there would be a couple videogames. The Tenkaichi series has reached its 3rd iteration (its second outing on the Wii), did it perfect its gameplay, lets find out.



Storywise the game is basically a stripped down version compared to Tenkaichi 2's extensive story mode(You did every single fight possible in the DBZ series). Tenkaichi 3's story mode is short, not too hard, and can be finished in one sit down. You get 3-5 fights per Dragonball Z saga and a few fights from the Dragonball and Dragonball GT saga. The only option to come close to being long is the Special Saga(Almost Every DBZ movie)



What does this mean to someone who doesn't watch DBZ, well you get a story mode that will make absolutely no sense at all.



Graphically Tenkaichi 3 is not much better than its previous iteration, a few enhancements have been added here and there in the levels. Not to say that the graphics are bad, the character models have the full feel of the show but in my opinion the stages could have some tweaks here and there. Another thing that irks me is that the graphics are nearly identical to the PS2 version, if you checked the pixels of the pixels you might see a difference.



If you never played any of the games in the series expect lots of flashy effects, anime styled cell shading and explosions.



Gameplay, the meat of the game, this is where Tenkaichi really shines as a fighting game. Basically you will start the fight in a 3rd person perspective and from there you can do a multitude of attacks, it really captures the feeling of the show. The combat system has a tons of combos, counters, and super attacks to satisfy people who aren't looking for a linear fighting system. Movement is basically flying around and heck you can even dash through a multitude of destructible environments. Super attacks consist of all the special moves from the show, so expect to be throwing energy balls alot. One thing I'll have to mention is my favorite part of combat, clashes when you dash into each other, or throw two blast attacks (super moves) at each other you'll have a clash in which you'll violently shake the wiimote and nunchuck(rotate control sticks) until you win. The game has over a 120 characters so there is something new for each one.



Gamemodes come with your basic bunch for fighting games; Vs mode, Survival, Story mode(Dragon history). There is an event mode which doesn't carry too much variety and there is a mode called Sim Dragon which I think is too boring to explain about. The one thing this game boasts about is online and it is nothing to be proud of, you can be in a room across from the other person(I tested this) and the game will play at 1/4x speed and lag to death.



Controls, the controls are pretty good, to preform your super attacks you have to preform a gesture with the the wiimote and nunchuck, and thats all thats really innovative most other things are gimmicky or just a matter of mashing buttons



Music, Original soundtrack for the game, its o.k. but nothing special. The original voice actors from the U.S. and Japanese version of the show are in the game but alot of stuff gets repeated.



Overall, I'd say buy it if your a fan of the show and looking for a fighting game that is over the top. If you get bored easily with fighting games I'd say rent it, play through the story mode, look through everyone's specials and take the game back.