Dragon Ball Z Game Creators Quizzed

Thanks to GamePro for posting an interview with the producer of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai fighting games. The original DBZ:Budokai was a surprisingly large hit outside Japan, and with the sequel, in development at Dimps for release by the end of 2003, the sheer amount of characters is an issue - "..adding the characters that debuted in the Buu saga to all the fighters we already had in the last game results in a huge number of characters.. getting all these characters into the game in the limited time we have is probably the hardest part of this project." Oh, and when the producer is asked what the developers of DBZ:Budokai 2 really want, he gets honest: "..they want their own Hyperbolic Time Chamber, or they want Senzu beans to pep them up when they're tired, or they want to go home, or they want a girlfriend..."

Comments

PC Version

[Kaladis Nefarian]

How about a PC version? Will it be coming out for the X-Box also?

The cutscenes where horrible in Budokai 1.

[reaper20]

They should have just put the original anime instead of those horrid cutscenes and saved some development dollars for more fighting features.

I was kind of disappointed with B1, I hope the second one is better ...

Oh I SO disagree! It was cool to see the transfer.

[Desmoden]

I do agree it could have looked better, but seeing the whole story rendered using the game engine gave the game a solid look and feel. Kept the atmosphere solid and was just plain fun.

I think it was one of the best games in a while. Just fun.

If I were to pick at anthing it would be the fight engine and controls, NOT the looks.

Just my 2bits =)
Des

Ok, I just must ask.....

[Desmoden]

Please explain to me why you think the X-Box is a better console than the PS2?

I have friends who develope for all three platforms, and from what I hear, and what I've seen there is a good reason for the xbox sales numbers.

But I honestly would like to hear another opinion...not just trying to pic a fight. Do you have hard reasons for prefering the xbox or do you just like it better?

Re:Ok, I just must ask.....

[Alaric42]

Well, the Xbox does have the best numerical stats out of the three current consoles, as well as the most "additional" standard features (Built-in broadband support and hard drive). It has four controller ports, like the GameCube (and Dreamcast), something which the PS2 does not haveâ"rumor has it that its a price of backwards compatibility. The higher system stats generally translate into the best-looking game for cross-platform releases; there's a reason that the Xbox version is generally the one showcased in ads, both television and magazine.

Now, of course none of that actually matters for most intents and purposes, but they're definitely some reasons why people might prefer the Xbox to the PlayStation 2.

Re:Ok, I just must ask.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard Drive....

That's the one reason I like the Xbox over all the other consoles. It lets you save custom soundtracks, save your games, lets you play online games that can be updated to fix exploitable bugs, and most of all it allows the XBox to preload data to ease off on load times.

There are reasons to own one system over the others, which is pretty much why I own all three (don't get psycho yet, I didn't pay nearly as much as they cost when they came out for any of them).

But PS2 has the library and a great controller.
XBox has power and that hard drive. Gamecube has the gameboy, both the player and link capability.

Re:Dragonball Z

[Gr33nNight]

Try watching the show for once. It isnt all about fighting, although that is the most popular part. My friend owns every episode on DVD (thats available in America) and I have seen the whole series. Once you get into it, it is hard to stop watching.

There are alot of funny parts of DBZ, not just people trying to save the world (is that such a bad thing?)

Re:Dragonball Z

[digtl88]

It may look bad from a glance, but kids really enjoy watching it for some reason as well as adults. I have seen some episodes that are not entirely fighting. They have other plots to mix things up.

Re:Dragonball Z

[sindarin2001]

You must have never seen the episode where Goku tries to get his drivers license.

Re:Dragonball Z

[darkmayo]

Hmm lets see first off the show was not orginally targetted for children.. more of a young adult age group.. as well the show/manga is from Japan which has alot different standards than North American television. AS well if this show has any influence on children the parent should be the one to talk about the differences between reality and fiction.

Whose dumb idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose dumb idea was it to not use cel shading on this game?

The flat looking lighting, and the goraud shading make this title incredibly ugly.

How lazy were these developers that they couldn't implement cel shading? Hell, I'm using cel shading in my SHAREWARE titles!

You don't even need special shaders, all you need is cubic mapping, and you can even get by with spherical reflection maps in a pinch. Even if they didn't go to the extra cost of rendering the outlines, the shading alone would still look way better than plain goraud shading with incredibly dull lighting.

Hell, the LEAST they could have done is used a high intensity light source to at least KINDA make the goraud shading look cel shaded with a sharp division between light and dark. But they didn't even do that.

Whoever the lead artist is on this game should be fired. I'm not even lead artist material and I can see that this game compares really badly to other titles on the systems visually, and looks nothing like the cartoon.

Re:Dragonball Z

[amuro98]

What do you mean "not originally targetted for children"?

DB/DBZ is aimmed at kids aged 8-12 primarily.